Elijah is 4 days old!

[WARNING: For those interested in seeing the true knot in Elijah's umbilical cord, I am posting a photo at the end of this blog entry. I am uploading that one through blogger so that it's a pretty small image, but you can click on it to see it larger/more clearly. It's a tight knot. I am having a bit of trouble processing it at the moment, which I didn't expect. Just knowing he had a greater chance of being stillborn than not. I'm flipping between inexpressably grateful and relieved, and this sort of clutchy horror feeling that I can't deal with at ALL, even though it didn't happen and he's okay. I mainly do not want to think or talk about it right now. I think it's okay to shove that under the carpet for now... Anyway, there's the photographic evidence if you are interested!]

Thank you for all the lovely congrats! :) I can't believe my tiny boy is actually HERE, and 4 days old already! I would have updated much sooner but my arms are always full of baby, and trying to do a blog post with one hand would drive me crazy! ;) He is sleeping on my front right now and I'm kind of slumped down somewhat in my bed - I was sitting up originally but I think that was about 2 hours ago! So I still only have one hand free to type with, but I figured I could make a start and add to the saved post bit by bit. I have photos to post so I can get those sorted out too, and then maybe if I put Elijah next to me on the bed and he stays asleep I can type more quickly to post some newsy stuff. Having said that, a) I never put him down, and b) on the rare occasions that I've had to for a minute, he wakes up pretty quickly and then starts a whole new feed cycle! Sometimes I lay him between my knees and sort of "cocoon" him with my legs so that he feels snug and secure, and he has slept like that for a couple of hours, once or twice. I still have to twist around to type with both hands on my laptop though, so it's not ideal for blog updates right now! :) More important and lovely though!

Okay, I have put him between my knees but he's stirring a bit. I think he will be hungry soon. My milk came in yesterday morning - well, it was on its way by the evening before (2 days old) because my breasts definitely felt like they were getting heavier, but what I hand-expressed still looked like colostrum. By 5am I could definitely tell my milk was in though! I pretty much had watermelons on my front by daytime, lol! And did any of my other nurslings want to help me out?! Nope! Elijah is so tiny that I was uncomfortable most of yesterday - even though he was feeding almost constantly, he could only take a tiny tummy-full at a time, so it didn't feel like it was making much difference to the not-quite-engorgement discomfort. I'm a little bit uncomfy today but much much better.

By yesterday evening, Elijah had already completely finished with meconium, at 3 days old!! :) He did a tan/orange meconium poo in the day time and then in the evening he did his first proper yellow seedy breastmilk poo. Yay! He has pooed sooooo many times today, all yellow and seedy and nice and normal.

Yesterday a maternity support worker came to weigh him - they seem to do visits now instead of the midwife, probably because there is such a crazy staff shortage of midwives these days. Anyway, she weighed Elijah and he was a teensy 6lbs 1oz (7.2% loss of birth weight, which is normal) - I still can't believe how tiny he is! I seem to comment on it to Neil constantly! I'm so unused to teeny babies, and it's so lovely! It is VERY much like having newborn Nathey all over again, except that of course he was tiny because he was early, but apart from that they are very similar sizes. Elijah is wearing all of the sweet little clothes that Nathan wore, and which none of my other babies have fitted into. All of Elijah's clothes are labelled "up to 7.5lbs" and most of them are really really baggy and big on him! I don't know his length because apparently they don't measure length any more at birth (?!) but he seems pretty normal in the length department. He fills out the length of everything easily, and is a bit long for some of the tiny clothes, but he is SO skinny and slender. His shoulders are narrow enough that the vests slide off one of them, and his limbs and torso are just so thin! I am pretty sure he'll plump up and get some yummy rolls on him over the next few weeks with some mummy milk, but I don't think I've ever had a baby so skinny and thin before! Even Nathey wasn't - he was just little and tiny all over. Neil thinks it's just because his own legs are thin and "scrawny" as he says (hehe!) and Elijah has his genes in that department.

