Chapter 1
My body hated pregnancy, I however loved it, loved the feeling of baby kicking and dancing about inside me, I used to watch and film it for hours. I would know exactly where and how they were laying. I am that person who has like 20 photos of the same image. I Loved the Unknown, not knowing the sex of the baby, and if I could have just paused that moment in pregnancy I would have! I had My boy already he was perfect in every way, such a charmer, a polite little boy he was so clever. He amazed me every day. He grew into a little man too quickly, he was my best friend in the whole world. That was about to change and it took us all by surprise. When I finally went into labour 4 days late, and I say finally because I was having contractions stop start for two weeks, and before you think it, NO it categorically was not Braxton hicks. I had already been through twelve hours of painful contractions before, so I know what they felt like. She was born within a few hours and so quick we were all in shock. She was distressed somewhat and had swallowed some meconium. We sorted her out and she was fine. She slept like the proverbial baby from 12am until 6 am in the morning. I was shattered I let her sleep and no one came to my room to tell me otherwise. She was coughing through the night and in the morning there was some yellow bile on the sheets but the midwife wasn’t too worried. We went home had lots of visitors it was fun!! I say that sarcastically because after just giving birth to something that should not logically be able to fit out of ‘there’, the last thing you feel like doing is hosting!! Off goes Kenny out for a while and leaves me with a house full of people. I mean I can barely move, I can barely sit, I don’t really know what to do with myself, but I get through it. She was perfect my 5lb 15oz of perfection. My little lolly pop, my princess. I love new born babies. I could have 10 of them. The way they smell (when they haven’t got a dirty nappy for the tenth time that day obviously) The way they look when they sleep. Their total innocence. The fact they are completely and utterly dependent upon me. I wasn’t great at sharing my babies. I’m not going to lie I found having visitors really hard with her, Maybe it was baby blues but I just wanted to be left in my little bubble and snuggle her all to my self. I did share her though It was only fair she was just too beautiful to hide away. I look at pictures now of her when she was new born and I feel a pang. Like a little rip in my heart because we were blissfully unaware of the struggles we were all about to face. Every thing was fine, she was healthy, she was my little Lolly and I can still feel that feeling I got when I used to hold her in my arms and put my nose to her hair (what little bit she had) and smell that incredible smell that makes you heart skip a beat! Then I bring my self back to reality and I look at my gorgeous 5 year old who has all these struggles in such a short space of time and that little rip In my heart immediately heals. She’s still Lolly still that bundle of perfection that was placed in my arms, who I had such an immediate unconditional Love for. It wasn’t long until her lungs opened up! I breastfed, then part breastfed until I coudn’t take her constant clinging anymore, I mean it was day and night and night and day and I was utterly exhausted. She would not leave me alone, When my mum used to pop round she always used to joke, “do you ever put that baby down” well actually no I couldn’t she wouldn’t let me she was glued to my hip. Poor Bambam I’m not normally concerned for myself but at that point I knew I had to give up breastfeeding for my own sanity and it just wasn’t fair on Him. She then started screaming, all day and all night, quite literally until she was sick, I didn’t know what was wrong, we used infacol, gripe water, until finally I took her to the doctors who prescribed gaviscon. She was so bad that she would literally cry until she was sick and then once she was sick she was fine. Until she was fed and then the cycle started all over again! (ok I said I’d keep this short and sweet but I may have lied about that) It didn’t stop at the sickness though she used to choke, sometime just on bile but she would go blue and floppy and stop breathing and it was awful! One time we went to wales to visit kenny’s dad, she was 6 weeks old and so tiny and we were in the middle of nowhere I mean properly like out in the country on a farm miles away from anywhere. She was inconsolable, I gave her gripe water and she choked and couldn’t catch her breath, I handed her to Kenny as I got so scared I couldn’t watch, she was practically grey and all I could think of was that she wasn’t going to make it, no ambulance would make it here they’d have to send a helicopter, all that was running through my brain, whilst I shouted at Kenny to help her. And then I finally heard her scream again, I’ve never been so relieved to hear her cry. It was up there with one of the most terrifying things I have ever been through with my babies. I was distraught the whole weekend. It shook us all up. You are probably thinking what’s this got to do with autism, but you’ll see just bare with me. So for the next few months we trundled along with a screamer until eventually I had had enough of pulling my car over in the most dangerous of places, rushing round to my baby and dragging her out choking on vomit and going floppy! We were referred to a pediatrician who diagnosed reflux and put her on some special milk. My baby girl was fixed, YAY! Ooohhhh nooooo, the infections, god the infections, tonsillitis, URTI’s, urine infections, very high temperature spikes that used to make her floppy and she was just always so so poorly. A common cold would see her hospitalized. At one point she had a URTI but she was so poorly with it they suspected Meningitis! It was hell, seeing my little baby being prodded and poked by loads of different doctors. Needles in and out of her hands. She was in so much pain. She had to stay in for about three days on a drip she was severely dehydrated. The hospital staff at RBH, On Lion/Dolphin ward were amazing. They took great care of Lolly and she perked up really quickly. Its strange because I took her to out of hours doctors that evening she was admitted and they were about to send us home with some antibiotics. As I was leaving I asked the doctor “why did her hands and feet keep going blue every time she got poorly." They were so blue all the way to her finger nails. After hearing this info the doctor admitted us straight away. Her hands and feet still go blue now when she’s poorly although it isn’t such a scare factor anymore we are used to it. There has never been an explanation for this we have asked so many different doctors. Lola used to go blue just getting in the bath it was that bad. But apart from the constant infections she settled, she stopped screaming and she was such a good little girl. She went from one extreme to the other. Story of our lives still!! She loved to be cuddled, wrapped up tight, in fact she loved to be so cosy that she slept in her moses basket until she was 9 months old. She was literally hanging out of it. I say slept, what I really mean is stayed awake all night!! to be continued ................ jodes x
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