Daddy had his 30th Birthday when Alfie was 8 days old so it was a bit tricky having a big celebration. He got some awesome presents and had a Japanese lunch on the day.

When Alfie was 3 weeks old, we had Daddy’s party. This is when a lot of our extended family got to meet little Alfie. It was a gaming dress-up party and he was dressed up as Baby Mario. He slept the whole party in his rocker, right next to the speaker with the booming music.

When we came home, I was still exhausted (we missed a nights sleep on the night he was born and obviously the broken sleep to feed him 3 hourly at night). Alfie continued to sleep a lot so I did too. When we first got home, Daddy got to work putting our little mans swing together and I took Alfie for a nap in our room.

Because we left the hospital early, we had a midwife visit our house to check on us before we were officially discharged. She was happy with everything except his colour, so she did another blood test (that Daddy had to take to the lab straight away).She weighed him (he peed everywhere) and he had put on 130g in 2 days which she was very pleased with. We just had to go to the hospital 2 days later to get his results from the blood test and weigh him again. When we returned, they said he had lost 45 grams and I got a lecture from this horrible midwife about how to feed Alfie. She kept going on about feeding him a banquet with meat and potatoes instead of letting him snack (because he was having lots of short feeds-which is all he needed). She was so condescending to men to saying that he is a typical boy trying to pull the wool over my eyes and I have to take control. So we had to return 2 more times to the hospital and he was steadily putting on weight. They did another blood test and he was still under the limits for bilirubin levels so we were finally discharged a week after we left the hospital. We figured out afterwards that the midwife who visited us on day 5 must have written his weight down wrong because she got flustered when he peed everywhere and we went through all the stress for nothing.

Great aunty Woochie and Great Uncle Jenner were in Perth for Great Uncle Sean’s birthday and they came to visit us to see Alfie during our first week home. Aunty Kira was dying to come and meet Alfie too but she had to wait until her family was healthy again because they were sick.

Daddy had a total of 2.5 weeks of work and we had a lovely time together. Alfie slept a lot still due to the jaundice, so we had a lot of gaming time (Diablo 3). Daddy did most of the nappies while he was home and Mummy continued to feed on demand.

So after giving birth and breastfeeding for the first time, I had a shower while Daddy held Alfie (putting his finger in his mouth to stop him crying) and then we were taken back to our room with our little man all wrapped up in his bassinet. It was kind of surreal being back in our room with a sleeping baby.

Our little man spent most of his time in hospital sleeping. He developed jaundice by the night of day zero and all the nurses were quite concerned. He ended up having 3 blood tests while in hospital but his levels were all under the threshold so he never got any treatment. We also had a visit from the paediatrician to check on him and he said he was fine.

On that first night BaaBaa, JiiJii and Aunty Chelsea came to meet our little man. Everyone was so excited and they all had turns holding him. They came and visited everyday we were in hospital and brought supplies for me (chips, ham and juice- I was starving when I got up in the middle of the night to feed). Pop came to visit a few times too and spent some nice time having cuddles. Aunty Sarah worked in the kitchen at the hospital and saw our trays going past and was writing notes saying “hello” on our trays but we had no idea who it was from until she came to visit and explained it was her.  

We learnt how to change a nappy from the midwives and Daddy did most of the changes during our stay. We were also given a demo on how to bath our little man and had a go on our own before we left. It was quite an andventure learning how to care for a newborn. Alfie mainly lived in the hospital clothes and blankets during our stay and was very comfy.

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We struggled a lot with breastfeeding in the first couple of days and we had to call the midwives to help us every time he woke up for a feed. Each midwife had different advice and in the end I just worked out my own way that worked for me and our little man. We had to hand express the colostrum a fair few times to syringe feed him because he was struggling to latch. On day 3 my milk came in and I was soo engorged. Our little man loves his milk and had frequent short feeds from then on.

On the night of day 3 we had a horrible agency nurse who scared us both. She was going on about how Alfie was “soo yellow” and acting like he was dying. She put so much pressure on me to feed him more and more. She even got me to pump and bottle feed him to top him up. Day 3 is notorious for being the day you hit a wall, and we hit it even harder thanks to this nurse. I cried the hardest I ever have in my life that night. It turned out I have a huge milk supply and that is the reason he was only feeding for short periods but he was definitely getting enough milk.

