ferrousland.com - diary archives
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
the new mum - 08:29 PM
people tried to tell me how much i would love him, but it's hard to understand until you actually have your baby in your arms. when he was in my belly, i'd talk to him & tell him how much i cared for him & how well i'd look after him, but once he was in my arms i fell in love with him amazingly quickly.
the first morning in hospital that i was able to hold him, i simply stared at him for about an hour. i couldn't stop kissing him. he's just so adorable. what is it about your own child that makes you love them so immediately?
the first night in hospital, when he was in the special care nursery, i pined for him all night. i was coming down from the morphine, which didn't help, & i guess i was still full of adrenaline from the excitement & hormones racing around wondering where to go to. i slept terribly. the longest stretch of sleep i had all night would have been about twenty minutes. most of the night i slept for three minutes at a time. i had a whole run of strange dreams which went for about three seconds each. they all went kind of like this:
- there was a strange blonde man whom i somehow knew was evil & i thought, "i don't like him. i don't like him at all."
- i'd realise it was just a dream.
- i'd wake up.
ergh. it was awful.
that whole first night, all i had of my baby boy were the digital pictures which shroom had taken. i'm so glad we have a digital camera with a decent lcd display on it, because at least i could look at the pictures of him over & over again, in lieu of actually having him with me.
i felt like a big, clumsy oaf when i did the first real 'mummy' things. although the very first mummy thing was breastfeeding him, which actually went very well. that surprised me. we've since had a bit of trouble here & there, but his feeding is still going well. i think we're just both still getting used to using these boob things for what they're really meant to be used for.
his first nappy change was scary. i didn't want to hurt him when i lifted him up. i also had to stand there & think really hard about what i was going to need to complete the nappy change before i started & possibly ended up doing things in the wrong order, or not having the new nappy ready, or having him weeing on me. he didn't actually do too much of that in hospital. he's saved most of the weeing on me for when we got home. 
one night when i went to the special care nursery to feed him, while he was still staying there, i was having trouble getting him to latch on & stay on. one of the older midwives (the only one in special care who i wasn't super keen on) offered to help me. i accepted. she helped to guide his head to my boob & helped to get my nipple into his mouth in the proper way. all this was fine, but when he kept popping off, she held his head really tight against my breast & was shaking his head to try to get him to open his mouth wide. she also made my nipple hurt when she shoved it into his mouth. she wasn't violent in any way, shape or form & she didn't hurt him, but he didn't like it at all & he got really upset, went all red in the face & started crying the hardest i'd seen him cry.
i was horrified. eventually he got on the nipple & started feeding so she went off to do other things. i was quite upset & whispered to him that it was okay & that i would never do that to him & that i was sorry i'd let her treat him like that. when he finished feeding & i was back in my room, alone, i thought about how upset he was & i started to cry. even thinking about it now makes me get all teary again. i told shroom about it the next day on the phone & he got quite het up about it & asked me if i wanted him to make some calls & sort it out. i was still teary about it, relating the story to him, even though i'm sure riley had forgotten all about it by then. i didn't want to cause a fuss since she'd really done nothing wrong except upset me, the new mum. she didn't hurt him physically, i just wouldn't have done the same myself. she should have been a bit more sensitive to both of our feelings.
i had a second experience with the same lady the next night. they were going to see how he'd go on the breast that whole night & not give him any tube feeds. this would be the decider as to whether he would come out of the special care nursery. if not, then it was possible that we would have to go home without him! that was not an option we wanted to entertain. that night when they were supposed to call me for a feed, i found out that she'd given him a tube feed instead. i was furious. if it ruined our chances to be able to take him home with us i was going to be very unhappy. i was so worked up that i couldn't get back to sleep that night. i stayed awake until it was almost time for his 2am feed. it all turned out okay & the midwife had good intentions, but it showed me how fiercly protective i was of our boy already.
riley's first bath, mummy's first bath lesson, took place in the special care nursery. the water was quite hot, not what i expected, but i later learned when i took riley for his second bath with an older midwife, who told me to run it lukewarm instead, that the hot bath was much more enjoyable for him. it makes sense, too. i wouldn't like to bath in lukewarm water. riley loved his hot bath. he promptly fell fast asleep afterwards & wouldn't even wake for a feed.