Elijah has Neil's limbs for sure, arms and legs. I don't think any of the others have the same combination. He also has Neil's fingers AND Neil's feet, which is a first for any of our children! Arthur and Samuel have Neil's feet but my fingers. Nathan is the only other boy with Neil's long fingers, but he has my feet. Matthew and Benjamin have my hands AND my feet. So funny how the combinations continue being new, even after six babies! ;) Thankfully Elijah's feet are completely straight, unlike Arthur and Samuel's. I'll be keeping an eye on his toes though, as those were the main trouble for Neil and his siblings as they got older.

Well, I've managed a bit of an update so far but lil beep is waking up and squeaking in a slightly distressed way (he has such a tiny hoarse cry, and squeaks a great deal, bless him!), so I am going to scoop up his next-to-nothingness and put him to the breast. I love picking him up!! He's SO TINY and seems to just weigh nothing in my arms, and he's just such a small scrap of a human being in my hands as I lift him! It melts my heart every. single. time. So I'm going to do that again right now, and I'll continue with this later when I get chance :)

Okay, back 90 mins later having helped a little with bedtime for the boys, but Elijah is breastfeeding (well, he's barely conscious!) so I'm one-handed still. I will post some photos! :)

Little manny hates being dressed or undressed, and especially nappy changes! Here he is the day after he was born, right after I dressed him in the teeny sleepsuit that Nathan wore in the hospital, and which the boys have used for their baby doll since then. They are excited that he can fit "dolls' clothes"! He is actually too long for it, but the whole time he wore it, the legs/feet were flopping empty because he likes to pull his legs up out of the legs of clothing and keep them next to his tummy in the fetal position! :) He was pretty cross with me when I put him in it! He looks (from that wiiide open mouth) like he must be making a lot of noise, but he really does only have such a raspy little bleat!



He was sleeping later on at the end of a breastfeed and I put him down on his side since he'd been on his tummy/side against me, so I could go to the loo. He stayed sleeping for a little while and it was evening, after the boys were in bed, so Neil and I stayed watching him and just chatting about him, and how the boys were doing, it was nice :) The light was going outside as it was getting late, so the photos I took were pretty dim and grainy, but worth the capture all the same, to me. Elijah spends a LOT of time with his little hands by his face, and sleeps with either a hand on each cheek, or with two hands together, tucked under the cheek he's lying against. You can even see this in ALL of the photos I posted last entry, just a few hours old! He did both while we watched him sleep so I couldn't resist photos! He looked soooo sweet! Still one day old here:





Well it's now 10.20pm and Elijah has been either feeding, crying, or pooing for the last couple of hours continuously, and Samuel ended up not going to sleep until something crazy like 9.30pm!! Neil went out to get milk and bread after that, and finally Elijah is a tiny exhausted heap against my chest as I recline in bed, and I daren't move him! Maybe when he's been asleep a while longer. I'm eating fish and chips over him, a bit awkwardly, but I would rather him sleep against my chest than separated but nearby. There aren't many feelings more wonderful... :)

I am going to just post a couple more photos and leave the ones I took today for another entry another time. These photos are at 2 days old. I put him between my knees like I was describing earlier, when he had fallen asleep, and took a photo to remind myself of how tiny he is, and my happy view! And then another of his sleeping sweetness up close. I think he started to have a touch of jaundice that day, but it hasn't particularly worsened. He looks more jaundiced in the photo than he is, because of yellow reflection in the room. Anyway, here's my treasure at 2 days old, the day before yesterday :)





I completely love him. I have so much more to write but I will have to do that another time.

If you are interested in seeing the photo of Elijah's knotted umbilical cord and placenta, I am posting it here below, otherwise scroll back up, fast, lol! ;)

He's here!

Elijah Douglas has arrived! :)

Little pickle continued his pattern of unpredictability, and contractions started regularly and painfully literally minutes before we left for the hospital! We waited an hour to see if they'd pick up, so that when we went into hospital we would not need the IV induction (always better natural, as the midwives have kept telling me). After an hour things were definitely hotting up, and I decided to stay and have my baby at home, since I usually labour fairly quickly now.

