Surviving the first week

From Lauren_Week1

Our first week as parents has been full of joy...and learning.

After clawing together a few hours of sleep after Lauren's spectacular arrival on Monday morning, I headed back into the hospital to see my girls. They were doing well and Lauren was passing all her tests (she's bound to be intelligent this child). But because she was technically premature she was very sleepy and so wasn't feeding as well as the staff would have liked. This meant she was a little jaundiced, although one of our guests commented on her lovely olive complexion.

Since all our plans were out the window and family wasn't arriving for another couple of weeks I headed back to work while Nicola and Lauren were in hospital. But I was always back in the evenings to spend a few hours cuddled up with them both in bed.

From Lauren_Week1

We had a steady stream of visitors keen to meet the new arrival and it wasn't long until Nicola's ward looked like a baby gift shop. So each evening when I had to reluctantly leave them behind, I packed up all the gifts and shuttled them back home.

Over these days Lauren lost weight because she wasn't feeding properly and dropped down to 2.3kg. This was a bigger drop than the staff would have liked so they started to supplement her feeds with formula. This had the desired effect of stablising her and starting to wash out the jaundice and on Thursday Nicola was allowed to leave hospital. I was there ready to go and I can tell you I have never driven so carefully in my life. Never again will I berate a guy for driving at 10km/hour - he may have just collected his newborn from hospital...

The rest of Lauren's first week was spent with Mummy and Daddy learning what it was they had to do. Changing nappies isn't as easy as it looks and on the first night we had an accident in the cot because Daddy didn't put one on properly. And getting up every 3 hours for an hour and a half for a feed just messes with your head. By the time morning rocks up you're not exactly sure how much sleep you've had, but you know it hasn't been enough. 

We also had our first bath, which was a bit of screamfest, but hey, we've made it through Lauren's first week without any major dramas...this could actually all turn out to be okay.

For pictures of Lauren's first week click here.