Some memories of Alder's second month

Before the early days fade

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.

Some memories from Alder's first month

Early morning notes

This'll all change the moment I write it down, I'm sure!

Right now, Alder wakes at about eight when two of his sisters get up for the day. He coos at them while I get up, and then falls back to sleep on one of them when we get downstairs. I get to have breakfast, wash some dishes, prep ahead for meals later in the day, hang out the nappies from the evening wash, and set up anything we need for the day ahead. It's amazing having all these hands wanting to love on the baby, and him being so happy with them.

I have never been this organised, with a newborn in the house or otherwise. I mean I've not done my tax return or anything, but...

A birth story

It begins in a series of painful compromises, and a lot of anxiety. I was booked for induction on the 6th of December, at 42 weeks pregnant. The consultant listened to my history of short, spontaneous, hugely overdue labours, and told me that statistically if I hadn't gone into labour by ten days overdue I wouldn't at all and would have to be induced eventually. I've never been induced, and never gone into labour *before* ten days over. I felt horribly uncertain and worried and guilty.

Birthday season was upon us, and I knew if I declined intervention that day I would quite likely end up in hospital for several days over Morgan and Talia's birthdays. I wasn't comfortable going past 43 weeks, but 43 weeks would put me at Morgan's birthday as Alder had the same due date just eleven years later. There seemed to be only wrong answers. 

Eventually, I went home. As soon as I had decided to give myself a couple more days to think about it, I felt at peace again. I slept well, and only half roused when Martin left for work in the early hours of the morning. I had the clear, distinct thought that I should tell him I was having contractions - but I was more asleep than awake still and the waves were light. I drifted back to sleep.

When I woke at six I knew I was going to be having a baby soon. I let Martin know, and he started trying to make arrangements to redistribute his workload (work had refused to make any arrangements for cover because, and I quote, "we can't plan for what hasn't happened yet"). I swayed and walked through some very irregular contractions, then felt a very small "pop" and trickle of waters. I woke Jenna to help me, and she phoned her grandma to come over in case any of the kiddos didn't want to stick around later on. Then I phoned for a midwife, to be told the homebirth service had been cancelled overnight and a midwife wouldn't be available until 8am. Things were happening pretty fast and I wasn't convinced either a midwife or  Martin would be with us in time. My options were to wait for my mum and then phone an ambulance, or wait at home and prepare to birth unassisted just in case nobody got to us in time. (Not something we hadn't considered, anyhow, given how quickly Talia arrived!)

Jenna set out a waterproof sheet, found me a towel to sit on, calmly let grandma know there wouldn't be a midwife for a while, put lavender oil in the diffuser, and made sure I had something to drink. She was unbelievably poised and reassuring, in spite of later telling me she was running through all the things she knows about birth and quietly hoping we wouldn't be alone.

My mum arrived, followed mercifully by a midwife who told my (now two!) assembled supporters that she didn't think they'd have time to set up the birth pool. I didn't think so either, but I was starting to feel both slightly spacey and a bit uncomfortable that Martin might not make it home in time. I was mainly labouring leaning forwards on my elbows, trying to get some breathing space between contractions which were occasionally coming one after another without any real break from the intensity.

At some point the new shift of midwives arrived (the first had been at the end of a hospital shift and had come out anyway, hearing I would otherwise be alone) and one was a soft voice I knew from Talia's birth. I was almost fully turned inwards by then, barely aware of voices as distant irrelevant things in a world of powerful surges and shifting within me. I felt Martin's arms around me, and leaned in to him, feeling fully safe and ready for the first time. I had been in labour for about three hours in total by that point but it felt both incredibly fast and endless. 

I have no idea how the last part of my labour passed, right up until I recall refusing a sip of water followed by being aware that my body was bearing down and a HUGE splash of clear waters, and the satisfying weight of a head fully birthed. Then a pause, the first gap in contractions in hours, and a midwife offered me an arm to help me change positions. I gathered later they were concerned about the wait, but at the time I was quite happy to move now I was finally not contracting back to back, and I held on to her arms to move myself, aware of Martin supporting my back. Baby just slid out without a push from me, caught by several hands and then in mine. A heavy soft slippery warm real presence in my arms, my eyes still closed, everything in the entire world irrelevant for a moment.

Hands, my family there patting me on the back (quite literally, darling strange children), the midwives sending children running for another towel, a fresh drink for me (water has never tasted so wonderful after an intense labour and eight months of acid-taste!), and all the while just gazing at a tiny pink confused puffy face with huge dark grey eyes.

I felt like a warrior. I could have done *anything* in that moment.

