Ponderings without much point to them...

Since Elijah was born, I've just occasionally had my mind drawn to something, and now it's on my mind again so I thought I would blog about it. It's likely NOTHING at all but it's distracting me so I want to get it "out there" and then I'm done.

Elijah has such a sweet little head of hair! He has the least hair of any of my newborns, and hasn't yet got to the stage where he's losing it yet - soon though, if memory serves. Very soon. He is 12 weeks old now, and around now is when their hair usually starts to come out. Maybe a month later is when the new "real" hair starts growing in. My hair starts falling out like crazy at the same time (which I really really dislike!) so I know that is coming soon for me too.

He does HAVE hair though, even though he's the least hairy so far! ;) He has very little on top, but more of the usual amount (for my babies) on the back and sides. He has what I have affectionately referred to as a sweet little twizzle-top! :) His hair at the back grows in one direction while the hair on his crown, right on top at the back, grows the other way entirely, lol! It makes his little bit of hair at the back on top look like it's a little criss-crossing tuft of fluff! Melts my heart :) It's more fluffy and gorgeous when it has just been washed.

Elijah's hair whorl - the circular pattern on the back/top of the head - is different from all the other boys. They all have a hair whorl in the centre of their heads, which is the usual for human beings in general. I know they can vary. Matthew's is off-centre, slightly to the left. The others are all dead-centre. I did some reading on this the other day when I was pondering about it again. I know people have babies who have a right-sided hair whorl, or a left-sided hair whorl, but it's not very common, and it most commonly seems to occur in mirror twins, especially if the other members of the family and other siblings have central whorls. Mirror twins account for 25% of identical twins. They are the ones who have separated the latest. Any later and they would be conjoined twins. They are already developing their left and right sides when they separate, so the two identicals are mirrored in terms of left and right. They have hair whorls on opposite sides of the head, rather than central, and one is right-handed, and the other left-handed, and their dental developments are mirrored, etc, etc.

Elijah's hair whorl is SO far over the right side of his head, if I take a photo of the back of his head it's barely in the photo! Going to make for some interesting practice for me when it's time to cut his hair! ;)

But I wonder... I remember the scan at 6 weeks when the sonographer thought she could see another little blobby baby behind the first one, and another heartbeat. But there was so little room and he was so tiny that it was hard to be sure. I could see what she was seeing, even before she said it to me. She had me come back at 8 weeks for another scan to double check, and when I had that scan there was no sign of any other babies or heart beats, so that was that. It didn't mean there HADN'T been another little one there at six weeks, just that by 8 weeks, there wasn't. Not uncommon, I'm told, with twin conceptions, as many are unknown due to one twin not making it very early on.

Now I wonder all over again, because Elijah has such a strong one-sided hair whorl when it isn't a family trait in our family, and all his siblings do not. If there was another baby in there, they would definitely have been mirror-twins, because I noticed at the time (I blogged about all this at the time, actually) that there was no separating membrane, so they would either have been mirror twins or conjoined twins (and they weren't conjoined I presume, because one of them is here!). If they separate late enough to be mirror or conjoined twins, they share not only a placenta and a sac, but an inner sac as well. I was worried at the time, as I said here, because they would have been mono-mono twins. That would have given quite a high percentage chance of both twins dying too early to be saved - such a risky type of twinning.

I wonder if I really was expecting twins early on, and if so, just as the possible evidence at the first scan suggested, Elijah is the surviving twin from the right side? Pointless ponderings, hence the title, but I keep thinking... I don't mean to, but I just somehow do. In a way I feel sad, like a little reminder whenever I see the back of my sweet boy's head:



...Because what if there was the potential for the most adorable view of a little pair of mirror whorls side-by-side on my lap? What if there was a precious little person with the missing left-sided whorl to match Elijah's exactly, who would turn out to be left-handed, and get the opposite tooth to the first one Elijah gets, within days of his brother? What if there were seven instead of six? What would his name have been? How in the wide world would I have coped with twins?!! ;)

But then I am grateful. And I don't mean just three words on a page, "I am grateful". I am stripped to the core, raw, clutching my heart with emotion GRATEFUL. Because I feel that if I did have mono-mono twins in there, and God allowed one of them to die early, it would have been to save me the heartbreak of progressing further in my pregnancy and then losing them both due to the risks of mono-mono, just before viable gestational age. I can't fathom. I think if I was actually pregnant with twins like we had wondered at the time of the first scan, then if my little left-sided darling had not died, I would not have Elijah here with me now. I would be none the wiser as to his right-sided whorl of dark  newborn hair, or his resemblence to Nathan, or his precious smile. It has been quite an exhausting first few months so far with Elijah, because of his distress and things. But I haven't had impatience with him, which is so different to how I felt whenever my first two babies were distressed for hours or wakeful, or fussy. No impatience. Just so grateful that he's here, and a weird sense of gratitude that sometimes feels just so SILLY that I am reluctant to admit it here, because what if I wasn't pregnant with twins in the first place?! ;) But a sense of gratitude towards the little left-hand bean for the laying down of his life, because it might be the reason that Elijah made it into my arms.

I do think about "what if?" and about my "other" little boy, who may not even have been - I will never know here on earth - but he really really might have been, and so of course I think about him, because if he WAS, then he was his own person with a heartbeat, created intentionally, and waiting to meet me and Neil and all of his brothers one day after we die. I feel silly when I don't KNOW if he was really there, but since there's no proof that he wasn't, and there's evidence that he was, I will probably think of him every single time I lay eyes on Elijah's hair whorl for the rest of his life. To me, it's the only physical reference to his existance, and it makes me smile and ache at the same time, but it's overall a good feeling.

So grateful for this baby boy who gives me so much joy, and so glad that, for whatever reason, God has enabled me to hold him and love him and raise him.

