Being Momma G: Day 74

While Tresillian was never suppose to be a miracle cure, I had hoped Sean would be better today. However, Sean had other ideas.

After handing him off to the nurses last night, I had hoped for some sleep. After only an hour, I could hear Sean crying from the nursery. Being the bad mummy, I stayed in my room and let the nurses take care of him. Sean kept crying and crying and crying, and after 20 minutes, guilt got the better of me and I went to see how the nurses were holding up trying to settle our little grizzly bear.

Jennifer, the nurse who had been trying to settle Sean, looked quite frustrated, so I apologised for Sean's behaviour and asked if I could help. Meanwhile, one of the other mothers Ginny said she found the unit to be too noisy for her little girl Ari, who was constantly crying and not able to sleep. Ginny took Ari back into their room to try and settle her in a quieter environment. I felt a twinge of guilt that our monster was the cause of much of the noise.

Another nurse, Heather took over trying to settle Sean, and she sent me to bed for the 40 minutes leading up to Sean's next feed. I obeyed, and the 40 minutes flew by. Sean was returned to my arms in what felt like 5 minutes.

Sean fed relatively well, and even had a small top up after the feed. It was midnight by the time we were done, and I again returned Sean to the nursery and headed back to bed. It took no time at all for me to fall asleep. Sean, however, took 45 minutes to settle, but once he went to sleep, he didn't wake up again until nearly 4.30am.

Kathleen the night nurse brought Sean to me and we had a pretty good feed, sitting up in the chair in our room. No more feeding lying down in bed for us! It took an hour for us to complete the feeding, and afterwards, I popped Sean into the cot in our room and went straight back to bed. Sean didn't need any help to settle and we both slept until just after 8am.

I felt quite refreshed after getting a total of 7.5 hours of sleep, albeit broken in the middle by a feed.

Sean was a bit fussier for the 8am feed, but he was good natured and smiled and wasn't grizzly. After the feed, we were visited by Tresillian's paediatrician who gave Sean a thorough check up. Juliette was with the doctor and confirmed to us that the hospital was not allowed to give Sean his daily dosage of Losec due to the missing label on the medicine bottle. The doctor noted that Sean had been on Losec for 6 weeks, and supported Jonathan and my decision to stop the Losec slightly earlier than prescribed by our paediatrician Dr Arnold. Nevertheless, if Sean showed a rapid decline, then the doctor wrote a prescription for us to fill while we were at Tresillian.

Once the doctor was happy, Sean and I went to the nursery to enjoy some play time on the floor, with Sean kicking at the Sesame Street characters hanging from the mobile. Jonathan arrived at 9.30am, just as Sean was getting tired, so he missed out on long cuddles with the baby. We wrapped the little man, popped him down in the cot and within 5 minutes, Sean was asleep.

I took the opportunity to have breakfast before Jonathan and I headed upstairs to the Parents Group Session. All other parents were there as well, and the session was convened by the psychologist on staff. We were all given the opportunity to share our expectations of our lives post baby and how that differed from real life, now that we'd had the baby. We were also asked to rate our energy levels, and share how we were feeling in general.

My expectations of my life post baby was vastly different to reality. Before Sean joined us, I thought life would be a lot easier than it had been, because I never expected to have a baby who was as unsettled as Sean had been, and I thought I would be able to deal with and adapt to parenthood a lot more easily. I knew my life would change somewhat, but not to the extent that it had been. For some reason, I thought our baby would be better behaved. The Sean I'd expected to meet would feed well, and sleep well, and yes, I knew there would be feeds in the middle of the night, but I also thought he would be able to tell the difference between day and night, so that we'd play during the day and sleep when it was night. Instead, for the first 8 weeks of his life, he wanted to party at night and sleep during the day. I had no problem with him sleeping during the day, but for crying out loud, why didn't he want to sleep at night???

I didn't expect to feel so drained both physically and emotionally, or feel so out of control and out of my depth, even on the good days. The lack of sleep made me teary all the time, and then there were those days when I would get nothing done and would find myself sitting on the bed, holding a screaming baby, and crying because I didn't know how to make the baby stop crying.

I also didn't expect our baby to have such sensitive skin, and certainly didn't envision the horrible skin breakouts we'd experienced with Sean - the horrendous spots all over his head and face, the rashes that covered his arms and shoulders, the broken skin in the folds of his neck that won't heal and became infected because the area was always a bit wet and weepy, the crusty scabs that covered his ears inside and out. The skin conditions all but pushed me over the edge - I felt like I had poisoned my baby, and it was somehow my fault that my baby's skin was so horrible. Everyone else's babies had perfect skin, but my baby was having all sorts of issues with his, so it must be me who was doing something wrong. It certainly didn't help that one of the nurses at the West Ryde ECHC made me feel like a total failure when she saw the rashes and told me they weren't normal, and that I should have taken Sean to see a doctor sooner.