the first night that riley was with me in my room i was a little bit scared. it was the longest time i'd spent with him, totally unsupervised. it's silly really, here i am, thirty-one years old & i felt like a teenager, nervous about looking after my own child. i guess the mummy instinct kicks in really quicly though, because i had no troubles with him at all. i adored having him with me for a whole night & looked forward even more to going home with him & starting to get into some sort of routine with him.
we're at home now & i guess that he's not in a routine, it keeps changing, but i've managed so far to work my routine around him. i've not been able to wash the dishes every day (in fact, only once since he's been home), but i have managed to make sure that all the laundry is done & that we not only have clean clothes for him to wear, but for us too. i've even managed to cook us a meal or two & keep the chooks fed & watered.
my emotions have been a little bit up & down since we've been home. i haven't really suffered from 'the baby blues' as such, but i've been more likely to cry, either from happiness or from upsetting things, much more than i used to. when my mum & her boyfriend, bill, & shroom's parents came around to visit a weekend or so ago, the subject of the dog came up. they mentioned being careful with him around the baby, which if course, we have been. shroom's dad related a story about when they were living in asia how a pet monkey hurt a baby. bill then told a story about some pet ferrets hurting a baby. even two weeks earlier i would have been relating my own stories about babies being hurt by pets, but this time, i got all teary & had to physically block my ears to not hear anymore. i think poor bill thought it was his story in particular that upset me, but really, it was just hormones & the whole 'babies being hurt' theme that got to me. poor bill, i hope he didn't feel too bad. i was rather embarrassed about crying in front of everyone.
shroom's been a star dad & hubby & has been helping out all over the place. especially in the first few days at home, he would jump up & get me whatever i needed if i was settled in a chair feeding riley. he's been helping to keep the house clean & taking riley off my hands if i've had something to do or if i've just needed a short break.
i'm really proud of how well i've been coping. admittedly, he seems to be a really easy baby, which helps a lot, but i imagine that it would still be possible to do worse than i've been doing. i've been able to do things with one hand (or with my toes) which i never thought i'd be able to do. i feel like my multi-tasking skills have increased a hundredfold. sometimes, the things i've been able to do all at once, i feel as though i have three pairs of hands.
before he was born, i had in my mind how nice it would be to have a girl & what it might be like to have a boy, but as soon as i got to spend time with him, i realised that i couldn't really care less if he was a boy or a girl because he's such a blessing either way. he's such a darling little man. i love him to bits & pieces.
i'm so loving being a mum. it's as though nothing that went on before this was of any importance compared to what we're doing now being parents to our gorgeous little boy. even day by day, sitting doing the things which normally kept our attention before, all seems very boring.
i think that this, being a mum, is something that i can do well, perhaps better than anything i've done before. i feel as though i'm finally really good at something. 
do you expect us toread this whole story - might as well publish it in a book!!!!
note to self: read 9/30 soon.
your experience with the older midwife sounds very familiar to the 'help' i was getting when i was in hospital.
i can't wait to see you and riley again and see you being a mum in action
Its so true about pining for the first one. When my wife had our third. She asked the nurse if he could stay out with them that night so she could get some sleep. I guess the excitement of taking care of the baby right away had worn off, but I just figure its because we would get to do it tomorrow and the next day and the next. Enjoy the first one, everything is new and exciting. Not to say the 3rd one isn't exciting, but its really only been since he has been showing us his own personality. Good luck and get some sleep.
You will always remember that sweet feeling of loving your baby so much you think your heart will break.
It's so amazing the effect the hormones has on your love for your child. It's so overwhelming at times just how much you can love your little guy isn't it?
I'm a bit worked up about the midwife. Unfortunately there are a few older school ones that try and force the baby and boob together, I remember seeing that as a student nurse and being horrified!
I also got worked up about the fact she tube fed him when you were going to breastfeed him! Grrr!
Hey you will soon be expert at switching the lights on with your nose hehehe
that was lovely!!! you ARE an excellent mother Corri!!!. I can`t wait to have what you have !
Having a baby makes everything else in your life seem trivail in restrospect doesnt it? He looks so gorgeous, I wanna kiss him too!
It always blows me away how fiercly in LOVE parents can be with their kids... I dips me lid to ya...
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you're good at lots of things!