Progress!

Willow is finally acknowledging Rowan's existence!  I think she has realised that he isn't going anywhere.  Over the last couple of days she has come up to him and sniffed his head (with us watching like hawks!)

She still looks displeased, but at least Willow is beginning

to accept that Rowan isn't an hallucination.

Rowan for his part is not that interested in the dogs, but he does occasionally stare at them for a while.  I think it's more to do with the contrast of black and white than any intrigue by them as animals. 

I'm surprised by how much Rowan is growing, and he has already outgrown a few of his clothes.  I don't think he's going to be in the Moses basket for much longer either...

Having a bit of a workout

Embellished babygrows

During my pregnancy, my Mum gave me some baby grows.  I decided to embellish them to make them a bit unique, and below are the resulting outfits:

Cross stitched bear.

The design was originally from a book

on cross stitch cards, but it translated

well for an item of clothing. 

Little Parasite - the nickname we

gave my bump.  It still seems apt! 

Dog paw print. I love Bondaweb! You
 can make unique clothes super quick and
with minimum effort! 

 Monogram Bondaweb design.  'P' is the
first letter of our surname.

I had some lace in my crafting stash, so I
hand stitched it onto a babygrow. Rowan
doesn't seem to like it since his nappies
always seem to leak when he wears it. 
Fair enough, it does look like a Victorian
girl's nightdress. 

 More Bondaweb!  Reminiscent of an
Olympic medal ribbon.

2012 Christmas cards

Here are this year's Christmas cards.  Unfortunately, due to moving, pregnancy and other generic excuses I only had time to stitch my parents, in-laws and sister's cards.  I was fairly happy with how they turned out, although I wished I had more time to be a bit more careful about the embellishment placements and design.

I was happy with this one.  It's titched on 32 count linen

with beads and a lot of fiddly back-stitching.  I was a 

bit lazy (I like to think I was being environmentally

friendly) and just cut out the Christmas sentiment

from a bought card I received last year!  The same

applies for the following cards...

I had intended to put the 'Ho Ho Ho's' 

at jaunty angles, but annoying I only

achieved this for the centre one, so it 

looks accidental now. Grr. 

I like the tartan effect from the red 

backstich lines in the design.  Luckily I

had some matching tartan style fabric in my

stash to use for the sentiment's background.

Snow day!

Being the sheltered pleb that I am, I don't watch the news (local or national) so I was quite surprised to wake up and find a couple of inches of snow outside (I'd have been more surprised had it been inside).  Having lived in Aberdeen for 6 years, the snow wasn't exactly an impressive fall, but for England it was a decent smattering worthy of a blog post.  I was particularly excited since it was Rowan's first snow day, not that he'll remember it.  Gareth and I wrapped him up in copious amounts of blankets and a wooly hat knitted by my Mum, and took him into the garden for a quick photo shoot.

 Gareth was worried that Rowan would

be in the cold too long, hence the

worried expression.

A brief pose before heading back indoors.

 I enjoyed the snow today as I didn't have to go out in it.  I have Reynauld's disease, so whilst I appreciate the aesthetics of a nice snowfall, spending any amount of time outside in it inevitably ends in my fingers and toes becoming very painful.  However, as Gareth didn't have to go in for his morning shift, I did brave the weather and take the dogs out for a brief run whilst he looked after Rowan - we decided he was probably a little too young to take out in the snow, so I enjoyed a quiet walk with the dogs alone.

Willow enjoying baby-free time.

The problem with having a mostly white dog in snow.

Rowan does have the kit for snow, and we do take him out in cold weather, but we decided today was a tad too cold. 

Rowan's snowsuit.  He'll grow into it.

Three weeks old

Rowan is now far more alert than when we first brought him home, and it's really nice to see him take an interest in his surroundings. Although we would appreciate it if his interest started earlier in the day and didn't extend into the late evening/night.

Love the look of interest on his face!

