Orla's progress

Orla is three weeks old today and was 2.95 kilos at her last weigh-in on Monday. It feels as though she is emerging from prematurity into newborn-ness. We no longer have to time her feeds during the day (nor at night, providing that there is no more than 4 hours between feeds – of course Orla has been waking through the night at 3 hours on the dot!). She has grown out of one of her little quintuple zero outfits.

When she is awake, she is very interested in her surroundings. She scans my face, and it seems like she is trying to focus her eyes on mine. She looks around to the top of my head, then out from side to side, sometimes fixing on the contrast between my red cardy and white t-shirt. She makes all those little newborn expressions - the “ooo” with her lips, the grimace (that looks so much like a smile!), the tongue-poke, the raising of the little eyebrows, the little worried look. Her skin is looking a lot more like my babies’ skin usually looks.

She sleeps now with her arms alongside her head, rather than down along her body. She still curls her little fingers around mine. Orla loves her black and white pictures, and will stare and stare at them, as if fixing the images in her memory. And her little face seems to be filling out a little bit.

Next weigh-in is Friday – I’m hopeful we will continue to see progress.

Emily's debut

Emily was Isabelle's Christmas present from Father Christmas. She is a very special tender engine - dark green with brass trimmings. She was so precious that Isabelle did not remove her from her box, but kept her untouched and perfect, up high on her chest of drawers out of little brother's reach.

However, a couple of days ago (while Aidan was sleeping), Emily made her debut! Since then, Emily has been brought out of hiding a couple more times. Aidan was even able to touch her (briefly).

Emily is an interesting character. She is relatively new on the scene, replacing Duck in the "top 8" line-up of engines on the British television series. I imagine that this was for gender reasons (all the main engines being male in the original books). Now it is easy to roll your eyes at this, but Isabelle really does respond to female characters in her books, tv programmes and play. Lately it has been very important to her if this or that is a girl or a boy (which has coincided with her heightened interest in traditionally "girly" things like pink, pretty clothes and Barbie). She is especially fond of her three female engines, which are pictured below. Emily is in the middle, flanked by Lady on the left, and Mavis on the right.

Donation

We made our yearly donation to the TAB this afternoon (otherwise known as the Wellington Cup). This morning I scanned the racing page - first of all I looked at the form guide, then I perused the names of the horses running. There were no particularly inspiring or auspicious names this year, which made selection more difficult. In the end I chose So You (number 5), who looked promising. Number 5 came in around the middle of the field. One of Brendon's selections came in third, but he had placed the bet for a win, so there were no spoils this year.

Update on progress

The midwife came and weighed Orla yesterday. She is now 2.7 kilos - up 200 g from the last weigh-in, and well above her birth weight of 2.44 kilos.

Output is good, input is regular, although I'm having to wake her up for night feeds to keep to the three-hourly arrangement. Hopefully I can stop that soon and settle into her natural rhythms once she has gained a bit more weight.

Aidan's hair

Aidan didn't have a lot of hair when he was born - he was not a baldy-babe, but he was not exactly hairy either. As he (and his hair) grew, he was definitely a little blonde boy. However, now there's red in his hair - strawberry-blonde kind of red, like his Dad. In particular, there's one streak of reddish hair right on top of his head, which makes him appear to some adults as a little red-head straight away (given that adults have a bird's eye view!). His hair is thickening too - no worries about sun protection for his hatless scalp any more, unlike last summer.

Random thought

While watching the telly last night, I thought how much I like the prices at Kirks. Not the amount, but the way it is presented. None of this $4.99, $9.97 or $19.95 stuff. This is a place where you can buy an item for $5, $10, or $20, with a single crisp note.

Own bed

Last night I slept in my own bed for the first time in about two weeks.

After coming home from the hospital, I was sleeping in Isabelle's single bed with Orla beside me in her bassinet. Brendon was in the big bed with Isabelle and Aidan (with Aidan sometimes starting the night out in his cot, which is at the end of our bed).

I hadn't slept in Isabelle's room before. It is a lovely wee bedroom - very warm as it only has one small outside wall, but light and bright as it is on the sunny side of the house.

This worked well as a transitional arrangement. I know that Isabelle was not keen to be by herself in her own room. Being in with Daddy seemed to provide a bit of security.

