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| Lara's first week at home |
Before I got pregnant I heard many new
parents saying how tired they were after several sleepless nights
with their newborn baby. So waking up at night was no news to me nor
to my husband before we decided to have a baby. But I guess no one
(or books or antenatal classes) will ever prepare you enough for
those first few weeks with a tiny new arrival in your family.
In my case, Lara came five weeks early,
on what I thought would be an ordinary night. I had my Aqua-fit class
after work, showered, had dinner and when I was just ready to snug on
the couch I felt a watery leak. My husband and I waited until 3am to
be seen in the emergency room in the Rotunda Hospital. At that stage
all we wanted was to go back home to our cozy warm bed. We were
almost asleep when the doctor confirmed what I feared: my waters had
broken. “You'll have the baby tomorrow, she's breached so you'll
have a c-section”, that's how quickly our peaceful evenings on the
sofa have ended.
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| Looking at daddy after her first bath |
Of course we were happy, we were
waiting for that moment for so long but we kind of froze in panic and
smiled at the same time. “What? Tomorrow? C-section?”, we asked
staring at each other not knowing how to react to that. We realized
how unprepared we were. Thankfully I had my suitcase and the baby's
packed the day before but all the pharmacy like products still had to
be bought; we were still waiting for the buggy and car seat we
ordered months before; we didn't have a moses basket and the changing
table and my nursing chair had to be put together (no doubt my
husband left that for the last minute). We also didn't expect a
premature baby so my mister had to run around the shops looking for
the smallest clothes he could find.
So that was how a new chapter of our
lives started. Lara was born the day after I was admitted and it felt
like a switch turned off on my life leaving everything else behind.
For the next few months she would be my only worry, my pleasure, she
would consume all my time and when I thought I could finally rest she
would wake up again looking for attention.
It was a beautiful time but tough
going. I had no sleep for about two months, Lara was mixing up day
and night so she'd stay awake for hours at night making those first
few weeks even harder. Apart from that, breastfeeding proved to be
one of the biggest challenges I have ever faced. I was determined to
breastfeed but I didn't know it could be that difficult for a baby to
latch on. The fact that Lara was five weeks premature only aggravated
the issue. She was still developing her sucking reflex, she struggled
to get my nipple into her tiny mouth and after a few seconds of so
much effort she would get tired and fall asleep. She lost one pound
on the first three days of her life and I wouldn't let her lose any
more so I started to express my own milk and give her on the bottle.
On those first few weeks I became
scared of the night. I was so exhausted and sleep deprived that I was
afraid to fall asleep holding Lara. Every time she woke at night I
spent around 45/50min to feed her; up to 30min to wind her; a few
minutes changing her nappy (sometimes twice); if she got sick I had
to change her clothes too and around 1h to 2h of walking and bouncing
her trying to make her sleep. After that I had to wash and sterilize
all the bottle/pump paraphernalia so by the time I was back to bed I
only had 1h of sleep before the next feed. Sometimes I wonder how did
I manage to stand up with all that without collapsing in deep sleep
at some point but I guess mothers have some kind of super powers to
get through these kind of situations.
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| A happy moment when Lara was only one month |
Thanks to a lactation consultant I was
introduced to a nipple shield which saved me a hell lot of time. The
consultant was also the only professional who diagnosed Lara with a
tongue-tie which explained the difficulties I was having to feed her.
My poor baby had to have a procedure on her tongue when she was just
three weeks old. Furthermore, she was also referred to an osteopath
who improved considerably her sucking reflex. But all that has paid
off. Two weeks later (five weeks after birth) Lara finally succeeded
on my breast and I almost went to the street screaming “she latched
on, she latched on!!!”. It felt like that was the biggest
achievement of all my life. Of course her latch wasn't perfect, my
nipples cracked a few times and the pain was horrific so I still had
to use the nipple shield on and off until week 12. She's four months
old now and both me and her love feeding time.
We, mothers, go through a lot on the
first few weeks of a newborn's life. All that made me appreciate even
more the mother I have and also to admire all other mothers that are
in the world. I had a hard start to motherhood but all that seemed so
irrelevant when I saw Lara's first smile. Suddenly a wave of emotions
diluted all my exhaustion and I melted in happy tears.