9 weeks old, and back in the saddle again! ;)

NOOOO time to update, but here goes anyway:

* Elijah is 9 weeks old already!!! 10 this coming Sunday! Can't believe it.

* He is doing okay. Pretty much the same - and 8 weeks old was a bad week for him, but so far 9 weeks old is going better for the poor boy! :) It's all so random and unpredictable, but he's getting there I guess. The last osteopath appt (he has them every Friday) was with a different osteopath and he saw a senior osteopath who was supervising as well. They concluded that he is "one uncomfortable baby" :( He has a slight twist to his body through his spine from top to bottom, which isn't unheard of, but which is very difficult to treat apparently. He still has some neck and lower vertebrae issues, but the head compression is much better after several sessions of work on it, and his diaphragm is less tight than it used to be. He seems (apart from the last two or three days) just as distressed and uncomfy as always, so they are suggesting that he comes off the reflux meds if they are not helping, and also that I can go back on dairy again (WOOHOO!!) because if it's not making a difference, it's probably not an issue in the first place. It will be hard to tell if reintroducing dairy makes him react because he is often distressed, and unpredictably so, which would make it hard to link it to something. If he stays happier for more than just these couple of days, I will try adding some dairy back in and see how it goes. I am still giving him the ranitidine 3 times a day, although two different days in the past week I have forgotten to give him one of those doses, because the previous one was late and then distractions happened, etc. Anyway, the missed dose made no difference either of those times - one time he was just as miserable, and the other time was yesterday and he was just as HAPPY as he had been before the missed dose! :) I hope that's a good sign, but I don't really know how these medications work, in terms of time-frames. I am continuing with it for now, until someone tells me not to! I would rather not give him a drug that he doesn't need, but I want to do what's best for him and for him not to be in pain.

* Elijah is smiling and cooing a LOT now, and these past couple of days it's almost been like he's a different baby at times. I daren't mention it online really, lol! Last time I said he'd had his first GOOD day ever, he had the most awful week or two ever starting the next day. He is also cuddling into my front in a relaxed way when I hold him facing me, which he has pretty much never done except for maybe the first couple of weeks here and there. He seems so much like a.... normal baby, today and yesterday. He is still crying quite a lot and seems uncomfy at times, but he spends quite long periods of time (10 mins or so) looking perfectly comfortable and calm and quiet in the bouncy chair, just surveying the blurs of his brothers whizzing around the room. He has started talking to the button numbers we made that are high up on the living room wall (our "school wall"), and smiling at them in a rather flirty way, dare I say it, lol! His eyes are all, "How you doin'?!" with his smile when he looks at those button numbers, hehe! ;)

* He laughed for the first time!!! 8 and a half weeks old. I know that is quite a bit earlier than some of his brothers. I was snorting like a deranged pig, holding him about a foot in front of my face, lol! He opened his mouth wide in a BIG smile, and his eyes went all wide and shiny and twinkly, and then I did it again and he tipped his chin up suddenly and started a chuckle - just one "note" of a chuckle, mind you, and then it was violent hiccups, as they have all done when first making a new sound or action with their little larynx, bless their sweet hearts! :) He has laughed several times today, not just at the piggy snorting sound either, which is just wonderful for me to hear and see. I cried the first time he laughed. I didn't expect to, and it was ecstatically HAPPY tears. I just felt overwhelmed that he laughed, and seemed joyful, after such sadness for all these weeks of his short life. It was a precious moment.

* I got my period!!! I KNEW something hormonal was going on with my body! Always feels great to have been right about one's own body, hehe! I did have EWCM on and off for maybe 5 days to a week - I didn't chart (will back date and chart it when I get chance though) so I am not sure exactly when the EWCM stopped and thus ovulation might have occurred. I did have ovulation pain on my left side - or at least I thought it was, but it had been so long that I doubted my "knower" and wasn't sure if it was really ovulation pain. I didn't make note of what day/date that was so I have no way to know how long my first luteal phase might have been. No more than 5 days though, I'm pretty sure. The norm for me for the first couple of cycles is 4/5 day luteal phases, so that would be about right. I have had shorter ones on my first cycle though! So I was 8 weeks PP when my period came. Day 1 was really light and although I knew it was period-related (my lochia had cleared up completely the week before, and any new red bleeding is always cycle-related after that), I wondered if it would be a real period or not. Next day it was heavy, more so than usual, and the same the next day. It has been a heavier period than my usual ones are, but that's okay. It lasted 6 days and then a day of spotting, so definitely a period. I do not know what my body thinks it is doing, when I am nursing THREE children (including a new baby day and night), and stretched to the max physically and emotionally with Elijah's troubles and 6 little ones aged 7 and under, lol! But I will NEVER complain again about periods. They are a blessing from God, and they fill my heart with joy when they show up. They mean babies, and that is a joy that I am cherishing more than ever as the number of years left to have them starts to dwindle. The whole purpose of periods is to have babies. I am excited that my body is trying to get back to that so soon! I know it takes many months before my cycles are fertile enough to sustain a pregnancy, and chemical pregnancies are common for me as a result, but oh it's so wonderful to see a period! It's like God's reminder to me that He made me to have babies, and there's a breathlessly wonderful thought that He may bless me again before too long. Getting a period is a reminder, and a happy one, so I will never complain about periods again, even if they arrive in the midst of overwhelming-ness, only a week after stopping bleeding after giving birth, lol! I'm glad He allows me some months to physically recover though :)

I am going to start charting now that I'm having cycles/periods again, but I'll have to find a moment to do so (which means remembering to do it in the first place!). For now I'm marking a calendar (subtly!!) so that I don't forget dates of fertile signs and my periods, and I'll enter all that data on my chart when I get around to it. Yay for cycles! I love watching my body's signs in joyful anticipation of another baby-treasure somewhere down the line! It makes me so happy!!!! :D

So I should probably stop updating here really. Elijah is already 2 months old, and past the initial newborn stage. But I think I will just update sporadically anyway, because his issues are ongoing, and I'm ovulating again! :) So I'll post now and again as before! I love my pregnancy blog! Such an exciting time in my life, all this reproducing! I'm cherishing it for ALL I'm worth, for as long as I can!

