Yay! The baby is OUT

13.06.06 after a long time of contracting uselessly, I pretty much begged them to cut Manny out. Which they did, very nicely and not before time either. Manny was occipital posterior and was not advancing down the birth canal. Well, he was, but really, really slowly. His little crown was out into the world almost, but the rest of him was begging to differ. I was hooked up to a FHT which showed his little ticker going sometimes at 185 bpm. Matt kept assuring me that you should only really worry when his heart rate goes way down, up is fine. Manny was clearly not enjoying labour. And neither was I by the 10th hour.

Anyway. So here I am 8 days post baby being wrenched from my uterus. We are all doing well - Matt is a champion father, he is great at getting Manny to sleep and loves to have cuddles and chat with Manny. Manny is feeding really well and sleeping (up until last night at least) amazingly. Manny has put on 500grams in 8 days - which is unusual - the midwife tells me that babies usually lose weight in the first week, so Matt and I are very happy. Perhaps he is going to be really tall. My c-scar is great, no pain relief needed for 5 days now. My tummy is shrinking and on last weigh in I have only got to lose 5 kilos to get back to my pre-preggers weight. Yay!

I love to sit and watch the fleeting expressions rushing across Manny's face. Where does he get them from and what do they mean? I know most of the world has done this having a baby thing before, but it's all so new to us. I keep looking at Manny and I can't quite believe that we made him.

Well, after a truely monsterous night of pretty much no sleep last night, I have finally managed to convince Manny that bed is a nice place to be and I really should sleep while he is too. Was just writing to Dan Blenkorn before about the joys of parenthood and multitasking and wishing that I could learn how to sleep and not sleep at the same time.