Our beautiful boy!

After a long on-line absence, I'm delighted to be able to introduce our son Toby Alexander, born Friday 9th March at 20.07 GMT, weighing 8lb 2oz /3.68kg. Head circumference 13 1/2 inches/34cm, body length 21inches/53cm. And he's utterly perfect in every way imaginable! He has very dark brown hair, slightly olive skin and rich brown eyes (they changed from a slatey navy blue within just a few days) - all characteristics that we were hoping he would inherit from the donor. He has my "fade-away" eyebrows, my lips, chin and associated clefts/dimples, but unlike me, he has the most elegant long-fingered hands with perfectly shaped fingernails. Plus long legs, feet and toes. His skin is perfectly soft and velvety, his hair is like duck's down and we're totally in love with him.

I haven't had the time or energy to come online until now; most of my time has been spent eating/sleeping/crying (both me and Toby!). The birth didn't exactly go according to plan (I laboured naturally for 30hrs, but my body just wouldn't establish a regular pattern of contractions, and ultimately after a total of 44hrs of contractions I needed a C-section for "failure to progress in labour" - it didn't help matters that his head had turned during labour and was presenting transverse, so he wouldn't have come out vaginally anyway. Karen was the most amazing support for me throughout the labour, as was my mother - having them both there made it all much easier to cope with. Karen was in theatre with me for the op, and got to hold Toby straightaway; he settled instantly in her arms, clearly knew exactly who she was, and she certainly has the magic touch in being able to settle him when he is fractious (she's much better at winding him than I am too!). Full birth story to follow, as well as numerous posts on breastfeeding, sleeping, emotional ups & downs etc.

Our gorgeous boy is doing really well already at just 9 days old, which makes life much easier than it could have been, although there are also low points, mostly associated with breastfeeding, and the state of my poor pain-wracked body. Sleeping is going pretty well since my milk came in on Tuesday, but I had to resort to nipple shields on Wednesday to combat the extreme pain of breastfeeding (and latching issues with the RHS), and now Toby won't feed without them which is frustrating. Karen's taking the brunt of the night-time waking - I just put in my earplugs so that I can't hear every little whimper, just the major crying which means that I need to get up & feed him. She does all the re-settling etc. so that I can try & get some decent sleep to aid the birth recovery process.

I'm inevitably taking some while to recover after the long labour culminating in a C-section (via artificial rupture of membranes, a Syntocin drip and an epidural!!) My body is decidedly battered, bruised and stiff/numb still, which is not the best way to start life with a new baby, but I'm feeling a little better each day. Our first outing was to the chiropractor on Wednesday - not the way things should have been really. But truly, every minute of the labour was worthwhile for the end result, even if the hopsital probably didn't need to drag things out for quite so long. We were perfectly well aware that I was almost undoubtedly going to end up with a C-section about 8 hrs before it happened, but we still had to go through the drip process etc. When I spoke to my midwife the other day about the implications of this labour (i.e. failure to contract regularly/to progress) on further births, as well as reassuring me that there was no connection between labours (and the good news was that I went into labour spontaneously, and did eventually fully dilate on the drip), she said that they "wouldn't flog me so hard next time" (as my uterus wouldn't take it having had a C-section already). That pretty much sums up the labour process once we were admitted to hospital 22hrs in!