Hi everyone.
Hope you're all doing well? And another huge congratulations to Hermya, who'll hopefully be joining us here soon.
Well, my little man finally fell asleep just there at 5pm, after being awake constantly since before 9am, so here's hoping for a few hours' peace! And a chance to get on MN! Can't believe he stayed awake so long. Usually a six hour stretch is as much as he goes! But I can't complain, cause I've been blessed with a baby that's slept brilliantly since he was a few days old (anywhere between 5 and 8.5hrs a night) Lucky me!
Anyway, things are mostly going very well. My 9lb 5.5oz baby is now (5wks on) a huge big lump who has now outgrown his 0-3mth baby gros! He weighed 11lb 11oz at his check last week, so God knows what he'll have put on by tomorrow!
I'm doing fine. Feeling much fitter so I think my iron levels must be back up again, though haven't had them checked yet. And I'm much less sore. Though, do you know what? See how I had a ventouse delivery in the end? Well I was gutted about it, cause I'd wanted to do it all naturally, and I actually asked had I not pushed hard enough, cause I felt quite upset about it. The answer I was given was that it wasn't unusual to have an assisted delivery, and that my baby was very big. Anyway, it was only after a couple of weeks that DH had LO in his arms and said "see that, that's the face LO was making when I first saw him, as he was coming out of you". Turns out my 9lb 5.5oz baby was also back to back - had the health visitor confirm it! No bloody wonder I found that last bit hard! And there was me looking at LO's swollen head and feeling guilty all the time! Wouldn't you have thought someone might've shared that information with me?! I know it all happened very quickly, with me arriving at hospital fully dilated and pushing, but still... It would have been nice to know. Very peed off!
Oh, and while I'm off on a rant... Bloody health visitor. Asked her two weeks ago why my left boob was hurting and why the milk flow seemed a bit slow. She reckoned it was to do with my positioning and attachment, cause I'm right handed. A week later, I was worse and asked again, and she suggested a blocked duct (which I'd wondered about in the first place but figured she'd have mentioned if it was a possiblilty!) Anyway, have since unblocked the duct and bf no longer hurts! Grr! Silly woman! If only she'd suggested that in the first place!
Anyway, now that I've got that off my (enormous 36K !) chest, I'll get on with telling you the real reason I've been putting off posting.
At ten days old, we had a visit out of the blue from a specialist dietician from our local children's hospital. The results had come back from LO's Guthrie test, and it turns out he has Phenylketonuria. It's a genetic condition (both DH and I are carriers of a duff gene) and is very rare (6-8 babies a year born with it in the whole country). And our little man has it. It's (in very simple form) an intolerance to protein and the treatment is a lifelong, very restricted diet. Without treatment, Lo would be badly disabled, so I should be (and am) grateful that, with such early diagnosis and treatment, he will be a perfectly fit, healthy and normal little boy/man, who just eats a little differently. But it is so unfair. At the moment, LO's having twice-weekly blood tests (which I'm having to do :( ), and is on a protein-free prescription formula, to supplement his intake of breastmilk, in order that he takes less from me (breastmilk contains protein, albeit not much, but more than he's able to handle). Anyway, later on, the blood tests will hopefully be weekly, which is good, but the diet will become worse. All sorts of things are out of bounds, and it has been hard to think that LO will probably never visit McDonald's, or have birthday cake at a friend's party, or choose which Easter egg he'd like, or eat a Christmas dinner, or go on holiday and have an ice-cream... He'll be on a vegan diet, but will have other restrictions too. Ugh, it's just horrible. But anyway. I'm rambling a lot. I just haven't felt right about posting and saying that he's fine, when obviously that's not strictly true, but at the same time, I haven't had the time or (physical or emotional) energy to try and explain things.
But, horrible as the whole thing's been and will be, I do have to keep thinking positive. My baby's just gorgeous, healthy in every other way, growing brilliantly - better than most - and he's going to have all the support we, and the rest of the family can possibly give him.
Right, that was a good old-fashioned long post from me! It'll probably kill the thread completely, cause no one'll have the time or energy to read it! Lol! But hopefully not. With everything up to date, it'd be nice to be able to post a bit more frequently again, and happy posts, rather than "bad news" ones!