Day 41, Dorian Era

Wow, I've been trying to post again since day TWENTY one, but time runs away from you with a baby in hand. Someone once said to me "the days are very long, but the weeks, months, years go so quickly". This is proving true.

The wee one will be 6 weeks tomorrow! Eventful and mundane weeks all at once. I really don't have anything to write on a blog about being a new mum that hasn't been written before. At the same time, THIS baby and THIS new mum haven't been through this before, so it's all new. So, you're warned. Probably boring unless you're really interested in at least one of us.

First Day Out at the Park
Photo by Adam Benjamin

Things are going mostly wonderfully. A few minor scares, mostly with me, that had me back in ER at 9 days and again at 3 weeks, first for my incision being weird and, errr... , leaking. Next was for a very sudden attack of a fever - while I was already at the hospital for a routine thing for Dorian - that had me there shivering and sweating and wondering if I had an infection. I sat there for 11 hours before I got to a doc who ordered a blood panel, and another hour waiting just to be told "no infection - probably a bug". Which I had guessed - but given that I was 3-weeks post surgery, I had been told to come back if I "felt fluish". Anyway, a large dose of Motrin and 6 more hours (next morning) and all was well. No idea what that really was.

Dorian's "scare" took her on an adventure all the way to Hamilton and back. The screening we had at Grand River reported that she had bilateral hip dysplasia. This sent us to a paediatric orthopaedic surgeon at McMaster for a REAL assessment, which, thankfully, was "mostly fine - I'd like to double check in a few more weeks". The surgeon thought first, there was a measuring error on the scan and second, because D was born at 37 weeks, 3 weeks post-birth was too early to make a reliable assessment and it really should have been done closer to 6 weeks (3 weeks if she had been full-term). So it looks like it will be nothing, but we will double check for sure, as the consequences of not dealing with it can be severe later in life.

Aside from those adventures, we are muddling by as new moms and babies do. Dorian also had a partial tongue-tie clipped at 28 days, which immediately improved her ability to latch to a breast for feeding. Unfortunately she's used to a bottle, I am not too productive (age, diabetes, past breast surgery, C-section, pre-eclampsia all having negative effects), and she's not patient enough too often to put in the work. I'm still a bit disappointed in it all, but dealing. Pumping every time she feeds, I get 4-5 ounces per day of breast milk, and the rest formula right now. Lately there have been a couple of evenings where she's been mellow and not starving so was patient enough to help herself for a while, so hopefully those little interludes will continue. My own doctor refused to prescribe helpful pharmaceuticals, and the paediatrician we saw about the tongue tie was willing, but not while I'm on the blood pressure med I'm still taking (but tapering off). So I'm trying herbs and foods reputed to help - maybe they have, but a 20% improvement in not a heck of a lot is not a heck of much more. Oh well.

I find watching her development fascinating, from her beginning to focus her eyes more, to new vocalizations coming out of her, to the most recent, her first attempts at intentional action. She's taken to finding something to look at, like a hanging toy, staring at it intently and then bursting into a big flap with both arms to try to get whatever it is that caught her interest. She sometimes hits the toy. She sometimes hits herself in the head, which is sad and funny all at once because it kind of baffles her that something hit her in the head.

She does still sleep a lot of the time... including SEVEN HOURS last night?!?!?! I didn't think that was even possible for a couple more months, but she did.

Unfortunately, I had insomnia at the same time. Daddy got some sleep, at least.