Day-old Jack

No, don't worry, I'm not going to write something for every day he is old - but coming back into hospital today and seeing Claire playing with Jack's little fingers was a great feeling, sort of how I imagined it should be, if that makes sense?

Anyway, in terms of a progress update, both Claire and Jack are doing well.

Jack is being a bit of a nuisance in not wanting to feed properly - it's not really as big a problems it may initially sound, "he's just a lazy boy...", or so I was told by Daniela, one of the midwives.

Last night, the paediatricians tested his blood/sugar levels a couple of hours after birth and he was measuring a 1.1 whatever's, where he should be measuring about 2.6 whatever's, or above. (Don't know what the 'whatever's' are - any ideas?) This meant that they wanted to get some food in him pronto and get his levels back up to where they should be. They cup-fed him about 20ml of new-born baby milk (that's milk FOR new-borns, not FROM them) and within a couple of hours his levels had raised in to the 2.x whatever range. They kept doing this cup-feeding, as well as trying to get him to breastfeed too, but he was being s a bit lazy and didn't want any of it. Obviously the laziness comes from his mum's side... ;o)

When I say 'cup-fed', to my surprise too, this did mean exactly as it sounded - stuff... in a cup, being fed to him in a very civilised manner! But they seem to hold so that the liquid is flush with the top-lip of the plastic cup and hold it to the baby's mouth, whereby they seem to know stick their tongue out and lap at it, like a cat. Strange, but true.

They test his blood by using one of them mean little clickers that they give you on the side of your ring finger when you go to give blood, which, when clicked, makes a small needle pierce your skin deep enough to draw a bead or two of blood, which is ample for testing. They then dribble it onto a clear plastic plate, insert it into an overgrown calculator and it tells them the answer, measured in 'whatevers', naturally.

His blood/sugar levels did drop down in the night, but as of this evening, it is 2.7 whatevers, so that's good.

They have said that they won't let Claire and Jack leave unless his feeding is more regular, but Claire has to stay in for a few more days anyway, to allow her time to recover from the caesarean on Wednesday.

Claire is doing good - when I eventually got there this morning (because of the snow) at about 11:00, one of the nurses was seeing about getting Claire up and on her feet and into the shower. I was trying to think of a more polite way of saying 'you smell', but leading someone to the shower is certainly the most direct. Either way, she was soon up, and walking over to the shower, whilst Jack and I became friends.

Claire said she felt a million times better for having a shower and really looked happier for it too, as I think she thought that she would have to have been bed-ridden for much longer than than after a caesarean. It also meant that she didn't have to have another bed-bath, as during yesterday's antics, the lady doing the washing asked for my help in putting a clean nighty on Claire, as Claire was not to move too much herself because of the stitches, wound and so on. Now, I'll blame the lady and I'm sure that she'll blame me - either way, one of us caught Claire's cannula, which was still inserted into the vein in her hand following the operation. It came straight out... and so did the blood. Again, I'll blame the lady. If anything, it meant that it was out and Claire didn't have to have it removed. So, I did her a favour the lady did her a favour.

Claire and I changed his nappy for the first time too! My job was to hold his legs up in the air whilst Claire did the messy bit, cleaning up the black and green liquid substance from the Winnie the Pooh baby nappy he was wearing. Didn't smell to good either.

He's not too much of a bad kid so far - he doesn't seem to cry a great deal, but when he does, coincidentally, it is when I happen to be holding him... strange. Another happy coincidence, is that when I just so happen to pass him to Claire, he stops shortly afterwards, making me think that if I were to have held him just a moment or two longer, he would have stopped anyway...

Geek moment - I noticed today that in one of the drawers, Jack has a little vest-thing that has the words 'Hello World' embroidered onto it, and I thought that was great! I'll have to see if I can get a picture...! Claire just didn't get it. Also, there was talk at work of someone seeing a baby-grow with 'Microsoft' embroidered onto the left breast, advertised online I guess. How fantastic/geeky/sad is that? Where can I get one? I just did a quick Google search for it, but stumbled across this instead, which I thought was good too.

Again today, the midwives, paediatricians, health care workers, everyone that we have seen, have been great. It's a bit busier in the ward with all of the other mums, and so we are not getting the 1:1 treatment that we were used to on Wednesday, but it was still very good. And, bearing in mind that there are 4 other new mums, all of whom have had a caesarean too, and subsequently, 4 new crying babies, I don't tend to really notice them... does that make sense?