Flavour of the Week

Welcome to Issue #34

Well, hi there. I bet you thought this blog had crawled to the end of the garden to die a quiet, lonely death. Not true my friend.

In the last month my partner and I have welcomed our firstborn son into this world and if that wasn’t enough, less than four weeks later we got married and celebrated with a party that’s been over a year in the making.

It’s been a crazy, stressful, wonderful, exhausting, magical time and I have no idea how I’d have done it if I was working during this period. Fortunately I’ve been around to take over final wedding preparations, keep us well fed, make sure the house stayed vaguely presentable and most importantly look after and care for my baby and partner. She did the easy part of popping out a watermelon and then feeding it every couple of hours, 24 hours a day…

One side benefit for the blog is a dramatic increase in the number of films and television shows I’ve consumed since we last spoke; there’s only so much gaming and gardening you can do when looking after a baby (none) and so hands-off entertainment has become a godsend. From my trusty spreadsheet, at the time of writing this I have nine films and eight series to tell you about but I suspect that number to increase by the time I get round to writing about them.

Today I’d like to share my experience of being a dad for the first month. The good, the bad and the truly ugly (poops). If this isn’t your thing, for any reason, then obviously don’t read on. We suffered with two miscarriages before being able to have this baby and a year ago I know I wouldn’t have been able to read a blog about being a dad.

Normal food and film related content will resume shortly.

The Birth

What an insane 24 hours. The end result is of course a baby, but the last stage of that journey is rarely straightforward. My partner was brilliant and handled the physical side of things like an absolute boss. I can’t even begin to imagine how it felt and can only describe the experience from the birth partner’s perspective, but man that was a rollercoaster of emotions:

• The mixture of excitement and panic realising that (10 days after the due date) these contractions were the real deal and meant I would get to meet my baby soon.

• The fatigue, worry (and admittedly relief) after driving to the hospital, being told my partner wasn’t far along enough for me to be able to stay and being sent home to get a few hours sleep before being called back as things had progressed quickly.

• The overwhelming fear when a team of doctors and midwives swarmed the room to get the baby out quickly when his heart rate was dropping too much after each contraction. There was a moment when I couldn’t deal with it and had to step away, have a cry before going back to ‘help’.

• The euphoria of seeing the baby in my partner’s arms moments after he was born, combined with the medical team quickly leaving the room as everyone was ok. There were more tears at this point too.

Post-delivery

There was meconium in the amniotic fluid when my partner’s waters broke. In case they have swallowed any, in this scenario the baby must be monitored for 24 hours after they are born and in fact we ended up staying in a post-delivery ward for nearly two days until both mum and baby were discharged.

It was a mixture of a lot of frustration as I just wanted to get everyone home, but also realising we were exactly where we should be. Any worries, feeding support, food for mum, discomfort etc was just a push-of-a-bedside-button away.

All. The. Poops.

We were prepared for those first few dark, tar-like, sticky poops. Every baby has them and I’m not easily grossed out so no big deal. As promised by every resource, over the next few days the poos turned a lovely seedy mustard yellow. If anyone needs a baby as a poo-model then give us a call because ours was following the program like a pro.

About 10 days in our baby suddenly had other ideas and the poos went dark green (almost black to the naked eye), sticky and mucusy. I read what felt like every Google search result for baby poo colours and couldn’t find a definitive answer. Some told me not to worry, others said to get it checked out immediately. I contacted the midwives from our NCT course, rung our local hospital midwife team, private messaged the latest Instagram accounts I now follow, run by women who are experts on all things baby. No-one seemed too concerned and suggested it would pass in 24 hours. It didn’t.

Three days later and at his next check up, he’s put weight on, continuing to feed well, weeing and pooing like a truck and so essentially we were told not to worry and that babies can poo all different shades. Of course a few days later everything settled down and they returned to their usual state and since then we’ve gone to green and back, as well as frequent changes in consistency and so I’m less concerned.

In case for some reason this blog is acting as your yardstick for measuring your baby’s poo health, please, just no. There are certain colours which definitely do need checking out by a medical professional, urgently.

Worries

I have an extensive medical history with my heart and was extremely unwell when I was born, requiring heart surgery and not leaving hospital for the first 5 months of my life. Prior to trying to have a child I had a genetic screening which came back as clear as it could (there’s a lot they still don’t know about genetic mutations which cause heart conditions) and the baby had two fetal cardiac scans while in the womb, which also came back perfectly.

It didn’t stop me from spiralling when during one of the baby’s first health checks the midwife told us she thought she heard a heart murmur. We were referred for an immediate appointment with a specialist who thankfully told us that everything looks and sounds clear, but I still have this underlying fear that something will crop up eventually and I’m not sure how I’ll cope with the guilt if he has to go through what I did.

I’ve written a longer list of the individual worries I’ve felt during the last month, but in reality ever little thing that seems different to his usual behaviour, gets me Googling. Breathing too fast, sleeping too much, not sleeping enough, the small bump on his head not going down quick enough, questioning how much he’s eating, of course the poo colour, consistency, frequency. It’s never-ending and I need to keep reminding myself not to give in to the temptation to over-worry.

Changes

So far everything I’ve spoken about sounds stress and anxiety-inducing and I haven’t even mentioned the lack of sleeping (although it’s my partner bearing the vast brunt of this being the one with the milk supply). It’s not all bad though and so far I absolutely LOVE being a dad. Every single day he makes me smile and laugh with the funny faces he pulls and cute little noises he makes. I love taking care of him, singing to him, dancing around with him and I’ve felt so proud to introduce him to my family and friends.

The most incredible thing is seeing just how much he’s changed in a month. Every day I find myself looking back through the hundreds of photos we’ve taken, unable to believe the rapid changes from him being a squashed little worm to now resembling something far more human-like! I think he’s starting to smile, although in reality it’s probably a little early early for that and he’s just straining for a poo. I’ll take it though.

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Thanks for reading and have a great week.

Adam