I will try to get smiley photos and videos of Elijah laughing and cooing up sometime. I have a post on my arthursmummy
blog at the moment which has a little video clip of my 4 youngest boys, just doing random sweet things. It includes Elijah cooing (it is a couple of weeks old, this video clip) which I didn't expect to catch, and it's the first time on camera, so you can always see that there if you haven't already. I'll try to get recent photos up soon though! :) He has been hard to photograph for a while because of how sad he always is, but lately I'm starting to catch a few relaxed or smiley photos! :) Back soon, anyway. Time to medicate him and then feed him, and then sleeeeeep for the few hours I can before morning! Two days until the weekend! :)

6 (nearly 7!) weeks old

Another fly-by post, hoping I can type at least something before Elijah wakes and I have to go, and won't have chance again today (or even tomorrow, who knows?!).

Elijah will be 7 weeks old the day after tomorrow. It's going fast, but it's kind of hard-going, and I have to take each day at a time. I am (honestly) doing so cheerfully, and it is working out okay, but I am getting tired now, and starting to feel a bit wistful for things to settle down and to be able to get the focus back on my other children and the house (and homeschooling!) that I had before he was born. I understand why I can't, and I'm doing the best I can, and I'm okay with it all. I am not stressing out about it. Just making note here that I'm lately feeling a bit drained and looking forward to more settled days ahead, whenever that happens (I'm not sure when to expect change yet. Perhaps not for a while?).

Elijah has been on his medication for reflux for 2 weeks tomorrow, and it has also been almost two weeks since I cut out dairy. I didn't go crazy reading labels for ingredients that come from milk at first, but decided to after reading other people's stories of how their babies responded to even tiny amounts in foods, etc. So I think I can say I have been completely dairy-free for maybe 10 days? I am not sure. Maybe a few days less. Anyway. I miss milk and cheese, and it's proving really hard to find a variety of foods that I can eat which are nutritious enough AND accessible enough, AND quick enough to cook, AND easy enough to cook, for me to be able to actually consider them. Not proving easy at all. But oh well! It's worth it if it helps my little one.

He is starting to be more calm these last few days. He is having longer periods of calm alertness, and since maybe the day before yesterday he has surprised me by sitting in the bouncy chair for maybe 5 or 10 minutes in a row without crying! That is AMAZING for Elijah, believe me. He otherwise cries all the time. ALL of it. Or sleeps, or feeds. Otherwise he is crying. Lately not quite so much! :) He is cooing and smiling at us a lot, and even at the boys a bit today and yesterday. He had his third osteopath appointment this morning and smiled and cooed and generally flirted with the osteopath, which was sweet - and a big eye-opener for her to see how much he has changed since the first appt (screaming and rigid and distressed for 2 hours).

Aaaargh my laptop battery is about to die and I left the power cable next to the bed where Elijah is sleeping! It's late so maybe it's not a good idea to try getting it in case I wake him and then start a whole cry cycle again before I get chance to go to bed.... I think I will post this now, unfinished as it is, and update again tomorrow with the rest, if I get chance! Back soon! :)

Well, I did post it, but it's now 20 mins before Elijah's midnight meds are due and I'm all ready for bed, sitting in a dark bedroom next to a sleeping baby, having drawn up his syringe-ful of yucky bitter stuff by the light of the laptop monitor (now plugged in!). He's still sleeping, so I think I will carry on updating the original post unless he stirs, or midnight arrives! ;)

Elijah had his 6-8 week check with the doctor on Wednesday. I was supposed to have my postnatal check the same day, but I wrote down 2.20pm (his appt was sent to me in the post for 2pm) for some reason, and when I turned up for both our appointments, they said it was 9.20am and I'd missed it! :S Whoops! Not sure what part of my brain wasn't there at the time of making the appointment, but oh well. The doctor was very nice about it (same one who had me in tears over being 5 mins late with Benjamin's 6-8 week check - perhaps she'd learned her lesson, not to make this particular mother upset postnatally, lol!) and I rebooked for next Friday at 10.30 with a different doctor (since that's all they could offer me), but I think I will end up cancelling that one because Elijah's next osteopath appt is sure to clash with it. I don't know when that is yet because the osteopath he sees was fully booked for Friday, but he NEEDS to be seen weekly, so he is on a waiting list for cancellations. If there isn't one, she said she would double book him with someone else just to be sure he gets a treatment :) The beautiful thing about this place is that it's FREE. They are a registered charity (The Osteopathic Centre for Children, in London) and encourage donations by families being treated there, so I donate sometimes after an appointment. We can't afford osteopathic treatment in any other setting, so I'm ever so thankful for the OCC! :) Anyway, who knows when I'll get my 6 week postnatal check! Probably sometime, eventually! I have no concerns about me anyway.

