Pulling faces

Most of the photos I've taken of Evelyn have been while she was asleep. That's because when she's awake there hasn't really been time to get the camera out! But here are some photos of her awake, pulling faces as she sat on my knee. She was very alert and taking in her surroundings. I'd just come home from work (my first day back) and she spent a lot of time looking at my face.

Having spent so much time looking after Evelyn it was very odd to be back in the office and not know what she was up to all day. But it was very nice to be the object of her attention when I got home again!

Almost smiling!

Sticking her tongue out

Daddy I've had enough of photos now!

How cute is this??!!

These pictures were taken on Tuesday, when Evelyn was two weeks old. She's asleep in her moses basket, swaddled to stop her arms flailing about. (JojoMamanBebe swaddling cloths have a cunning velcro and pocket arrangement that makes this easy to do).

Now I know I'm biased, but these are really really cute aren't they?

It seems like a lot more than two weeks since Evelyn was born. I'm sure this is partly because of how much hard work it's been, and partly because all our days are quite similar (feed, nappy, sleep, repeat) so it's easy to lose count, but I think it's mostly because she's already become such an important and integral part of our lives that it's hard to believe she wasn't here such a short time ago.

Video of Evelyn

I've taken some video of Evelyn, both on our last day in hospital and since she came home. Sorry it's not been edited down - put it down to a lack of time to do that, rather than a doting father who can't bear to cut a single frame.

A trip around the courtyard

On Tuesday we took Evelyn out in her buggy for a walk for the first time. Although we only did 3 laps round the pond in our courtyard, it was nice to get her outside. Kirsty also relished her first trip outside (apart from going to and from the hospital) for over a week, but found it quite tiring.

Back in the flat Evelyn has a break from feeding. This is increasingly rare, as she seems to enojy eating slowly over a three hour period until it is time for the next meal. I think she inherited that behaviour from my side of the family.

Yesterday Granny Craze and Aunt Helen came to visit ans to keep Kirsty company whilst I went out for a run. (The run made me realise just how tired I am!) Here's Evelyn with Helen.

Lots of nice presents

Evelyn has been receiving more visitors in the last couple of days including some of our friends who live locally, plus two uncles (Jonny and Bryn) and two more aunties (Helen and Jo - pictured).

She's also received lots of lovely gifts. These include:

A bouquet of clothes:

A bouquet of chocolates (ok, these are for us):

A little lamb:

A big teddy

Some cupcake socks:

And a lovely New Zealand sheepskin:

Evelyn has been feeding lots (for 1-2 hours at a time) and sleeping lots too. There's been very little of this...

More pictures of Evelyn

(The link to the pictures is at the end of this post.)

The last few days have been exciting and exhausting. I've managed to take quite a few photos of Evelyn, but it's been much harder to find the time to sort through them all and post them online. As I write this Evelyn is asleep in her moses basket, resting next to me on the sofa, and Kirsty is asleep in bed. We've decided that the best time for Kirsty to sleep is whenever Evelyn wants to sleep, because whenever Evelyn is awake she wants feeding - often for 2 hours at a time. This is fine in the middle of the afternoon, although it stops Kirsty doing anything else. But when it's 3am, its hard for Kirsty to stay awake during the feed. She has a lot of sleep to catch up on, after getting absolutely no sleep at all from when labour started (5pm Sunday) until after we left hospital (Thursday night).

Evelyn was awake throughout the night for her two nights in hospital, and sleepier through the day: her body clock seems to be upside down. Sharing a room with three other newborns didn't help either, as they would all set each other off.

On her first night home, Evelyn also didn't sleep much, but this time it was my turn to look after her. She didn't want to sleep and wasn't happy unless she was being cuddled and walked up and down. Between the hours of 1 and 4 AM I worked out exactly the right speed to pace in order to keep her quiet. At that speed one lap of the flat takes about 45 seconds. I probably did this over a hundred times.

Last night was much better, Kirsty's milk has started to come in properly instead of colostrum. Evelyn is loving it and feeding for up to two hours at a time. This means lots of wet nappies, but it also means that afterwards she'll sleep for 2-3 hours, which is marvellous. This morning she did even better than that, sleeping from 6:30am to 11:30am. A new record.

Thank you to everyone who has sent cards, emails, text messages and gifts. I'm sorry we probably won't manage to reply and thank you all individually. We're very grateful and touched to hear from so many people.

Finally, a very big thank you to Kirsty's parents, who came and cooked us dinner last night. It was delicious (so much better than Kirsty's diet of hospital food and my diet of takeaways from the Chinese restaurants nearest the hospital!), and really nice to see you both.

Right, I better go, as Evelyn is beginning to stir, so I will stop rambling an actually provide links the the photos that were promised in the title of this post.

Here are the pictures

More of Evelyn's first day including her first photo from 50 minutes after she was born

Days 2-4, mostly in the hospital, with a few at home.

First photos of Evelyn

Evelyn snoozes in mummy's arms

Evelyn does a mirror image of her "4D scan" pose (compare with the second photo in this post)

Evelyn in her cot

Evelyn holding daddy's little finger

A new arrival

Our little one has finally arrived! Evelyn Amy was born at 2:33AM (BST) this morning weighing in at 9lbs 10oz and (perhaps unsurprisingly) is 62cm tall.

The labour started on Sunday afternoon, lasting nearly 34 hours. Every technique in the book was tried to get the baby out, ending with a c-section in the small hours of the morning. Mum and baby are still at the hospital, probably until Thursday. Both are doing fine, but exhausted. Dad is also exhausted, but not expecting any sympathy for that.

We'll post a picture and more details as soon as we're organised enough.

41 Week Bump Pic!

Yep I am STILL here and have the photos to prove it!

41+0 Dive Smidget Dive!

It's been a bit of a roller coaster this week. I started the week thinking that nothing was progressing and the likelihood was that I was heading for an induction next week. Not what I wanted at all, but having put my mind to accepting that it would be a medicalised birth I actually felt quite cheerful to at least have a plan and an end date.

Of course having then said this to several people, it was inevitable that the goal posts would be moved, which happened on Wednesday when I went to see the midwife. (WARNING: incoming TMI alert) She did a membrane sweep , which is supposed to get things going and discovered that I was actually already 1 or maybe 2cm dilated, fully effaced, softened and head engaged the sweep also brought on the "show" (If none of that made any sense, basically it means that all is primed and ready to go, I won't explain it all as frankly most of it is quite minging and you can all google it if you really want to). The midwife said she'd book me in to see her again next Wednesday and book an induction for either that day or the next, but she was pretty confident that it'd happen by itself before then.

So, back to plan A and I was feeling quite pleased again, but now another 3 days have passed and still nothing but the ongoing aches and tightening that I've been having for a few weeks and I'm starting to get very very frustrated with this now. It's not being helped by the fact that all the other NCT babies are now here and have been for nearly a week, the oldest two are a month old already!

Grrr, oh and to add insult to injury the cricket was rained off today so I couldn't even watch that!

Kxxx

41+1

PS. I can now confirm that curry definitely doesn't work, (was worth another go tho hey?) neither does pineapple, raspberry leaf tea, membrane sweeps, walking, stair climbing, acupuncture (tho that was nice on my back), cuddling other peoples babies or being prodded by my friend Rachel.