NotSheep

The birth story will be coming - I’m working on it - but I wanted to record the rest of the day before I forgot it all in the haze of new-baby-lack-of-sleep

Briefly, up all night in labour, Toby born at 4.39 am, midwives left sometime around 6.30 am, Scratchy and Jack and Toby and I went to sleep, Barney and George and Freddy fended for themselves for a while.

I think I resurfaced at about 9.30 am, by which time Scratchy had, I think, more or less kicked the rest of the kids out of the house I could hear them talking to someone outside - they weren’t exactly going door-to-door along the street with the news of our new arrival, but not far off it

Barney and I had put the breadmaker on timer last night, so we had lovely fresh bread for breakfast

I had completely forgotten about afterpains, so had nothing at all in the house to use for them. It being Sunday, there was nowhere open until 1pm. He took Jack with him (peace! quiet! :lol:) and promised to return with painkillers and lunch. While he was gone, Freddy came charging into the bedroom saying “There are loads of our friends outside and they want to know if they can come in and see the new baby!” He rattled off a couple of their friends’ names, and I said, yes, okay then. I pulled up the sheets and off ran Freddy to tell everyone - a minute later I had ten kids in my bedroom all going “awwww….” and “isn’t he gorgeous….” and “he’s so tiny….” and “look at his teeny fingers….” etc etc. After about 20 minutes of this, Toby managed to poop meconium all over the back of his nightshirt and - somehow - all over the front of my shirt, so I told them all I had to change him and me and could they please clear off now, which they cheerfully did

Scratchy got home with lunch, everyone ate, the boys went back out to play, and Toby and I went back to sleep for a while. They’ve all just come in and had dinner and been sent off to bed early - after all, they were up since 4 am! And they’re supposed to be starting ju-jitsu tomorrow evening.

Toby has been very peaceful and settled today, mostly he’s just slept, with the odd few minutes looking around him. I think he’s probably still quite full of meconium, and he hasn’t really shown much interest in breastfeeding yet - he’s latched on a few times but really only suckled once or twice and then for only a minute or so. I’m hoping that he’ll have a couple of hours of interest soon, so that maybe we’ll get some sleep tonight.

Barney is completely besotted with Toby, he’s been checking on him all day and spent a good hour early this afternoon with Toby asleep on his chest (see the pic I posted previously - if you can’t see it, you need to register/login). Jack comes in about every ten minutes when he’s in the house, saying “where baby is?” - just in case I’ve lost him, I suppose Freddy keeps coming in and looking at him and then walking away grinning. George is the least bothered about it all really - in fact he’s denying that he was here when Toby was born (and he definitely was!) - I think maybe he was in some kind of Harry-Potter-dreamworld at the time

Must get some photos of them all together tomorrow…