I was in established labour probably from 11.30am, which the midwives took from Heather's observations - she felt that the contractions became more serious "active labour" from that point (first contraction was 9.30am ish while breastfeeding Samuel to sleep for his nap, right before "going"). At first the contractions were just low soreness and very short (30 seconds maybe) but I was having about 2 or 3 of them in each 10 minute period, so they were pretty regular. I didn't have to breathe through them and I was a bit worried it would all go away! But they got stronger quickly, though not much longer. The crampy pain stayed between contractions within the first hour and it was hard to move or walk about without loads of pain, so I tried to stay still. Heather did have me sit on the birth ball for a while to really do everything I could to get things established. When it looked like things WERE, we called Jackie, and she CAME OVER!!! :) The head of community midwives! She was my main midwife and delivered Elijah, and was WONDERFUL. I couldn't have had a more experienced, knowledgeable, fantastic midwife, and I'm so thrilled and grateful. The second midwive, Karen, was someone I hadn't met before but she was lovely too.

Elijah was born after about 3 hours of established labour, at 2.20pm. Oh my WORD transition and pushing him out was hooooorrrrrrible, hehe! I always say that, because it always is! But so worth it! I had a better time of it this time, mentally, because I felt really familiar with my pattern of labour and could really see the same pattern progressing, which helped me feel more grounded when the pain became unbearable. I used no pain relief, just breathing, and holding Heather's hand.

I really did PUSH him out! I don't often do that with my babies, hehe! I had an urge to push and went with it, and if I got the feeling that I was going to lose it mid-push and start making a ton of noise, I stopped pushing and blew blew blew through the rest of the contraction for all I was worth. I gave birth lying on my right side facing the edge of the bed (facing Heather), and that's where I mostly laboured too. When I could feel his head moving down a bit during transitional contractions, I told them so, and Jackie looked but couldn't see anything. She asked if I could lift my top leg but I said I couldn't, and so Heather lifted it just as a contraction was starting, I had no choice but to push with the feeling, and his head was born very quickly from nowhere! I did make some noise when the head was crowning but not the loud wailing I've made in the past - more just a lower "aaaaaarrrrghhhh", lol! And I rolled my face forwards into the pillow to a) cope with the sensation, and b) stifle the noise for the boys downstairs. I had a clear ring of fire sensation this time, and his head really POPPED out right afterwards. I knew what that meant and I was so relieved! The contraction was already finishing, but the sensation of his body in there was so uncomfortable, so I kept blowing through that feeling until the next contraction came, which was pretty fast. I knew that would be probably the most uncomfortable part (shoulders rotating and birthing always are for me, and that is also when I tear each time), so when the contraction came I pushed but blew once I reached the point of wanting to shout about it, and just tried to let him come at his own speed (which was very fast but felt like a long and dreadful sensation all the same!). In my mind I was frantically saying to myself, "He's here, he's here, this part means he's here, let him come, let him come!" to try and ride out the moment until it was over. I knew it wouldn't take long, but I just needed something to cope with the awfulness of it!

And then it WAS over! :) Oh the relief and the absolute joy, looking down and reaching for him as they passed this TEENY little person up between my legs and onto my tummy. He was fairly quiet at first but soon became very agitated and cried quite a lot for a long time, even with snuggles and lots of love on my tummy/chest! He pinked up almost immediately.

Elijah had a true knot in his cord!!! How incredibly scary, if I had known that while still pregnant, and how thankful I am to God for sparing his life. Jackie said she rarely sees a true knot, and she's surprised his heartrate was so good all the way through labour right to the very point of birth! I asked if it could account for his slower growth, but she didn't think so particularly. He's very healthy and his cord was pulsating well still. At the scans, they had done dopplers on his umbilical cord several times to check the resistance of the flow, and it was normal and fine. I took a photo of the cord and placenta, which I could post but it's pretty gory! ;) I will if you want me to though! :)

His placenta took AGES to come out! Aaaages. I had a natural third stage as I had wanted, though they were ready to the syntometrine injection because it really wasn't coming out. I kept having contractions and it still didn't appear, and Elijah had a nice long feed but still nothing! Eventually they had me get out of bed and sit on a potty on the chair to see if gravity helped, but it didn't, and I became very tired being upright and didn't feel nice after a while, so they put me back to bed.