I have pelvic pain and back pain still, to varying degrees, depending on my activity level. I saw my physiotherapist at the hospital on Thursday last week, and was given a ton of very very very simple and careful exercises to do, which I am getting precisely NO time to do so far. I have to go back at the beginning of August, because there are some of the very very very simple and careful exercises that I am still unable to do without pain, so I have to wait on those and go back to see how I'm doing. I am so frustrated because for once I desperately feel the need to be getting fit and exercising properly, but the physio told me absolutely NO exercising whatsoever. Only gentle walks (an impossible activity with any of my children in tow, let alone all of them!) or the exercises prescribed. I have been doing a bit more walking lately, just getting from the car (parked a few mins away) to an appointment or something, which sounds laughably puny but is actually quite a bit of exercise for me, embarrassingly! :/ On Monday it was Benjamin's 3rd birthday (!!!) and we all went out to find a good place to run about (the boys, not me!) and jump in huge puddles, as that's what Benjamin wanted to do in the end on that rainy birthday! So I walked quite a bit further than my body said I ought to, and with Elijah on my front in the hug-a-bub. It was okay walking with him in there - he slept pretty quickly and stayed asleep until I put him in the car seat to go home - but my back did ache after 10 minutes or so. Oh well. Anyway, I hurt like crazy the next day in my feet and ankles and hips! Soooo unfit. *sigh* I so want to get stuck into toning up and increasing my stamina, and aerobic exercise for my heart and lungs, but I'm not allowed to yet. It's going to be a slow gradual process to just get my core muscles and ligaments accepting of basic exercises, which is really frustrating, but a worthwhile process I'm sure. I want to be in much better shape before my next pregnancy (which I hope will happen!) :)

Elijah's appointment with the doctor went quite well. He weighs 9lbs 5oz, which puts him at the 10th percentile for weight (9th on the charts they go by, 10th in the breastfed baby charts), which is the curve he's been on since birth. He did go up nearly to the 25th percentile last time he was weighed by the health visitor, so the doctor sees this weigh-in to show a "dip" in weight gain. *sigh* He is a tall boy! He was never measured at birth but I always felt he was longer than average because despite being really skinny and his clothes being baggy on him, he was always outgrowing the length of the footed sleepsuits, and the sleepsuits without feet were like shorts, halfway up his legs, hehe! Anyway he is 59cm long (23 inches) which puts him between the 75th and 91st percentiles (80th percentile on the breastfed baby charts). The doctor got kind of concerned about the difference between his height and weight percentiles, and suggested I topped him up with formula. I didn't expect that. She said she didn't really believe he has reflux and that he cries a lot and feeds a lot (2-3 hourly or more frequently, but very randomly around the clock because I feed him on demand) because he's a "hungry baby". And that's he a hungry baby because he needs "more" than my milk is giving him. *another sigh* That was a bit of a low moment, to be honest. A mummy doesn't feel good to hear things like that, even if it's cheerfully suggested and meant to be helpful or lighthearted, which it was, and I love my GP. But I do not want to supplement with formula, and don't believe it's the best or right thing for him. I am sure there is no reason why my milk can't be enough for him. I have a huge supply, as always. I am breastfeeding Benjamin maybe twice a day, Samuel whenver he wants it during the day (4+ times maybe?), and Elijah day and night pretty frequently, and still leaking loads between anyone's feeds when my milk randomly lets down. Everyone gets what they want when they feed and stop when they are full, and I can hand express more right afterwards. So it's not a supply thing. I don't think there is really anything wrong with his feeding pattern, nor that he's a "hungry baby". On the day of the appointment I really felt kind of knocked, confidence-wise, by the whole thing, and was second-guessing my gut instinct (which is to breastfeed, not supplement, and not introduce solids early (ie. before 6 months)). But I've had some good encouragement and support from friends online and people in the know, and feel much more confident that my gut instinct is right now.

I am perfectly happy to feed him all the time! I know he doesn't need to be feeding TOO frequently because that can aggravate reflux (in fact the whole feeding frequently thing IS a symptom of reflux, tsk!), so I need to talk to Heather about it as she's a breastfeeding counsellor. She is away on holiday until Sunday so I'll have to wait until then. Anyway, he is feeding well, and growing, so I am not worried. The GP prescribed him formula for babies who are allergic to cows milk protein, and more of his reflux meds, but I only collected the reflux meds.

Anyway, he is otherwise doing fine. His neck muscles are stronger than she expected, and he holds his head up well and can turn his head from side to side when lying on his tummy. He is starting to track objects with his eyes, and does lots of "conversing" now which is ever so sweet! I love hearing his voice! :)

I am still spotting from the birth. It's not that unusual for me to still have a trace of lochia at 6 weeks postpartum, but it should be disappearing soon, and I'll be glad! I don't much like that stage! I am suspicious that some sort of hormonal change is going on for me right now. On Wednesday (the day before yesterday), I felt tired and sensitive, and kind of moody. I thought nothing of it, since I'm at full stretch emotionally and physically all the time at the moment, and sleep deprived to boot! ;) I also noticed IBS that day, which I haven't had since I was pregnant. Again, thought nothing much of it. Then the next day, yesterday, I noticed I felt kind of hormonal and weepy and tired, in the same way as the day before. I think I only really took note of it because it was the second day running and I hadn't noticed any feelings like that since the initial few days after the birth with the hormones settling down. Neil and I argued that evening over something sooooo daft, and I put it down to tiredness for us both, but the next morning I thought about it and realised that I was being much more oversensitive and quick to lose my temper than is normal for me, even when just tired. Then yesterday, I went to the loo and what do you know?! EWCM! And not a small amount either. That's the first CM I've had since pregnancy. I generally do not have any after having a baby until my cycles are starting to gear up for coming back, or at least try to (even if they don't succeed at first, lol!). I had felt a bit crampy for the previous few days and it distracted me enough to make me wonder what it was about. When I started getting IBS on Wednesday I thought maybe that's all it had been, but I wasn't convinced because it didn't really feel like it. I haven't ruled out a urine infection but I have no other symptoms of one. Anyway, I'm now on day 2 of EWCM, and have been quite uncomfy on my left side today low down at the front, so I wonder if my body is trying to ovulate. I know that is CRAZY! I am breastfeeding 3 "babies" and just gave birth 6 weeks ago, lol! But my periods seem to be starting again earlier and earlier each time for me now, and the last time I had a period at 8 weeks postpartum, with ovulation too! So it's possible. I kind of hope not, for now! It's perfectly normal to have EWCM in random patches for months without ovulating or having a period, when you're breastfeeding, apparently. But it hasn't been MY norm, so far. We shall see.