Last night Isabelle had the choice of going back to her own room, or sharing a room with Grandma in the new bunks. She was keen to try out the top bunk, and happily settled there for the whole night. I'm happy for her to stay there as long as she wants - she might even switch to the bunks permanently. Aidan is also keen to sleep in the bunks (although I know he would seek out our bed in the middle of the night!). However, small active two year old boys and unsupervised access to bunks don't really mix, so he may have to wait a little while yet.

Orla had a very settled night, so was obviously unperturbed by the change of room.

Milestones

For Mother:

I have been told to start exercising gently to hasten my recovery. Yesterday I walked for seven minutes up the road and back - today it was ten! I could feel that my back and stomach muscles were working too. Yesterday was also my first day out of maternity clothes (although I wore one of my larger pairs of hipster jeans).

I seem to be able to cope with the waking schedule so long as I have one good sleep during the day. Luckily I achieved that around lunchtime today.

For Orla:

Daddy gave Orla her first bath at home today. After some initial protests, she really enjoyed floating in the the warm, deep water. Orla also enjoyed wearing her first pair of cloth nappies today (fuzzibunz extra small size).

Foreshadowing

The day before Orla's birth:

1. As I was updating my diary, I mentioned to Brendon "Ooo, we have a vacancy for a birthday in January".
2. The woman we are hiring Orla's car seat from rang up "Oh no, no hurry at all, we have another month to go yet".
3. In the evening I watched a birthing video.

Routines

Here was our routine in the hospital.

1. Feed Orla.
2. Express (up to 20 minutes).
3. Label and refrigerate EBM.
4. Clean and disinfect expressing equipment.
5. Struggle back to room.
6. Toilet.
7. Eat and drink.
8. Rest.
9. Back to Orla - change nappy, take her temperature.
10. Feed Orla.

This was in a three hour cycle over the 24 hours (or until Orla woke, whichever came first).

Now we are doing:

1. Feed Orla.
2. Eat, drink, toilet - even attend to personal hygiene!
3. Rest, or do something with older children, or do tasks like updating my blog.
4. Back to Orla when she wakes, or no longer than three hours later - change and feed.

This happens maybe 8 times over the 24 hour period. The scheduling thing is due to her prematurity - she needs to be constantly topped up in order to thrive. As she matures we will be able to do the more flexible demand feeding that I am used to. Once she's over 3 kilos we are allowed to leave her to sleep for one 5 hour period each 24 hours (unless she decides she's hungry first of course!).

Reflections

It's hard to record what has happened over the past week. Everything gets jumbled together - things that felt like they took an eternity took only a few hours. Memories of events are probably unreliable - although the memories of the emotions are strong and unlikely to fade for a while.

Good news this afternoon - the hospital tests came back within normal range and we have been discharged to midwifery care. Hopefully now it is time to move from a sickness model of caring for Orla to a wellness model. We are still having to do things in a different way from how you treat a full-term newborn, but if she continues to gain weight we should be able to move gradually into normality.

The older two are doing well and love their new little sister. Isabelle had her first hold today.

Tonight is our first night with just the five of us here. Grandma and Grandad left today, although Grandma is returning Sunday night. Nana Pam comes tomorrow afternoon. It is wonderful to have family around to support us. In addition, we have been very lucky to have friends here who have already sent gifts and meal offers, all of which we are gratefully accepting.

Orla

She has blonde eyebrows and dark hair - more hair than my last two. When I had my first good look at her, her little face was red - she was bundled up in unfamiliar clothes with a little pink hat on her head. Her fingers were tiny, with sharp little fingernails! It was heartbreaking to see her other little hand bound up with a lure coming out, attached to a drip. A feeding tube was taped across her cheek and down to her nose.

Little Orla Rose arrived early at 35 weeks plus six days. She was born by emergency c-section at 2.42 pm (after spontaneous rupture of membranes at 4.00 am) on Wednesday 10 January 2007. After the briefest of times with me, she was whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit. She weighed 2440 g (5 lb 6 oz).

We are now at home after a week in the hospital. We are going back there today for further testing, but I am hopeful that all will be well.