Eventually I wondered about the whole pregnancy/pre-labour thing being SO very contrary! No matter what decision I made, at that point something would change and I would have to do the opposite thing, and then when I thought that was going ahead, something would change again, hehe! So I said this to the midwives, and then said, "I'm saying out loud (looking sternly at my baggy tummy and directing my words in its general direction!), "I'm going to have the syntometrine injection now"!!" and then I literally immediately had a contraction and pushed, and out came my placenta in one go, all intact, lol! It was so funny because of how no matter what I've said over the past 4 days, the opposite has then occurred, and it happened just the same for the placenta in such a funny way! ;) I think it was over an hour or 90 minutes waiting for it, up to that point! They let me go longer than they usually would, just to try and keep it all as natural as possible.

They couldn't 100% confirm that all the membranes were out, because there were some ragged parts, but they told me that my body will work any little bits out, and I need to call them if I have large clots or heavy bleeding, so they can check me out.

I felt kind of feverish the last hour or two of my labour, and I took my temperature (as I had been doing 4-hourly) a couple of hours before the end, but it was normal. I figured I just felt hot because it was a REALLY hot day in a south-facing bedroom, and I was labouring. When Elijah was born and they took his temperature, it was up a little, and my heart sank. It was 37.6, so they uncovered him (he was skin-to-skin at the time, but covered with a towel for warmth) and his temp came down to normal really quick. All his other obs were fine. I wanted to take my own temperature because I did feel a bit too hot, not-right hot, you know? Eventually after the placenta palava, they did my obs and my temperature was almost the same as Elijah's had been - 37.5. I was worried it was a sign of infection, after how long my waters were broken, but they said to take some paracetamol and they would take it again before they left. It came down to almost normal, and has been back up to 37.2 (barely a raised temp at all) once the paracetamol wore off, but I've taken some more now. They said they aren't concerned about my temp, and that once the day's heat cools off and I get some rest, if it's spiking up then I need to call them and they will check me and provide me with antibiotics in case of infection, if that's the case. Otherwise they'd expect it to stay low or non-existant. An infection would make it spike higher, or produce other symptoms along with a fever eventually, so I am just keeping an eye on myself really.

I have felt remarkably well since giving birth! Probably the most well I've ever felt after birth, which is lovely! I didn't feel weak and wobbly at all after the first hour or two, and usually that doesn't happen for the first 24 hours or so. I have been able to get up and go to the loo without shuffling along feeling weak and dreadful, verrrry slowly! ;) Also, I did not need any stitches this time!!!!! :D My very first time ever not having stitches! Jackie found that I did have a tear, but it was so small. She said that she could put a couple of stitches in for me, but it wasn't bleeding at all so she felt it would be fine to just leave it to heal, if I wanted. And I DID want! ;) Stitches are no fun!

I am not feeling any soreness at all from my perineum, and weeing stings a little bit but it's perfectly bearable. My blood loss is normal at the moment and I am not having a horrible time at all with after pains - maybe the paracetamol is helping there though?

Elijah is breastfeeding well, and sleeping sooooo cutely in between. He did a huuuuuge meconium poo all over my tummy within minutes of birth, and the little waters that were left to go pop as his head was born had some meconium in them, but not much. He has done a huge meconium poo in his first nappy so far, but I am not sure if he's weed yet. I am doing his observations 2-hourly around the clock - temperature, respirations, heart rate, etc. I use my stethoscope for his heart rate. Everything is normal so far, except that last time I took his temp it was a bit too low, so I've put him in a sleepsuit instead of a vest (it's so hot, and he's on my body most of the time so I'd thought a vest was enough). Hopefully his temp has come up now. It's time to do his next set of obs so I must go.

Here are a few photos of the big boys meeting their new baby brother for the first time, about 2 hours after he was born, and then one of him finally dressed in something at about 4 hours old. He's so delightfully gorgeous and tiny (oh I almost forgot! He weighed in at 6lbs 8oz, sweet little manny!) and I think he looks most like newborn Nathan, but he's very much his own little person with his own look. ALL the boys are ecstatic about him, and Samuel is very relaxed and smiley around him too.

Thank you for praying and commenting! I really appreciate it! :)