Well, I think that is about all I wanted to catch up on for now. I'm sure I have more to waffle about, like how I genuinely felt really wistful and longing when I was driving Elijah to his appointment this morning and playing a worship CD that I listened to every time I drove to an antenatal appointment, and haven't heard since. Ohhhh how I missed being pregnant at that moment! I mean, I generally miss being pregnant and look forward to doing it again, but with the memory trigger of the music, I actually felt such a physical pang! I am going to be just hopeless when my baby-making days are over. I am already praying over it, because I know it will be an adjustment and I want to make it sanely and smoothly! ;) I trust God. He's in control and He knows what is best for me, so if I can rest in that, I should be okay, but I suuuuure will miss it!

It's just past midnight now and Elijah is STILL sleeping (since maybe 8.45pm!) so I need to wake him up for his medication now. I much prefer giving him his dose this way, because he doesn't really wake up. I pick him up and cradle him in my left arm, semi-upright, and then tease his lips with the syringe until he stirs and opens his mouth. His dose is only 0.33mls of nasty bitter liquid (yes, I did taste it), but I still only give him about a quarter of that dose at a time, rubbing his tiny cheeks to rouse him enough to make him swallow each little bit. I don't want him to choke! He takes the whole dose safely that way, and doesn't actually wake up or know he's even taking the yucky stuff, which is much nicer for him. He is such a trooper taking it when he's wide awake and hungry though. He grimaces a little, but calmly takes it all the same, and never tries to avoid it or turn his face away. He doesn't cry about it. He's such a good boy, and I love him so much! Anyway it's nice at night because he takes the dose without knowing, and then I lay him back down once I'm sure he's squidged his mouth about and swallowed a few times, and he generally stays asleep for a while longer before waking as usual for a feed. He feeds maybe every 3-4 hours at night, but one night after his 2nd osteo appointment a week ago, he slept from about midnight (having cried all evening which he usually does - this evening is unusual in that he has slept for most of it!) until 6am!!!! Now, there's no sense getting too excited about him "sleeping through the night" because looking back I see that many of my babies have done just that for One Night Only at the very same age. Then never again until like 18 months old, haha! Anyway it was nice! :)

Okay, off to medicate my darling boy. I will be back soon! I should be making this the last blog entry here for a while, because I like to close up shop here once the official postnatal/newborn period is over, until next time. And I usually go with the postnatal appointments for that marker, and we've done that. But Elijah is having prolonged newborn-ish issues still, and I haven't had my postnatal check yet, and anyway I am having ongoing treatment for pregnancy-related stuff with the physio, sooooo.... maybe I will keep it open a while longer. I also like to come back to keep track of my cycles once they start up again, and if that's going to happen soon anyway... I will not say goodbye for now. I'll come back and update again sometime soon, to keep a record of how Elijah is doing with his treatment. I think I will want that to look back on for future reference maybe. If you're still keeping up, well done, lol! I haven't got many commenters or readers on any of the posts I make here or at my main blog now, but I am much more settled now than I've ever been before with the idea of just blogging for my own memories and future reference stuff, so I am not put off. I like readers and commentors though, of course! ;) I will be back soon!

5 weeks - so much to update about!

Oh dear! I can't believe I haven't updated here since Elijah was 10 days old!!! :S Whoops!

Right now I literally have NO time to update. I never ever (ever) have time to update, because life is stretched to the max. So I'll bullet point again, so that at least I have made note of everything here, and mayyybe I might get chance to go into more detail on some of them another time.

* I have Gastro-Esophegeal Reflux Disease (GERD). A week ago my oesophagus decided not to work properly, and swallowing anything was painful and difficult. SO SCARY!!!! Anyway, long story short - no more big multi-vitamins for me, and I am now on omeprazole for 3 months. I still have discomfort in my oesophagus but it's easing up in general.

* Elijah has become a really distressed baby at all times. Last Thursday and Friday were absolutely unmanageable with Neil at work. Both days I phoned him in tears, unable to get food for the boys or give any of the boys any of my time at all, including Samuel and his need for a nap! Elijah screamed and screamed all day, no matter whether he was held, rocked, walked, bounced, wrapped, upright, reclined, and finally on those two days he started to pull of the breast to scream as well, and had a block of a couple of hours doing the same in the middle of the night. I had made him an appointment (after much encouragement to do so from Heather) at the osteopath that I took Benjamin and Samuel to, in London, but the earliest appointment was July 10th. I made that on Thursday.

* On Friday it was just so bad. Soooo bad. It wasn't even much past lunch time (not that I was anywhere near being able to imagine managing to get lunch ready), and I was breastfeeding Elijah in bed again, trying to find a way to settle him (nothing did). The boys were doing a mixture of crying, fighting, yelling and playing downstairs, and I was crying on the phone to Neil as I nursed Elijah. I did not know how to manage. Neil was coming home early that day because his company lets them out at 2pm on the last Friday of the month if they work through their lunch break! :)

* After the phone call I suddenly decided to be proactive - something had to be done NOW. I called the osteopath and asked if they might on the off-chance possibly have a cancellation for today, and what do you know?! Someone had JUST cancelled their 3.30 appt! Thank you Lord (because it was totally His doing). So I took Elijah to the osteopath that very day!

