The Fourth Trimester

So, long time, no blog. There's not much more to say on that - it doesn't matter whether you have kids or not, we all know that sometimes, blogging just doesn't happen. Hey ho.

 

 

 

 

So, yep, the Fourth Trimester - the phrase that's supposed to encapsulate those first 12 weeks after which, they say..."everything gets easier".

 

Well for us, I reckon it took to about 4 months before it started feeling marginally easier. That said, part of the reason I've not had time to blog is that we seem to have had a string of problems since Lily was about 4 weeks old.

 

 

 

 

So, in bulletpoint form, here's some bits and pieces about what's been happening...

 

• Lily was tongue tied when she was born. It took 4 days for anyone to check, by which time she'd lost far too much weight (as she couldn't latch on very well to breastfeed) and the hospital insisted on formula and expressed breast milk. So, breastfeeding was not off to a good start.

• Her tongue tie was snipped at 3 weeks old - and yay, she could latch on! So we weaned her off the formula and upped the amount she was breastfeeding; by 6 weeks old, she was exclusively breastfed (and still is today). Everything should be fine now, we thought.

• Except it wasn't. From about 4 weeks old, she was incredibly unsettled, screaming in pain every evening, wanting to feed all day and often sounded like she was choking on her milk.

• So a diagnosis of silent reflux was made, Gaviscon was prescribed and there was talk of a possible cow's milk protein allergy. No dairy for me (what, no cheese?! or chocolate?!), no formula for her and oh yep, it'll take about 4 weeks to see any improvement says the doctor.

• A couple of weeks on, Gaviscon's not working and she's losing weight week after week. Next step, Ranitidine medication and a paediatrician's appointment.

• Finally at about 10 weeks old, she starts putting on weight - slowly, but at least it's heading in the right direction. Surely, that must be our fair share of bad luck now, we thought...

• Then I developed mastitis. Oh lovely. And not the type that's in the milk ducts, but the type that's in the connecting tissue, caused by an infection. So me and Lily had a delightful 3 day stay in hospital, where they found it had turned into an abscess and over the next few weeks, I had my right breast drained of fluid a total of 5 times - during which, she lost weight again, making her the same weight at 16 weeks that she was at 6 weeks.

 

• She's now almost 20 weeks and I think (hope) we're over the worst of everything now - she has gradually been putting on weight over the last month and seems a lot more settled. Her paediatrician is talking about weaning her at 5 months which is the end of June, although I'd still like to wait til 6 months if possible.

 

So the Fourth Trimester - which lasted about 16 weeks for us - it was hard and it did feel like it was never going to end but somehow (and I'm not entirely sure exactly how), we're here, almost 5 months on and with a baby that's not quite a baby any more but a little person with her own likes and interests.

 

 

 

I think the phrase is "onwards and upwards!" (or should it be "things can only get better"...?)*

 

 

 

*I bet you now have D:Ream in your head, sorry about that.

 

P.S. I'm very aware that this probably reads like a moaning, string-of-bad-news post - I promise from now on, I'll try and make things a bit happier around here (when I get round to posting it, even the birth story is actually a positive tale!).