That said, we have had a few three hour blocks of sleep during the night over the last four nights, and it's been bliss!  I'm not sure if this will persist, or whether it's just a short-term thing, but we're enjoying it while it lasts.  Whilst not forcing a routine, we're trying to establish a pattern of bedtime and daytime.  So we change him into day clothes in the morning and vice versa for night, keep the lights really low at night (thank goodness for the Lumie!), I don't make eye contact or speak during night feeds, and we put him upstairs in the Moses basket between 7pm-9pm, depending on when he falls asleep. We know he's too young for a rigid timed routine, but it's all good practise for us if nothing else!

'Stay asleep...'

As my family are currently suffering with colds, and it'll be a while before they can see Rowan, I've added a few random photos below to keep them going!  I also realised that my mother-in-law can't access the update photos I've been adding to Facebook.

Apologies for the baby photo heavy nature of this post; it's not because I'm turning into one of those obsessive 'look!  My baby just blinked, so I took a photo that obviously the whole world will be interested in!' mums.

First day at home.  9 days old.

First bath.  Rowan really enjoys bathtime luckily!  He's not so keen on the drying aspect.
We regularly baste him in olive oil as it helps with dry skin without being too harsh.  We've
threatend to roast him a couple of times if he doesn't sleep. 

 Angelic pose

Not so angelic pose

It's surprising how quickly you get used to handling 
a baby.  Initially I was afraid to pick him up in case
I snapped his neck, or his head caved in! 

Quizical look.  Roughly translated as

'where's the boob?'

Dogs and Rowan

When Rowan was in hospital, we left a bit of muslin in his cot and brought it home with us after a couple of days.  We let the dogs sniff it so they could get used to Rowan's smell before we brought him home.  Willow wasn't in the slightest bit interested, but Tangent was fascinated (in a waggy tail, happy sort of way, not a predatory 'thanks for the snack' way).

So, when we finally brought Rowan home, the dogs' reactions to him weren't a surprise to us.  Willow essentially pretended he didn't exist, sulked for a couple of days and pretty much ignores him (although we have caught her having the odd surreptitious sniff of the Moses basket).

Unimpressed Willow.

 Tangent, however, is really taken with him.  He watches the Moses basket and stares at it intensely when Rowan makes any kind of noise.  He also sits close to the changing mat when we change Rowan's nappy, and also by the playmat.  Although I think the latter is more because he quite fancies the playmat as an epic dog bed, complete with awesome dangly toys.

 Tangent, Gareth and Rowan relaxing.

Obsessive Tangent.  We hope they will be good

playmates when Rowan is older.

Rowan

Bit of an abridged version...
Mine and Gareth's son (Rowan) was born three days late on Christmas Day, 06:52AM, and weighing 7.1lbs  It was a bit of an ordeal, as I was in labour for 36 hours during which time the baby turned into a back-to-back position (a notoriously painful and difficult position to give birth to), and his heart and breathing stopped. I had a spinal tap, episiotomy and forceps delivery.

 

There was a horrible few minutes after our baby was born when there was complete silence.  No baby crying, no staff talking, just silence whilst the medics worked on resuscitating him.  Eventually, we heard a weak mewing sort of cry, and our son was then rushed off to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

 Disconcerting photo of Rowan attached to various 

equiptment.

Rowan was treated by being cooled to 34oC, and we were also fortunate to have him put on a trial for a treatment that reduces the spread of any potential damage.
I got to touch him a few hours after he was born, once the spinal tap was wearing off.  I was discharged the next day.

First contact

Rowan spent 4 days on NICU and he did amazingly well.  He 'passed' all the physiological tests, and recovered well when his ventilator and sedation was removed.  As we had to await one final MRI scan before we could take him home, I was admitted back onto the maternity ward with Rowan so I could feed him.  That was a long four days!  It was impossible to sleep, as if Rowan wasn't waking up for feeds then someone else's baby was, or someone was having obs etc. done.

Rowan has now been home for almost a week, and we are slowly adapting to life with a baby.  Although it is a bit of shock, no matter how prepared you think you will be!

 'Bump' photo.  41 weeks plus 5 days.