* Elijah has some issues. He apparently presented at birth with his head straight, instead of with his chin to his chest, as babies ought to be. Heather says this totally explains why I did not go into labour when my waters broke, and also why he was bobbing in and out, not engaging properly. Elijah has compression in the front part of his skull, which is why he always looks like he's frowning so deeply. He does have some good brows on him, lol! But as well as that, his head was really pressed down at the front as he was born. At the same time as that, the back of his head was being pressed backwards, which has caused compression in his neck at the back, and also some "pinching" in some vertebrae lower down in his back (think concertina). The pain in his back/neck has caused him to hold his diaphragm very tight, and this has resulted in severe "silent" reflux. Can't believe we were both diagnosed with GERD in the same week! :( He isn't a "sicky" baby at all, but his poor oesophagus is burning up all the same. They also felt that his "guts" are sensitive, and advised me to cut out dairy from my diet in case it's affecting him through my milk. Poor poor baby boy!

* They said not to wait in getting him to a doctor for a prescription for his reflux, and it was after hours when we got home. After the boys were in bed, I got him an urgent care appointment at the out of hours clinic at 9.30pm. They sent us to children's A&E!!!! They said he was so tiny and in so much obvious pain and distress that he needed to be seen by a paediatrician to rule out sepsis!!!! Yikes! So we went. We were there two hours, and I was beyond exhausted - Elijah too. He cried so much the whole time, and I had to walk him and rock him (Neil was obviously at home with the boys, who were sleeping). He was too distressed for them to take observations even, but they did get a normal temp reading, which was good. Finally they gave us a prescription for ranitidine (similar to my prescription), but I had to go back the next morning to collect it from the pharmacy. He was so exhausted when we got home (midnight!) and slept pretty well considering - a couple of 3 hour blocks in a row.

* Good old A&E gave him his first cold! I'm kind of annoyed about it! Poor baby, as if he needed anything else added to it all!! *sigh* Anyway. He is getting over that a bit today, and has been on his meds for 4 days now. He is doing better today than he has in ages, but still cries and screams a lot of the time. He has even smiled and cooed at us today, which is sooooo wonderful! He really hasn't done any of that before now - though he did smile for the first time at 3 weeks, 4 days old. And maybe twice over the two weeks after that, until now. He didn't really make eye contact either, he was just too busy hurting or being exhausted from hurting.

It has been really hard, but I'm hoping things are going to improve soon. I have cut out dairy and that's not easy either, but I'll do ANYTHING for my manny. I love him so much.

These three photos were taken at 4 and a half weeks old, at the end of last week before getting him sorted out. They were taken sort of to document how he has been, for my own reference really. They show the three expressions that he has had up until then. The first is his "exhausted/blank" expression, which he does when he's not crying or sleeping, just for a very short while; the second is his "fretting/anxious/pained" expression - he whimpers with this one, and the look in his eyes makes me want to cry. He looks actually scared and like he is desperate for reassurance :( The third is the most common - crying or screaming in a pained/distressed way.

Then see these four photos that I took this morning!! He IS still spending much of the time crying and distressed, but there is a definite light at the end of the tunnel if I can get photos like these - I have not been able to before now. His face was actually relaxed for a while and he looked... happy! :) And he smiled! And even got a bit animated and tried cooing! So happy to have caught it on camera! :)

Elijah is otherwise doing great - he weighed 8lbs 11oz at exactly one month old (last Wednesday), which is funny to me because it's exactly Benjamin's birth weight! :) He is at the 25th percentile for weight now, having started at the 9th, so he's growing well! He is feeding great, and weeing and pooing for England.

Okay, got to go. Elijah's cold has passed to Samuel, Benjamin and Nathan today and all three are awake and crying right now (some SCREAMING) at half past midnight. Urrrghh! Long night ahead. I have so much more to write and pics to post, but I will have to do it another time.

Elijah's newborn photos!

Paul came round with Elijah's newborn photos this evening, yay! I am so tired out and haven't got time to write anything but I wanted to post them here straight away, and I'll try to write an update soon. For more about the photo session, go to the previous entry which I posted last night. :)

These are my photos, but taken by Paul, and I think they are copyrighted to him, so please don't copy these photos without my permission (Nicola, permission granted! ;) ). Thanks!

Here's my sweet little manny! I love him sooooo!

Photo session (8 days old) and poo!

Whoops. Somehow a week has passed since I last updated! :S That's a LONG time in Newborn Land! Elijah is sleeping next to me but he is likely to wake at any moment for a feed, so I may only have seconds to try and cram a whole week of news in before he wakes!

Elijah had his photos taken at 8 days old, on Monday this past week. It went really well! Our friend Paul from church is a keen photographer - he doesn't earn a living from it but he does "professional" shoots. He has never done newborn photography before and wanted to bless us with some photos, and have some fun - he led me to believe he needed to build up a portfolio, but it turns out he pretty much just thought it would be a fun new experience and that we would like to have special photos of our tiny manny! How lovely! :)

He picked Elijah and I up at 9ish in the morning and we knew it would take all morning to do, going at Elijah's pace and seeing how we got on. Elijah HATED his first experience in a car seat, poor baby! He screamed frantically until we got to a road with speed bumps and then he suddenly fell fast asleep practically mid-scream! ;) He stayed asleep for the first half hour we were there, and woke as I was taking his clothes off ready for the first photo. So I fed him and he went to sleep, and since he was already a nakey baby, we put him straight into position for a photo right from the breast. The very first thing he did when positioned on the towels was a wee, hehe! Thankfully he was on his tummy so it wasn't a big deal. He did great. Pretty much every time we tried a new pose or brought a prop into the shot, he started squirming and fussing until he was awake and displeased! ;) So I did a lot of breastfeeding over the morning and consequently Elijah did a lot weeing on whatever he was laid on, lol! I was so nervous after a couple of hours that he would poo, because he pretty much doesn't go longer than a few hours between poos - well, he's going a bit longer than that at the moment but at the beginning of the week he was pooing about every 2-3 hours, if not more frequently. Oh how funny, as I typed that he squirmed in his sleep and emitted a squirty sound from his bottom, hehehe! Guess I'll be changing that in a mo! ;)

Anyway, thankfully (amazingly!) he didn't poo at all while we were there, but the momemt I got him out of his car seat when we arrived home, he did a mega blow-out (out of the sides and back of the nappy - his first!). I was so glad he didn't do that during the photo shoot!