Walking to the sofa with shaking legs, after birthing the placenta and exclaiming over having a son and all four sisters having a little happy cry, turned out to be quite enough anything for a while. Of course. And then we weighed the little pudding and discovered he was actually 10lb 4oz. Heck yes I grew that whilst suffering hyperemesis. Somehow.

It took over a day to name him. And almost a month later I can still barely believe we get to keep him. But the second I held him, it was pure overwhelming love and such a sense of rightness. I can't imagine our family without him.

Alder Luc. Welcome, welcome, tiny one.

In a year

This time last year I did not imagine I would see in this New Year breastfeeding a newborn again.

At times last year was unbearable. And yet we bore it. We couldn't take one more step and yet we did.

This year we already have some sparkle back. This, this is everything. Yes, he was a hundred times worth it. (And yes, never again!)

How the light gets in

It's Christmas day and I'm holding my newborn son, warm in his blue sunflower romper, and I'm thinking of Polly.

I've been thinking of her a lot over the last few months; one of the few people who really know the hell of hyperemesis and the crushing darkness it can bring to a time with so many expectations of joy and lightness. I have been lucky, so so lucky, that the moment Alder arrived I felt that rush of relief and the whole ten months faded instantly. The midwife who had been trying to coax me to drink sent Rowan running for a cup of water and I drained it in one and said, "it tastes like water!" The past two weeks have been all the lightness and joy I could have wished for, in spite of everything. I'm still crying allll the time but it's relief and happiness. I wish I could share this with Polly. She'd cry for me, too.

When I bought the sunflower sleepsuit months ago I thought of Pol. I knew I'd think of her every time I dressed my baby in it. Clung to that sunshine, light through darkness, she'll be remembered with sunshine, this long long grieving pregnancy will end with light.

I have food poisoning. I spent part of my Christmas afternoon being sick. And part of it talking to a suicidal stranger on a comments thread. I have no idea if she's still with us and I might never know. I told her although we're strangers, we're sisters, and I meant it fiercely. Holding my newborn son, remembering a dear friend for whom nobody could hold it all together no matter how much we loved her. We never really know for sure if the love we send is received, if it helps. We love anyway.

Love and loss and pain and fierce joy. The sounds of my children arguing, giggling, eating all the food. Morgan brought me a plate of crackers upstairs so I didn't attempt to sleep on an empty stomach. This was not the Christmas I planned, or the update I planned to write, and yet here it is. Imperfect. How the light gets in.

A month, feeling heart-achey and exhausted

1: Window sill

2: Rosliston

3: Baby Loss wave of light candle

4: Huge pouty face for the dry arms

5: Gritty floor, mama's journal

Another whole month and I have barely taken any more photographs than this. When I created a new blog space for myself it was with the feeling that I wanted to journal my own creative explorations more, start finding the courage to post my poetry and art, begin to accept and enjoy the lovely and liberating aspects of moving out of the baby phase of family life.

I feel like I've spent seven months using a series of placeholders to chart an ongoing feeling of panic and disbelief. I wanted another baby. I chose this. But I didn't *expect* it, and every part of it. Impossible, exhausting beyond anything I've ever done, a series of "life spiralling out of the familiar and safe". Hyperemesis whilst attempting to keep a creative business alive, home educate four children, and not give way to the lurking depths of depression and anxiety which I'd so thoroughly shaken off before this awful sickness. This isn't what I expected to be writing about. Feeling. Experiencing. 

I'm tired of my own misery, bored of trying to articulate it, sick of trying to justify it, worn down by trying to minimise it.

Where the hell has this year gone? It feels right now like so much failure and wasted time. I feel like I should be feeling strong, prepared, grateful, any number of things other than sad. I wanted a better year for my children. I wanted a better "one last" pregnancy for everyone. I wanted to approach birth feeling optimistic and joyful.

Just a little longer.

Getting there

1: Rowan, play area, bee shorts
2: Blessing the wriggly creature, and mothering the mother
3: Jenna, woodland, baby Torin
4: Henna fading, new pyjamas
5: Morgan with a pancake sandwich because reasons
6: Talia and F chalking their names in town

The midwife is still telling me off for losing weight, though I do honestly feel the hyperemesis is improving now (albeit still really tiring and emotionally draining). Martin is gradually recovering too, and we're finally able to leave the house a little more. It has been a seriously strange few weeks really! We've had a heck of a lot of help getting through it, and of course I have cried a fair bit about not deserving these beautiful people who show up time and time again. Smallest human is mainly head down now, and I am finally starting to feel like I can survive another two months.