For me, being accepted into the Tresillian program was both a blessing and a burden. It was a blessing because so many people had told us how great the program was and how effective it had been for their children, but it was also a burden, insofar as I finally admitted I couldn't cope. Before the baby was born, I was so sure that I would be able to cope with anything and everything that I even told work to call me whenever they wanted to pick my brains over any queries they had with what use to be my duties. My life before Sean was always busy, but always organised. Juggling commitments was easy. Life was organised chaos. Since Sean's arrival, life had been just chaos. My organised life was now seemingly a mess, , and I felt a complete loss of control, which was very unsettling for me. I became impatient, and wanted my life to return to the way it was, with structure and organisation, so when the baby had other ideas, I became even more impatient. Coupled with fatigue, I felt like everything was spiralling out of control.

In spite of how I felt, I was extremely lucky to have Jonathan, who was my rock and my head cheerleader. Jonathan is a completely hand-on father, changing nappies, bathing the little guy, playing with him, talking to him. Jonathan would get up in the middle of the night to tend to Sean, or to bring Sean to me for those dream feeds. Often, he'd stay up with me to make sure I didn't fall asleep while feeding Sean. Earlier today, the doctor had asked me a question about Jonathan, whether Jonathan was a good father or a sperm donor. There was no way in the world that I would ever call Jonathan a sperm donor!!!

My energy levels were about a 5 to 6 out of 10. I now felt tired more easily, and more than anything else, I missed my sleep. Having spent 10 weeks with our little guy, I was feeling more and more confident by the day about my ability to look after him, although I welcomed any and all helpful tips to get the baby to sleep, stay asleep, and feed properly.

The session went for about 90 minutes and I found it quite good and positive to know that there were others who felt the same way about a lot of baby related things to me. By the time we arrived back at our room, it was well past Sean's feeding time. The nurses told us that Sean slept for an hour before waking up, and it took almost an hour to resettle him. Sean only slept for a short period of time before waking up again and needing to be resettled again. The only way the nurses could settle Sean was by putting him in their pram and rocking him back and forth over a ridge in the floor in the nursery.

Sean was asleep when we came back from the group session, and as it was lunch time, we went up to the dining room to get my lunch. Jonathan had a few errands to run, so he bade us farewell for the day.

I brought my lunch back down to the nursery, and just as I started to eat, I saw Sean moving around in the pram. Sean seemed happy enough to lay in the pram while I hoovered down the sandwiches, and after I was done, I gave Sean his lunch. Again, Sean was really fussy during the feed, and after a bit of play time, Sean went back to bed for another snooze. Sean took a bit longer to settle this time, but he did go down for a sleep.

Unfortunately, it was only for an hour, again. Sean woke up screaming, and after nearly 30 minutes of patting and shushing by both me and one of the nurses, we brought him out to the nursery and put him in the pram to rock him to sleep. 40 minutes of rocking later, Sean was still wide awake, and it was time to feed him again.

Sean was even worse during this feed. He fussed and fought against the first boob, and totally refused the second. For some reason though, the little guy was still good humoured, and played with me on the floor for a while, before going for another sleep. And again, Sean only managed an hour of shut eye before waking again.

The nurses took pity on me and tried to settle Sean themselves. They sent me up to the dining room to get my dinner, and I sat there and ate as fast as I could before returning to the nursery. Sean was still awake, and it was now time for another feed.

As I was heading to collect Sean for the feed, Ginny stopped me in the corridor and told me she was going home. Her little girl Ari was not sleeping at all, because the unit was too noisy, and Ginny felt Ari had not improved at all since they arrived - in fact, Ginny thought Ari had gone backwards, and Ginny felt that it would be better if they were to go home. It made me wonder if Sean was showing any signs of improvement, and whether Sean and I should pack it in and go home ourselves.

Sean was again fussy during the feed, and even after a lengthy play time, did not show any signs of wanting to sleep. In keeping with the routine Jonathan and I had set prior to coming to Tresillian, I gave Sean a bath and a good long massage with the moisturiser afterwards. Sean was still wide awake and refusing to sleep, and no matter how many times we put him down in the cot, he screamed and cried and plainly refused to sleep. We tried to give Sean a top up on the breast, and he seemed interested for a few minutes before stopping and refusing any more. At this time, Pam the head night nurse offered to take Sean for the night, so I could get some more sleep. I gladly accepted.

Jonathan and I texted each other, discussing whether I should leave Tresillian like Ginny, or stick it out for another day. Jonathan was supportive of whichever way I chose, and I decided to persevere for another day. After the long hard day, I was quite tired and emotional, and I got a bit teary, because I was also missing Jonathan like mad.

With Sean being looked after by the nurses, I am in bed and wishing Jonathan was here to give me a cuddle. In any case, I should get some sleep. Who knows what time the little man will wake up?