The first week

William's birth was amazing and so much more than I was expecting, Michael and I were grinning from ear to ear and calling all the important people, (well Michael was calling people I was just staring at William),

when my midwife came in to check his weight and give him his shots she asked if any of the other boys had to have their blood sugar levels checked. I'd never heard of it before, apparently all babies born over 4.5kgs need to have it checked. So she put him on the scales and after she had a little chuckle she said 'hold on I'll just do it again to check that's right' we knew he was a big boy you could tell from looking at him but we weren't expecting her to say 11lbs 10ozs! 

So a little prick in his foot would tell us if his sugar levels were ok or not. Normal is over 2.6 Williams level was 1.4. Not a terrible thing but it needed to be fixed, so after he was dressed he headed off to the special care nursery with Michael while I showered. When I got there they told me he'd just been tube fed 40mls of formula. We had to wait half an hour then check his levels again. 

Still no good. Another 20mls of formula and his levels came up enough for us both to head off to my room for some much needed sleep.

Bruised face baby, that's what happens when your hand comes out with your face. 

I had to feed him on demand and come back half an hour after his next feed to have another heel prick. At midnight I headed back in with him and he was down to 1.8. 

So I sat in special care nursery and fed the boy for an hour or so, another heel prick-still no good, another dose of formula in the tube. 

William we discovered, is not to keen on hospital formula, as it was going in his belly he was puking it straight back up. By this time it was almost 3am, a call to the paediatric doctor and he was straight down to put a drip full of dextrose (sugar) in his arm. Then I was told he couldn't leave the nursery and I'd have to go in to feed him.

In special care with his drip.

Well special care nursery is not somewhere I ever expected to end up on his first night, especially not with such a big baby. I always thought of special care for tiny babies or babies with something wrong with them. I quickly found out special care nursery is actually quite fun, the mums who are in there with tiny sick babies know exactly whats going on and are doing everything they can to make their babies stay as comfortable as possible. William's neighbour was 1.1kgs she was so tiny but her mum was so upbeat she knew she was going to be there  for a while. 

The aim of the game for us was to feed him on demand (which was constantly) until my milk was in enough for his levels to come up on there own. He had to have a heel prick and check his levels every 6 hours which meant I spent 99% of my time in the nursery with him either feeding or checking his levels and settling him  afterward he'd had yet another prick in his foot.
The second night his levels were doing really well and his drip was turned down from 27mls of dextrose an hour to just 4.4mls. I was hopeful that we might be able to go home that day. At 7am when the doctors did their rounds it was time for another heel prick. Bad news. His sugar levels dropped way to much and his drip had to go way back up to 17mls an hour. I was starting to feel like we were never going to leave. 

By Friday morning I was so over the four walls of the hospital and over only seeing my big boys for a few hours a day. Thankfully the doctor I saw that morning agreed to take the drip out and keep an eye on him during the day, if his levels could stay up for the next few hours we could go home.

Sumo baby

I fed the boy like a maniac hoping to keep his levels up high enough. At 1pm his levels were 2.6 literally just high enough. He had to have one more check at 4pm if that was high enough we got to go home. I was hopeful but skeptical all at the same time. So when he wanted to sleep from 12-3 I was worried. I woke him up, stuck a boob in his mouth and hoped for the best. 4pm rolled around and we headed back to the nursery. The nurse on duty was so lovely she wrapped up his foot in a hot towel (helps bring your sugar levels up) and we crossed our fingers. When that little machine beeped I didn't want to look.

'Get out of my nursery' the nurse was grinning as she said this his level was 3.1. That means we were discharged, thank god!

Home time!