I haven't found the time to write, not for lack of intent. Life is full in a warm, rounded, content way. We have our sparkle back. But I am feeling drawn to record that first terrifying week when everything seemed to be going wrong...
On the second day after birth, Alder was quite snuffly and wasn't staying latched for more than a minute at a time. He seemed okay, and we took ourselves to the hospital for his newborn checks, and I spent the rest of the time just cuddled up with him feeding on and off day and night.
On the Sunday he cried all day. I couldn't get him to settle to feed, and was worried enough to sterilise a plastic cup and express some milk to try to cup feed to him. His cry changed, like nothing I'd heard before. Hoarse and weak. We called the community midwives out. They were just as puzzled. "He looks like a well baby, but that cry..." Then we weighed him. He had dropped a huge amount of weight.
And that's how we missed both Morgan and Talia's birthdays, in hospital with a tiny baby with low blood sugar. I expressed constantly and we cup fed him a little every three hours just to be sure he would start wetting nappies again. As quickly as he declined, he improved again. His cry got stronger. His nappies got heavier. We dropped the cup feeds.
It took a month more for me to relax about his feeding, and even now I'm prone to burst into tears if he cries at the breast. He has a tiny scar on the back of one hand from the worst of the blood tests (the one where blood went everywhere except in the test tube, Alder collapsed silently afterwards, and then the results came back "sample insufficient").
(Typing that takes me right back even though he's happy and plump and sleepy in my arms.)
The best explanation we have is that "something" (likely a mild cold) threw his feeding off and my supply tanked. After nursing four other babies, this one happened to throw a curve ball.
And now we're fine.
