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2005-01-05 - 10.36pm��previous entry��next entry
8 weeks and 1 day old - first immunisations!
Thank you for the lovely guestbook messages � you guys are so encouraging! :) I am so proud of my breastmilk while I�ve been ill! Thank you for all the comments on how cute Arthur is � you KNOW I love to hear it!! :)
I thought I would update to let you know how today went. The health visitor came round today, which was nice. She is so lovely and encouraging every time she comes round. She kept telling me how proud I should be of myself and how wonderful my milk is and how brilliantly I am looking after Arthur :) That�s always so nice to hear! Arthur weighs 11lbs 4oz!!! Wow! The last time he was weighed was when I was ill, at 6 weeks old, and he was 10lbs 7oz then, so he is gaining weight wonderfully still, even when I was ill and with less breastmilk than normal. I AM proud of myself! :) I couldn�t stop smiling for a while after she told me what he weighed! I felt so good that something positive came of the Christmas period and that I had managed something so special despite how ill I was. Arthur is just a touch below the 50th percentile, so pretty much where he has been since birth, which is great.
I talked to Terri (the health visitor) for ages about how I�ve been and stuff. She asked me lots of things, because she said this particular appointment was more about me than Arthur. She gave me a questionnaire to fill in about my emotions � it�s about postnatal depression. But you have to answer questions about your emotions over the past 7 days, and I said I thought being ill would affect how I�d answer the questions over the past week, so she is coming back in 2 weeks to see me again, and then I can fill in the questionnaire more accurately. She wants to weigh Arthur again in 2 weeks as well, because she said she can see how much encouragement it gives me :) Yay! I love having him weighed!
I used up all my strength jiggling him to sleep while Terri was here, and after she left I found it quite hard to lift him up or hold him, which scared me a little. My arms just feel so weak and rubbery. I got tired and giddy so I took him upstairs to bed and breastfed him to sleep in the afternoon, but he woke almost straight away so I brought him down again. I felt unsafe with him on the stairs which scared me into keeping him downstairs for the rest of the day. I hope I get stronger soon. I was scared about taking him to the doctor�s in the afternoon, because of how weak I felt. I didn�t know if I could carry him in his carseat or get the travel system out of the car when we got there. But I managed in the end.
So Arthur had his first immunisations today! He had the first of his Hib boosters � tetanus, meningitis C, Hib, diphtheria, whooping cough and polio. He had the Hib booster in one thigh and the meningitis C in the other thigh :( Poor baby. He was asleep when we went in to see the nurse. I LOVE when I am sitting in a waiting room and someone comes out and calls, �Arthur (surname)?� I love hearing other people say his name, especially in an official capacity! We chose that name and it�s his. He really exists!! That sounds so crazy but sometimes it�s still so surreal to me that I have a baby boy � he�s really here, and it�s not like I have a favourite teddy who I�ve called Arthur, he�s a real person and people are really using the lovely name we chose to address him! I can�t really explain it, but it�s such a rush whenever someone says his name, because he�s mine! I really have a baby boy called Arthur! :)
Anyway he was such a good boy today. He was fast asleep when we went in to see the nurse. I had dressed him in comfy pyjamas for ease of access to his little legs, and so that he would be as comfy as possible. The nurse said she needed me to pull his trousers down so she could access both his thighs for the 2 injections, and I asked her if I could breastfeed him while she did it. I had to wake him to feed him, and he was soooo sleepy, I felt so bad! The nurse did the first injection a few moments after I started feeding him, and he let go the breast and screeched with pain, poor little love. He cried but I got him back on the breast as quick as I could, and he settled down straight away and sucked. When the nurse did the other injection he didn�t even flinch, which I�m glad about! The first site bled but the second one didn�t need a plaster on it. After that I fed him for a while longer and chatted to the nurse, and then Arthur brought some milk up and I had to sign a form to say I consented to the immunisation, and the nurse held Arthur while I did that because he was crying. She enjoyed cuddling him because she said it had been a long time since she had held a baby boy :) Plus he is so cute! Everyone loves cuddling Arthur!
He cried a bit when I put him back in the pushchair, but he stopped crying to smile at the nurse on the way out � isn�t he lovely?! He LOVES to smile. He smiles no matter what. Here is a photo of him taken this morning on his playmat. See? Smiley boy:
And here is Arthur about 2 minutes after I got him home from having his injections � he wasn�t even out of his car seat yet! But he�s doing his favourite thing even after the ordeal he went through!....
SUCH a cutie. He talked to me for ages after I took his photo, and I even got to phone my mummy and let her hear Arthur cooing and babbling away for a while. She loved that, of course!
But of course he has not been quite so smiley this evening, poor love. He got super sleepy a couple of hours after his injections, and when he woke up he was screeching and squealing and crying and he wouldn�t stop. He didn�t get a fever this evening, which I�m glad about. We gave him infant Calpol like the nurse suggested and I breastfed him right after we gave it to him, and let him stay on the breast for comfort for an HOUR (ow my nipples! � he doesn�t stop sucking), and then when he finally came off the breast he was back to his normal self again. We can give him another dose any time after midnight if he needs it, so we�ll see how he goes. I hope he will feel better soon and be over the side effects quickly. Hopefully tomorrow won�t be too difficult for us, because today was hard. I don�t feel well today. I feel worse than yesterday for some reason. I have white spots on my tonsils. What is up with that? Neil and I have continued to have a sore throat despite the flu clearing up, and today I decided to have a look in mine and I saw the white spots. Usually that means tonsillitis for me, but I have no fever so it can�t be that. Hmmm. When Neil got home I took a torch to his throat and sure enough, there are the white spots on his tonsils too. Weird. Not sure what to do about that really. Anyway I have felt generally crummy and ill today, and I have a bad headache this evening (great idea to use the computer with a headache, but never mind!).
That doctor I saw yesterday left me a message on the answer machine today. I never had a doctor do that before. She said my bloods came back fine so I am not anaemic, but she was taking another look at my blood pressure and my notes and she would like me to go back to see her so she can take more blood for some other tests. So yeah that has made me sort of nervous. I don�t know why she would want to do that. And what is up with my blood pressure? I thought it was normal when she took it yesterday � I think it was something like 115/75 which is normal. I suppose my norm is usually a bit lower than that, but it�s a perfectly healthy blood pressure. Anyway I have made an appointment to see her Friday morning. Maybe I can ask her about my throat then too if it�s still bothering me? But I�m a bit nervous about what she�s thinking.
Um, what else? I don�t know what else. Arthur is sleeping on Neil at the moment downstairs. I just fed him for ages till he was all sleepy and settled, and then Neil took him while I came upstairs to upload a couple of photos and update my diary. So I will leave you with the other 2 photos that I uploaded, and I�ll hopefully be able to update again soon. Neil is asking at work if he can work from home for a little while, until I am stronger, because I am not doing too well at the moment on my own all day with Arthur, though I do LOVE looking after him, even when it�s hard. I just don�t feel well today and it is hard to manage him and look after myself as well. He thinks they will let him, as they let people work from a laptop at home quite often. Anyway, here are the photos:
I do love my boy sooooooo much! :)
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