Cleaning

I am starting to experiment with "natural" or "traditional" cleaning products. My reasons are:
1. Cost. Baking soda and vinegar are a lot cheaper than what else is going! Over the last year of so I've been increasing my use of eco-friendly products, and they are often more expensive than the mass produced standard version.
2. Environment. I'm increasingly aware of all the strange things that are going down our drains and into the sewerage system, or on our bodies.
3. Chemicals. Don't get me wrong here. I find a lot of the stuff that is written about "harmful chemicals" frustrating, anti-scientific or extremely overblown. However, it seems to make sense to keep it simple wherever possible, especially around young children.

Today's experiment was baking soda as scourer. I tried it in my sink and benchtop. It seemed to do the job really well. An earlier experiment using plain baking soda rather than dishwasher detergent worked a treat too. I can't believe it worked so well - I'm not sure it would get fully greasy dishes clean, but I can always keep some extra product on hand for those occasions. I've also swapped my usual handcream for an "all natural", NZ made product. Only one day into that trial so far though.

Projects for the future will be a vinegar mix for windows, vinegar and tea-tree oil concoction rather than surface spray, and baking soda oven cleaner. Once my hair calms down post-delivery (I find my shampooing needs change rapidly in the pregnant and post-natal periods), I'm going to try baking soda "shampoo" with apple cider vinegar rinse "conditioner". Will report on results in the fullness of time....

Bits and pieces

The Christmas decorations came down on Saturday (and our last Christmas card arrived!).

We have now also purchased our 2007 calendar. It's motorbikes this year, featuring Valentino Rossi on my birthday month. Brendon and I watched him win the Philip Island Grand Prix pre-children.

The weekend has been spent mainly doing household chores and doing some satisfying cleaning out of various nooks and crannies that have needed attention for some time.

Kereru

Finally - a visit today from that strange yellow ball up in the sky - and hardly any wind! After a quick visit to the midwife first thing, we stayed at home for the rest of the day enjoying the weather. We baked some muffins (raspberry, chocolate chip and blueberry) and I did a few loads of washing (including the first batch of baby clothes!).

After dinner we sat outside round the back. The children played in the garden and covered me with grass and daisies. Aidan tried to dig up the potatoes. Isabelle hosed the steps. Then, much excitement - a kereru flew from its previously unseen perch on our pohutakawa tree off to a nearby pine. I can't remember seeing one on our property before. It sat on the pine tree for 3-4 minutes before swooping down into the valley below. (Leaving our place coincided with Brendon turning the Shihad cd off - must be a link there, as we have no real food attractions for a wood pigeon...).

I reported the sighting via the web to the nearby Karori Sanctuary, which seems to encourage locals to tell them which of their charges ends up where.

Rudolph?

Isabelle and Aidan were thrilled to have visitors this morning. Between Christmas and the pox (marks I and II) we have been isolated from other children for some time.

During the visit, I showed the girls Brendon's deer hide, which has been recently relocated from the garage to the lounge room floor. I showed them the bullet hole and a photo of Brendon with the deer (which was shot during his trip to Stewart Island a good six months back).

I thought I may have traumatised the younger girl when she looked up at me and said "a reindeer?". I had visions of her imagining Brendon taking pot shots at Rudolph et al. on Christmas Eve....

No, no (I was quick to reassure her). White tailed deer! Pest management! Native bush regeneration!

Thankfully, when I related this to her mother when she came to do pick up, she was able to tell me that actually they had a reindeer skin at their place (and this may have been what she was thinking about all along). Here's hoping!

A wintry New Year

It is just plain cold here at the moment! Whatever happened to summer? I have been sheltering inside for most of today, thinking how ironic it was that only a couple of days ago, the heaters were put up into the garage for seasonal storage....

I did manage to stay up long enough to see the New Year in though. We hired some dvds - Aidan chose Thomas the Tank Engine x 2, while Isabelle chose Barbie of Swan Lake and Barbie as Rapunzel. For the adults, we had The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The Narnia dvd was very faithful to the book and technically well done. I thought that, like the Lord of the Rings, we could play "spot the NZ actor" throughout, but that turned out not to be the case (well, I did see one...).

We turned down two invitations to go out due to Aidan's chicken pox. Thankfully, the spots are receding and he has been sleeping well at night.