7 things she loves, 4 things she hates

It’s unbelievable that such a little thing can already show her preferences. Here is a list so far:

LOVES:

1. mamae’s breasts
2. Papa’s bath
3. being cuddled, of course!!
4. Papa’s silly imitations of her
5. shadows in the bedroom at night
6. going out! We still get a bit flustered while she’s completely at ease.
7. noisy places

HATES:

1. changing clothes (Papa says she’s not a typical girl…)
2. putting her arms through sleeves. They annoy her immensely!
3. Papa’s cold hands when changing her
4. getting out of the bath – I think she would stay there for hours if she could say it…

So far so good, the balance is positive! Papa adds that the ratio is 1.75, and we’ll update you on this

nene

First outings

After returning from the hospital and enjoying her private tan studio sessions (see last post – lucky her!), Zoe decided it was getting rather boring with us (below).

To convince her to give us a second chance we ventured outside of the house to introduce her our world… also known as neighbourhood. These outings also defused a related desaster, in satisfying her mother’s urge of being part of real life and not being confined to the breastfeeding universe. The ventures were a success and appeased my beloved women. How happy they both look now. (Thank god!)

However, daddy is still trying to grasp the fact that he has to keep now 2 women content – Nikos, I really feel for you! Not sure he will ever recover from the psychological stress associated with this. Any advice?… anybody?…thought so…

michi

Sun tanning studio

And amongst other reasons to be in hospital, little Zoe needed some early sun tanning sessions…

The jaundice was only physiological but they kept a close eye to it. She hated spending so much time on her own, and her crying was breaking our hearts. But we kept ourselves strong to make sure she got the treatment. Many pricks in her tiny feet and blood tests later, we finally came back home on Sunday – bringing the bilibed (the sun tanning studio!) with us.

On Tuesday she was officially discharged from the treatment, and a dressed life could finally start! Plenty of cuddling to compensate for the lost time, of course

nene

5 Days in hospital

I can’t believe we spent 5 days in hospital. The time went so fast, and progress seemed so slow. Perhaps because I had never been in hospital before?!

Learning to breastfeed was a challenge I had underestimated, I must confess. How difficult could it be if mankind (womankind to be more specific!!) has been doing this for thousands of years?! But, yep, there was a technique to be learnt. But despite several different midwives coming and going with different opinions, a good soul adopted me and led me through it. Relief…

And the feeling of doing it is indescribable.

Here are some pics of the proud Brazilian grandparents. Not much time to write now, it’s feeding time again

nene

Birth of Zoe

At last, I can let you all know a little bit more about the birth of our first child Zoe.

Nene went into labour on Monday evening last week (19/08/2008) and we went to the hospital on Tuesday morning (3am – no problem with parking at that time!). It was all going quite well, until we found out at around 8am that she was only 3cm dilated (10cm required for the baby to be born). We were both going internally WHAT???? that measurment cannot be true, can you please take several measuments so that we can calculate your reliability score? Thank you!

The reason for this slow progress was that the baby’s head was in posterior position (ie her spine against Nene’s spine) which created this very slow progress. But what could be do, we just had to go on breathing (Nene) and massaging (me). At around 11am she was then 7cm dilated, so at least some progress made but still veeeerrryyyy slllooooowww. Finally, at around 1pm she was fully dilated and we got excited again.

… however, nothing happened for the next 4 hours!

Looking back that was the most frustrating time. (Frustration = too high expectations?)

At around 5pm, I could feel that Nene was getting tired and she just wanted it all to finish (who wouldn’t after that duration?). It became clear to us that the baby would not come out naturally and so we resorted to an epidural, which blocks the nerves and therefore the pain from the belly button downwards. Nene felt so much better after this procedure beause she was pain free and we knew the baby was still fine too because she was monitored. Finally, the doctors told us that they would try to use the venthouse (a sort of pump attached to the baby’s head) to help her turn into anterior position and being born (basically suck her out of the cosy womb). However, they were sceptic that it would work and all preparations for a Cesarean section were made.

At 9pm Nene was rolled into the operating theatre with a confused me close behind and at 21.12 on the 20.08. 2008 was our daughter Zoe born via the venthouse and some poking with the forceps ( a sort of huge salad fork). Our feelings at that moment are difficult to describe just look at the pic…

Just born

So after 27 hours of labour Zoe was born and made already clear to us who will make the decisions in this house from now on and that she is a fighter already. Love, Michi

Still a bit bruised

First entry

Hello there,

As you already know we have created this blog for keeping in touch with friends & family and let them have a bigger part in our lives here in Sydney.

We hope you will like it and send us your comments.

Love, Michi, Nene & Zoe