In Joy and Sorrow, My Home Is In Your Arms

Day 2 at home: We're alive and well!

Yesterday evening, a couple friends of mine, who live a few streets away, invited Morgan and myself over for drinks and banter. We were picked up at about 7:45pm, and the moment we walked in, I warmed up Morgan's bottle and changed her nappy and sat down to feed her.

Another two couples joined us, and we had banter. It was good - the only thing I was a bit tense about was the cat who lives up to the Evil Mastermind reputation white poofy persian cats have, and the 2-yr old cute-as-hell lab/german shepherd-mix puppy they have. The cat is a cat - therefore obeys nothing and no one. He kept trying to wriggle in between Morgan and myself in more than one way - mainly metaphorically though. I guess her milk was too tempting for him. The she-pup was very outgoing and curious and kept sniffing at Morgan. My concern was the same kind of concern I had with Whiskey, my dog. Being a big, young dog brings with it a big amount of curiousity _and_ clumsiness. Thankfully, the other 6 people we were with took care of both cat and dog so that they'd keep their distance as much as possible.

I suppose I'm not one of them parents who are willing to take risks with pets and children by allowing said pet to sniff at their heart's content the child. I realise that it might be the best way to go on about it, but I am not comfortable doing it, especially with dogs I don't know and/or dogs who aren't used to children.

We didn't stay out late - by 10.30pm we were back home. Morgan was drowsy, so I put her to bed, picked a book, and joined her. Shortly after, we were both asleep. I must have been more tired than I realised I was as I slept through the alarm. She slept through it as well, so no harm done. Instead of having her bottle at 00:30am, she had it at 1:30am after her nappy change, and then crashed straight away once more.

She slept the whole night again, and woke up at about 6;30am, where I took care of her needs and got us both back to bed to sleep a bit more. She slept until her next feed was due.


I gave her a sponge-bath before feeding her, and clothed her in her first dungarees! She is adorable in this outfit, if I may say so myself! I always liked dungarees, and my favourite was an army green one made of denim - I had matching ankle boots back then too. Needless to say, Morgan owns quite a few in different sizes and will own many more.

See? I told you she's ADORABLE!

Once fed, I put her in her seat, and I managed to cook myself some food uninterrupted whilst Morgan watched the changing light and shadows through the back yard's door. She fell asleep by the time I finished eating, so I took her to the living room so that I could keep an eye on her whilst I do stuff.
After some time, Morgan started getting gas cramps, so we went to bed and snuggled up, and she fell asleep again.

Once she woke up, I changed her nappy and shortly after my mum came over. She gave Morgan her bottle, had brief banter and she ran off to go look after my dad who seems to have manflu of sorts.
Once gone, Morgan and I just chilled. She fell asleep again, and so I had some time to sort out her clothes and to relax a bit.
 
Now, we'll be off to her room so that I can attempt carrying on the clothes sorting process.

Medical updates!

A midwife came over yesterday to check up on us. I had forgotten she was meant to come over, kinda. I knew she was due on the 17th, but I failed to realise that the 17th was yesterday.

She checked my blood pressure and C-section scar, as well as my uterus's position. She confirmed that everything was fine and the uterus has moved back down and shrank closer to its pre-pregnancy position and size.

She also checked Morgan and said she still has slight jaundice but it will soon go away. She stripped Morgan down to check her GirlyBits and her belly button and confirmed all is well. She also confirmed that the dry skin on Morgan's hands and feet is normal and gave the thumbs up to the cream I'm using on her, as well as the shower gel.

Morgan's belly button is an "innie", by the way. My soon-to-be sis-in-law has been asking me whether her belly button is an "innie" or an "outie" ever since the umbilical stump fell off. [If you're unsure of the difference - clicky here ]

The one issue we're facing at the moment is gas. It is causing Morgan to suffer abdominal cramps, which make her cry out for a few seconds several times throughout the day and night. I have mentioned this to a few people and have been told of a product called Infacol. Needless to say, I decided to look it up.

Infacol is a product that has an active ingredient called Simethicone. It is meant to help group the tiny gas bubbles trapped in a baby's intestines into larger ones for easier explusion. Having said that, the information I found about this product is disheartening. Have a read!

Infacol is currently out of stock on the island. My mum went to the pharmacy to ask about it and was instead sold a product called Dentinox which I refused to use for two reasons - it seems like it is intended for Colic not Gas - and it has an expiry date of May 2012 which makes me think the pharmacist had old stock he is trying to get rid of.

The active ingredient in Dentinox is Dimethicone. This is similar to the one in Infacol, however the one in Infacol is mixed with Silica Gel.

An interesting read was the following article: http://www.babycareadvice.com/infant_gas/infant_gas.old.htm
I have had friends swear by Infacol, saying it works. When I googled the active ingredients I mentioned earlier a fair number of hits I got were about rabbits. You know, long ears, twitchy nose, furry. They hop. Sounds familiar?

I am not about to give Morgan something which is used to treat rabbits effectively and yet seems to have little more effect than a placebo would.

A friend of mine suggested I try Infant Fennel Tea. Upon looking it up on Wikipedia, I came across the following:

"Carminative properties of fennel are known from ancient times, as recorded in the Latin phrase "semen foeniculi pellit spiracula culi"[11], which literally means "the fennel seeds make blow the arsehole"."

Needless to say, I'm still giggling over it. The article does carry on to say, however, that "Fennel can be made into a syrup to treat babies with colic (formerly thought to be due to digestive upset), but long term ingestion of fennel preparations by babies is a known cause of thelarche."

At this present moment in time I think I would much rather prefer to continue acting as her mattress and holding her close to me, belly-to-belly, to warm her up. Perhaps I go into too much detail, but I'm not willing to risk it.

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