Some of the poses were soooo sweet to put him into, because awwww he's so buttery soft and foldable, and being fast asleep at the same time was just adorable to watch. Paul's 16-year-old daughter was helping us, and she would keep saying, "Awwwww!!!" when Elijah was put into a new pose! Ohhh, more squirty sounds from the sleeping boy... :S Hope it won't be a blow-out. Those are no fun to change!

I think we got various photos taken of only 4 or 5 different poses, but it took until about 1.30pm! I was soooo tired suddenly when I sat down to feed him at that point, I felt a bit unwell with it really, all of a sudden. There were more ideas that Paul had for photos, but they had a Jubilee gathering to attend in the afternoon in any case, and we were happy with what we'd got already. Paul has to edit the photos but he works full time. He thought maybe he might be able to get a disc of photos to me this weekend but I know this weekend has a ton of social events that he's running/part of at church, so I am not sure if he'll actually have time.

MORE squirty sounds! Yikes. He's still sleeping but he'll wake when he's finished, I should think. Then I won't have chance to type any more tonight, for sure, so perhaps I'll post this? Mind you I haven't written much yet, so maybe I'll save it and finish it tomorrow or something? Hmmm...

There's a photo that I really hope comes out okay - Paul happened to have a basket with a Union Jack flag pattern all over it, and he wondered about using it to put Elijah in, since it was the Queen's Jubilee weekend (I'm one who LOVES all things royal and the Jubilee, by the way!), and I loved the idea!! So we got a photo of him in there. I hope it comes out well! Can't wait to see what he's captured, and post them online!

Yet more squirty sounds. This is shaping up to be a blow-out nappy for sure.

So Paul drove us home, and Elijah didn't fall asleep this time, he was just mightily cross with the journey and the indignity of being squished into a car seat! ;) When I lifted his car seat out of Paul's car and he drove off, one of the neighbours was coming out to her car. She looked kind of shocked, and said, "Another one?! How many's that now?!" I don't think she knew I was even pregnant so I can understand her reaction! ;) I said, "Six..." and she said, "Aw my gawd!" and came over to look at him in his car seat (crying angrily!). She asked if we were just trying to get a girl, and I said no, just a baby, and that I loved having babies (this is now my default answer, as I'm getting used to saying it a lot now!).

Okay, he's awake, so I'll have to finish this another time!

Well, the poo stayed contained, but he made up for it by weeing in his own face while I changed his nappy, lol! Poor baby!

After we got home, I was so tired and hungry, and it was after 2pm! I grabbed a few things to eat from the kitchen and took them upstairs with Elijah. I ate while I breastfed my Very Fed-Up Baby (he did not enjoy the travelling aspect!) and then he was exhausted, so we went to bed. I think I was asleep with him by 2.30pm, and the boys and Neil were out at Box Hill all day with Uncle Ian, so it was a quiet house. I kept waking up to feed Elijah when he stirred, and sometimes checked the time, but I still felt soooo tired! I ended up waking up properly when the phone rang next to me, and it was Neil saying he knew it was a bit late, but they were about to set off for home, so it would be near 8pm when they got back. I thought, "What?!?!" and was amazed to see that it was after 7pm already when I looked at the clock! I guess the morning had been more than I was quite ready for, and it really tired me out. I had some pain in my left breast that day too, and the day before, and I ended up with a fever and much worse pain when I woke the next morning, so maybe that's partly why I'd needed to sleep like that when we got home?

Anyway I will have to write about the "almost mastitis" episode another time, because it's late, Elijah is fussing and I need to go to bed! I'll post this for now and try again tomorrow - Elijah is two weeks old tomorrow!!! I cannot believe how fast it's going!

Six days old :)

Elijah is 6 days old today. Yesterday he had his heel prick test and did great. I was glad to hold and feed him while they did it, rather than hand him over for the whole thing like with some of my other babies. He was a brave boy! :) They also weighed him again, even though it was only 48 hours after they'd come to weigh him when he was 3 days old. She said that she might as well, while she was here! He weighed 6lbs 7oz!!! That's pretty good considering he was 6lbs 1oz 48 hours earlier!

My milk is well in, leaking and hurting like crazy when it lets down, so he is getting per-lenty when he feeds. And he feeds pretty much all the time, and has cat-naps in between, so I'm not toooo surprised that he's gaining weight well now! :) See now, I'm writing about my milk and even though he's fast asleep, I'm leaking milk all over my top, lol! I am so happy to have milk flowing again! I love lactating! :)

Benjamin nursed at bedtime last night! He had said he didn't like the taste, and it was for The Lijah (this is how he pronounces Elijah's name, soooo sweet!) and not him anymore, bless his heart! He seemed a bit sad but was happy with a cuddle instead. The next night I asked if he wanted milky but he said he didn't like it and it was for The Lijah now. Last night I asked him again, since he was watching me breastfeed Samuel at bedtime, and he just nodded yes, as though he'd never decided not to the previous two nights! He didn't nurse for long, but he seemed happy enough. He said he liked my special new milky, so who knows! Arthur did pretty much the same thing when he was 3 (Benjamin is 4 months younger with his 2nd younger sibling than Arthur was, due to slightly smaller age gaps the last few babies) - didn't like the new milky (very upset though!), and then went back to it as though nothing had happened after a few days, and continued until I weaned him at age 4! So perhaps Benjamin will now carry on as normal? I'm happy if he does, but I don't mind if he weans. He has breastfed for 2 years and 10 months, which is wonderful for him, and my goal for all my children is at least 2 years for the very best I can give them, so I am happy with what we've achieved! :)

Okay Elijah is now snuffling and squeaking and wriggling about, so I am going to feed him! I'll try to add more later.