By day 4, Daddy had had enough of sleeping on the floor on a paper thin mattress and the staff were encouraging us to leave (to make room). I was a bit nervous about leaving but we decided it was time. So we stayed in hospital for 4 nights in the end. The typical stay length is 5 nights but we left early. The day before Alfie was born, there were 14 babies born so our ward was full up. There was a shortage of staff and they had to use a lot of agency nurses and nurses from other wards. This definitely soured our experience. We had a frustrating time trying to get help with anything and always had differing advice from everyone. It was very frustrating. I was, however, very pleased with the help we got during the birth both from the midwives and the doctor.

On the 18th May, we went into Joondalup Hospital with the plan of getting a cervix softener (Cervadil) inserted that night and then being induced the next day. We arrived at the hospital at 6pm filled with excitement and nerves. We had to wait in our room for a couple of hours because they had 14 babies born that day. At 8pm we were taken to birth suite. They monitored me and bubs for about an hour because bubs heart rate kept elevating, they gave me 2 litres of fluid through an IV to help him. Once his heart rate regulated, they inserted the Cervadil. There was an increase in bub’s heart rate and a big dip in my heart rate and I had 6-7 contractions so at 10pm they removed the Cervadil. From then on I had    contractions coming regularly. I needed to go to the toilet twice and they gave me a pethidine shot in my hip to sedate me because they wanted me to sleep through it.

I tried to sleep but woke up with every contraction. At this point Ash was trying to sleep on the couch too and kept complaining about the beeping sound from my blood pressure monitor since they took it off. He even asked the midwife to make the beeping stop when she came back in. By 2am I was 5cm dilated and they had broken my waters for me. I got an epidural at 2:30am but the lady who did it wasn’t very good. Ash held my legs while it was being done and was freaking out as the lady struggled. My body was going into shock while I was getting it done: I was covered in sweat, shaking and felt like I was going to spew. The lady wouldn’t believe me that it wasn’t working and kept putting ice on my leg to test it but I kept being able to feel it. She even made me close my eyes as she tested it to make sure I wasn’t cheating.

Ash tried to play music to help me with the labour but I made him stop it straight away. Luckily the epidural kicked in just as our little Alfie was coming out. I went from 5cm to 10cm in one hour and was told to start pushing at 3am. By this time, the epidural still wasn’t working and I was still in agony and I turned over to the midwife and said “I don’t want to do this anymore”. They got a mirror to help me see the baby’s head when I pushed to encourage me to keep going and to prove it was happening. They also gave me gas and air to try and help me. I tried to breathe it in twice and didn’t notice any difference. I realised later that I was still breathing in my nose and out my mouth like the midwife had told me to at the start, so it was no wonder it made no difference.

Dr Isdale came in not long after and took control of the room. She removed the bottom half of the bed, put my legs in the stirrups and told me to keep pushing. Marion (midwife) was telling me when to push and Dr. Isdale said “You are going to have your baby in 3 minutes, I’m going to help him out with the vacuum because he’s not happy”. It turned out that the umbilical cord was around his neck. So before I knew it I was looking down and could see our baby’s whole head and Dr.Isdale pulling the cord back over his head. Dr. Isdale said “One more push and you will meet your baby”, so I pushed one more time and Dr.Isdale pulled with the vacuum attached to his head and I had a baby plopped on my belly. She had to give me an episiotomy to help him out and I had a second degree tear and a ‘papercut’ as well. Alfie was taken over to the table to be checked over and measured and Daddy got to hold Alfie while I was stitched up (it took 30mins and the doctor even ran out of thread).

The funny part of the whole experience was that I was in denial about being in labour the whole time. At my antenatal classes, they always said that contractions start right at the top of your belly and move down like a wave but I only felt intense pain in the bottom half of my belly. I was sure the whole time that it was just cramping from the Cervadil because the midwife told me that can happen. So I just wouldn’t believe that I was in labour or even having contractions. Ash wanted to time them about half way through but I kept saying “no, they’re not contractions”. So when a baby was put on my tummy and I heard him cry, I was just in shock and couldn’t believe it. It was an amazing experience and it was quite a blur to me. Ash was a great support and helped me the whole way through. He was amazing. We were so happy to finally meet our little man.