Random thoughts from the first days at home...

THURSDAY

We are sleeping on the single mattress on the floor of the lounge room

I had to write to my online people and I cried every time someone wrote a message saying they were crying for him, or that he is beautiful.

We came home to a tidied house and a full fridge and freezer. Amy had even gone out to KFC and bought our favourite foods.

I cant stop smelling the gown, its how he smelled today.

Our house is already filled with flowers.

I feel numb. I cry every now and then but I can’t comprehend it all too well at the moment.

I love looking at his photos. They make me smile. I felt best when I had him in my arms looking at him. Olivia (our midwife) said “you two are different people when this little boy is in the room” with a smile.

It’s hard to remember I just gave birth yesterday

I’m already back down 6kg. Minus 1.5kg baby, 400g placenta, virtually no blood loss – I therefore had somewhere in the vicinity of 4kg of amniotic fluid. That’s not right.

He has dark, dark little eyes, and light eyebrows. His hair is fluffy and longer and darker on the sides. It’s almost strawberry blonde on top and dark brown on the sides. He has the brightest red lips and tiny flaps for ears, practically paper thin. He has Rory’s nose with tiny milk spots. His tiny hands still point with his index finger like in the ultrasound and he has such long feet! His big toes are shorter than his second toes!

Amy is the best. She even went through our mail while we were in hospital and took out anything baby related. I had spent the whole night he passed on the internet signing up for free stuff and samples – what shitty timing. So for the next few months there will be constant reminders coming.

FRIDAY

I haven’t taken my hospital band off yet. Can’t bring myself to.

I don’t know what to feel. The tears burst out every now and then but that’s it.

I came home from telling R to find a package from Avent in the mail with samples. I was totally okay with it and put it aside for the next baby.

Everything along the way I have thought would be harder than it was. Telling R was hard but there were minimal tears from me and none from him. We think he understood but wasn’t as sad because he never met his baby brother. We know he will have a lot of questions though. The main one he kept asking was why did his heart stop? I cried a bit but just said to him “you know how we were going to have a baby? Well I had the baby the other day but he died. His little heart stopped beating and he died. So he will never be coming home with us. Do you want to see his pictures?”

I showed his photos, and rory just wanted to know why his heart stopped. I said he was very very tiny and his heart just stopped. And he died. We told him that we will be very sad for awhile and will probably cry a lot. And that we would like lots of hugs and kisses from him all the time to make us feel better because he is our only baby now.

He went in and told mum, and said "his head was tiny tiny like this" and cupped his hands together. Then he went and played with his cars in his room. It was better than I thought. Love said she was very proud of me and I explained it really well.

Talking to mum after a while I started having some anxiety and wanted to tell her to shut the hell up. Love sensed something was wrong with me and came inside (she was outside playing golf with R) I just couldn’t stand the sound of her voice any longer. I had anxiety all the way down the freeway then on South Terrace I asked Love whether she thought R understood and then it exploded out of me. It was a very brief sob and I felt so much better after. The knot in my chest and the anxiety was gone.

When we got home I spent lots of time looking at his photos. He is so beautiful and looking at the photos doesn’t make me sad at all.