I took some photos of Elijah at 4 days old, like I said last entry, and didn't get chance to post them before, so here they are now :) He was having some calm alert time and I put him across my lap for a few minutes so I could take some photos. You can't see it in the first picture but I took this one as a personal happy memory shot - my long-awaited view of my 'parkly toad (love that Benjamin-ism!) beyond my sweet new baby, here at last! :D

He saw me, and then the camera :)

So weeny on my lap!

Thank you afresh to Meg for sending this sweet teeny little outfit when Nathan was born! It's one of my favourites but all the babies since Nathan have been too big to wear it, until now :)

Elijah is so funny when he's calm and alert. He has such a look of... I don't know, a cross between amazed, perplexed and aghast, lol! ;) His little mouth sort of sits open - it has the same semi-circle shape (straight bottom lip) as newborn Nathey. When it's closed, his top gum often sits over his bottom lip, again just like Nathan - none of the others have this. Heather says that if you draw an imaginary line across his face just below the bridge of his nose, everything above it is Benjamin, and everything below it is Nathan, and I think that's a pretty accurate observation. He most definitely has Benji's brows! He currently has dark murky eyes, and so far only the two boys with some brown to their eyes have started off like that, so I'm excited to see what they settle as! Arthur's are brown, and Benjamin's are grey but now have a ring of true brown around the pupil, about half the thickness of his iris.

Here are a couple more pics of Elijah at 4 days old, with the look I referred to earlier! ;)

He's sooooo still and calm and quiet when he's like this. He just blinks occasionally and moves his eyes, and occasionally his tongue, hehe! Sweet little fast baby-breathing, and no other sounds. Love him!! He has the usual dark hair that they've all had as newborns, but less than some of his brothers. The unique thing about Elijah's newborn hair is that he has a sort of slightly nappy fuzz on top - definitely the least amount of hair there that any of them have had - but the usual inch-or-so long hair on the back and sides, lol! Sweet little pea! He reminds me of a little old man with his hair and his lack of chub!

I love to take photos of him sleeping. He is starting to sleep longer stretches between feeds, even 2-3 hours now on occasion. He almost always sleeps on my front or attached to me in some way, which I have the luxury of doing with him while I'm on my "babymoon", resting up mostly in bed. If I put him down, I tend to put him on his side (he startles awake quickly on his back, although less so if I put something at his feet with his legs bent up at the knee - he really likes the comfort of the fetal position still. Anyway I lay him curled up on his side and put a little rolled up baby blanket behind his back. If I lay him down, he wakes within 5 minutes or so, but I am trying to do so at least a couple of times a day and using that time to do stretches and stuff (GENTLE stretches!) because I am getting some tight sore muscles, especially in my shoulders and back, and it helps to stand up and walk and stretch them out as often as possible. I have had the most horrible sinus (maybe?) headache for 2 days that has hurt like crazy in every bone of my face, and the base of my skull at the back. Even my teeth hurt, which makes me wonder if I'm grinding my teeth in my sleep or something? Anyway, paracetamol hasn't touched it (I don't find it a very effective drug for me anyway) and it has been so sore that I have not known what to DO with myself. Last night I decided that I would just try to stay asleep as long as it lasted, to escape it. Every hour or two I woke with Elijah to feed him and it was still there, so when morning came I just carried on "night feed" style, just breastfeeding him lying side-by-side and going back to sleep - he was very accommodating, thankfully! He's not old enough yet to want or need to be "up for the day" at any point! :) When I woke with him at 10.45am, I was relieved to find my headache much better! Still there, but totally manageable, yay! So I got up, andd thankfully it hasn't worsened all day. I've had allergies since Elijah was born, so my sinuses are annoyed.

I'm sure there are some random things that I've been meaning to say but forgot... Oh! The GP came round to do Elijah's newborn check the day after he was born, and she did his head circumference which was 34cm :) That's 13.4 inches, and the weeniest little head I've delivered yet! My last two babies had 38cm (15 inch!!) heads!!!

I gave Elijah his first bath 2 days ago, this time by getting in the bath myself and taking him with me! :) Ahhh it was a lovely blissful bonding experience until he started to fuss a bit. I put him straight to the breast and was just smiling in pure contentment while he nursed in the warm water, when the inevitable happened. Yeah, he pooed. And when I say he pooed, I mean he POOED. Yellow squirty seedy breastmilk poo, one whole nappyful. Then it stopped and I sat frozen, looking at it all swirling around me in the water. I was still sat frozen when he did round two. Oh yes.

So we got out and I washed out the bath and ran a second one! ;) It was okay in the end! Funny story though, one I'll remember fondly for sure! :)

Today I took a few photos of my little treasure sleeping, so I will post them here and then I must go to bed, as it's now really late!

He is sleeping on my chest as I type this, and now I am going to put him down and brush my teeth, and go to bed with him snuggled against my tummy. These days are such bliss and such a fleeting privilege! I am cherishing every second, praising God continually for His goodness, and praying (already, lol!) for more precious little ones to hold and love and cherish. :)