After a gruelling 33 hours our baby boy Joshua Tomas Harris was born at an alarming 9lb 12 oz.
Alex was a wonderful birth partner, the midwives and doctors were very good and the experience was an unforgetable one. I was so grateful when they told me it was nearly over and I could feel my baby's head come into the world. It was not the birth we had planned for. We had prepared for a natural birth in the birth centre which is how things began. However we ended up after 24 hours being transferred to the delivery suite where I had an epidural, an IV drip, hormone injection and in the end a forcep delivery. I think I was in shock for several days after and in truth the first two weeks were really hard for us both. A huge disappointment was not being able to keep up with breast feeding. Having learned from experience I now think that for the first two weeks any new mother needs to stay virtually in bed 100% of the time just eating, sleeping and feeding the baby. I think I tried to do too much, and after a traumatic birth I think I came close to exhaustion what with suffering from sleep deprivation at nights... Silly me. Not clever. So for the last 3 weeks I've been expressing and bottle feeding. It broke my heart to begin bottle feeding but it was absolutely the right thing to do.
So Joshua is nearly 4 weeks old and a beautiful, healthy, thriving baby. He's strong, with long legs, big beautiful eyes and a strong neck. Alex has gone back to work now but he's been a hands on dad and he's a wonderful parent; I'm so proud of him. Right now we're sat on the sofa together after dinner and he's winding Joshua like a pro!
Night times are hard going with Al back at work but we're doing really well overall and things are starting to feel normal; or at least the days are. Nights are... well, less normal at the moment! The first day that Al went back to work I really missed him; it's still odd not having him around but me and Josh are getting used to each other.
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