A Busy Week

It's been a busy week and I've got lots to tell! I'll try my best to be brief, but if you've read any of my other posts, you'll realise I find this next to impossible.

Last weekend was the first momentous visit to our home town of South Shields to show Francis off to family and friends. (Photo's of the trip can be found in Francis' album in the gallery.) On the way, we had a brief stop-off in Leeds to see Graeme's Uncle Harry and Auntie Val; their grandson Aston (apologies if I've spelt it wrong) was there too. While Graeme and I refuelled on cheese and tomato sandwiches (Thanks Val!) Harry treated Francis to a rendition of "When the Boat Comes In" and there was the first of many debates about Francis' hair colour - is it ginger ot not?! Aston seemed quite fascinated that a person could be so tiny and wasn't quite quite sure if his Grandad was telling the truth when he said he was going to swap Aston for Francis!

Our first port of call in South Shields was my Mam and Dad's house. My Mam came bounding across the road as soon as she saw us pull up and promptly whisked Francis away to fuss over. I have the feeling she'd have kept him to herself all weekend if I'd let her! After reacquainting himself with Auntie Rachel and his Granda, he had a visit from Great-auntie Yvonne, who insisted that Francis was not ginger, despite my Mam's insistance that he was. ("Ginger or not" was a theme that persisted for the entire weekend). This was also the first time we had seen Sweep since his leg amputation and he was looking remarkably well despite everything. He's lost a bit of weight because he can't be bothered to go down the stairs to mooch for food and getting around takes a bit more effort now. He looks quite funny hopping along on his three legs so I took some footage with our video camera to amuse myself at a later date :)

We were staying with Graeme's parents for a change and on the Saturday the first wave of visitors descended upon us. The stream of visitors continued on Sunday and was followed by a trip to my Granda's flat so he could meet his first great-grandchild. On Monday Francis even met the staff of South Tyneside's Community Mental Health Team! (Before you raise any eyebrows, it's where Graeme's Mam Sandra works!) Although I was happy that everybody got to meet Francis I found the whole experience more than a little tiring. I had no idea that we knew so many people! We set off on our return journey later than we'd planned and, after stopping at Paul and Becky's flat to pick up Max and Xena, didn't get home until 10pm on the Monday night. We were absolutely exhausted, which for me took some doing as I'd hardly moved from the sofa all weekend!

I'd arrived home to find a letter from my GP informing me that my 6-week check and Francis' first jabs were due, so on Wednesday morning I made my way to the surgery. I'd been waiting about 5 minutes when a lady came and took Francis to the health visitor to check him over, while I was ushered into my GP's office. It felt good to tell a health professional how overwhelmed I am by motherhood and how it's not doing my anxiety levels any good. She assured me I'm perfectly normal and that I'm doing extremely well given what I went through. Apparently, as long as the Francis and I are both looked after, it doesn't matter if we're living in squalor :o)

After my chat with the doctor she led me into the room where the health visitor was waiting with Francis. The doctor gave Francis a clean bill of health and it was time for his injections. Oh my God - the GUILT! I could already feel tears welling up in my eyes and couldn't bring myself to hold Francis while he was prodded with sharp implements. I left him in the capable hands of the health visitors and watched the whole thing out of the corner of my eye from across the room. Naturally he screamed the place down which made me feel even worse. Then I felt really crap for not holding him. Francis, Mummy will be a bit braver next time - I promise.

On Thursday I had yet another trip to the Women's hospital to have Francis checked out. Due to having no time to update you on recent events I should explain that there has been some concern over Francis' weight gain. Not from me, but the powers that be at the hospital have decided that he's just not gaining fast enough so he's being monitored regularly by the Infant Feeding Team (who have all been fantastic and very supportive). I've had a lot of one-to-one sessions with feeding advisor Kate who is satisfied that Francis is feeding well, but suggested I top him up with expressed breastmilk just to give him that little bit extra. After Kate chatted with the consultant, it was decided that his first baby clinic check-up be brough forward and that I should continue meeting with the feeding team to have him weighed and to monitor his progress. I'm not best pleased about this - I'm sick of the sight of that bloody hospital and it's quite an effort for me to get there. I don't drive and getting 2 buses there and back while pushing a pram is not the most calming of experiences.

On Saturday we went to a BBQ at Rob and Fliss' house. Being vegetarian we took our own food as it didn't seem fair that they should buy "special" stuff just for us. Fliss seemed a bit worried about the veggie fayre we'd brought, but Graeme assured her that you really couldn't ruin a veggie hotdog. Fliss proved him wrong in spectacular fashion when, called away to check how the BBQ was progressing, she forgot about the hotdogs and microwaved them to within an inch of edibility. Rob provided much amusement by managing to injure himself during every activity he tried that afternoon, which included skipping, swingball and skateboarding. (Hopefully we captured at least one of the incidents on our camcorder so we can send it to You've Been Framed.) Graeme and Fliss snapped Rob's new (and I mean new - he'd bought it that morning!) swingball pole by playing waaaaaaaay too aggressively. Rob and Fliss' toddler Elisha had an absolute whale of a time running around in the nude. I managed to get a big dollop of jam on Francis' head and his new John Lewis hat after being unable to resist the lure of a bag of ASDA jam donuts (I should have seen that one coming really). Fliss kindly lent Francis a lovely pink hat to wear for the rest of the day :o) We had a lovely afternoon and it made me think we really should do things like this more often - we don't see enough of our friends. Photos of the BBQ can be found in the gallery under "Days Out".

And this brings us up to today (well done for making it this far!) and a bit of good news! At Francis' latest weigh-in this morning he had put on 120g since last Thursday! He now weighs a whopping 4lb 14oz! We see the consultant tomorrow afternoon and hopefully he will be pleased with Francis' progress and I can put an end to my treks to the hospital. I'll let you know how it goes.

Sorry that was so long, but like I said, there was a lot of news! I'll try to update more regularly in future to avoid any more epic postings!

Lisa xxx