Unscheduled Downtime!

The more eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that this website was unavailable for a few days this week. When I noticed that it was dead, I just assumed that the server where it lives had gone down, and it would right itself in due course. After a couple of days of dead-website-ness, I did a quick check and realised that all the other sites which run on the same server were working fine. Another little bit of investigation revealed that I'd not renewed the subscription to my domain name, and it had been suspended :(

Anyway, £10 later and www.graemethornton.co.uk is mine again for a couple of years, and we can get back to boring you with our random waffling!

Hurrah!

New Photo Album Added

We've added a Home at Last album to Francis' section of the gallery. There are some photos there from his first week at home. There's not a great lot there at the moment, but we'll be adding photos regularly so be sure to have a nosey!

Lisa xxx

Playing Happy Families

Sorry it's taken me so long to post on here, but I'm sure you can appreciate I don't have much free time now with a baby to look after! This won't be a long post - my brain is running on emergency power and there's not much of that left!

Francis has been home for a week now and, for the most part, things are going well. We've had a few problems getting him to sleep at night (Thursday night I had only 2 hours sleep), but that seems to be improving. He's now a dab hand at breastfeeding and feeds around every three hours. I was a bit worried that he would struggle with this as, before he left hospital, he was still having a few problems latching on, but now it's really easy. It's great not having to worry about bottles and formula - especially at 3am when he's screaming to be fed!

On Thursday it was Graeme's birthday so we decided to venture out with Francis for the first time. It was a bit of a military operation getting organised and, just when we were about to leave, Francis decided he wanted his dinner! After that minor delay, we eventually arrived at Speke Retail Park which was thankfully not too busy. It was a weird experience pushing a pram around for the first time. I was half-expecting some random woman to come racing after me, asking why I'd nicked her baby. It's going to take a while for it to sink in that I'm actually a mum now. We had a lovely, stress-free wander around the shops buying a few bits and pieces for Francis and some ornaments for our newly-decorated living room. We also learned a valuable lesson in parenting while shopping in Mamas and Papas after Francis caused a small explosion in his nappy. ALWAYS take spare baby clothes with you - baby poop gets EVERYWHERE.

Other than that, there's not a geat deal to report. We've both discovered we can function quite well on surprisingly little sleep (although 2 hours is pushing it slightly). We've bathed Francis a couple of times with mixed results - sometimes he seems to enjoy it, other times he screams blue murder. He'd lost a little bit of weight at his last check-up on Friday (not sure how - he feeds like a gannet), but he's getting weighed again tomorrow so hopefully it will be good news.

I'm off to catch 40 winks (literally) before Francis wakes for his next feed. Oh, too late.

Lisa xxx

Francis Is Coming Home!

After what has felt like an absolute eternity, we've been given the go-ahead to bring our little boy home on Monday!

In a meeting with the breastfeeding advisor yesterday, she was really pleased with Francis' progress with feeding and felt I was ready for the rooming-in stage. So I'll be spending the weekend in one of the parents' rooms on the SCBU, getting to grips with feeding Francis both day and night. Provided all goes well he'll be discharged on Monday, one day short of being 5 weeks old.

Never mind Happy Easter - it feels like Christmas!

Lisa xxx

Long Time No Post

Apologies for it being so long since my last post. I've been so busy for the past couple of weeks I've barely had any time to myself. My spare time, or what's left of it, has been mostly spent resting and trying to keep on top of the housework; I'm failing miserably with the latter.

Why so busy? Well, I've been spending more and more time at the hospital. Francis now breastfeeds on demand during the day and is only tube-fed at night, so obviously I have to be there to provide milk on tap. Getting breastfeeding established is hard work, especially with a premature baby, but Francis and I are getting the hang of it. I must be doing something right as he now weighs 4lb. I don't think it will be too long before they stop his tube feeds completely, which is the final hurdle before we can bring him home. The medical staff are having a discharge meeting today so watch this space - I may have some very good news for you later today :o)

I'm still expressing to maintain my supply and to remove all the excess milk. And there's a LOT of it - I have my own shelf in the SCBU's industrial-sized freezer and one of the nurses calls me Daisy. I remember Fliss once mentioning that when my milk comes in I'd turn into Jordan. I laughed this off at the time. It was only when I went to M&S to buy a nursing bra that it became apparent that my body had taken this literally and I could probably give Jordan a run for her money. The largest cup size M&S do is G and the assistant's cries of "Blimey! You can JUST get in that can't you?!" made me think that I might just need a larger size. I had no choice but to buy the G-cups, but my next port of call will be Bravissimo - I'm sure they can provide me with a nursing bra that I can get into without the use of a shoehorn.

The DIY on the living room is progressing quite nicely. All the hard work is finished and it just needs a lick of paint and some wallpaper and we're good to go! Once that is finished, the rest of the house can be rejigged for Francis' homecoming. The DIY room will be our living room, the current living room will become the dining-room-stroke-office and the office will be transformed into a nursery for Francis. There were times when I thought we'd never get to this stage, but Graeme has worked extremely hard in some very difficult circumstances to make sure that everything is sorted. I just hope Francis appreciates everything his Daddy has done!

Lisa xxx