Trials and Tribulations of Parenthood...

It's been 2 weeks since Jonah arrived screaming into this world. The first week was a really rough one for us... recovery from the C-section is excruciatingly painful, especially coupled with trying to get a suitable position to breastfeed a fussy newborn. In addition, I suffered from 'low pressure headaches' where my head just felt so compressed and heavy that it was debilitating and I just couldn't function. What was worse was that Jonah came down with a fever 3 days after we got home and was admitted to the neo-natal ICU. It was heartbreaking to see the little fella hooked up to the drip and having antibiotics injected into him. Then I was admitted to hospital too, to treat my headaches, which are apparently a side effect of the epidural that caused a leak of the spinal fluid. The doctor put me on a caffeine diet (after months of painstakingly avoiding the stuff...) with caffeine tablets and told me to drink lots of Mountain Dew (apparently got damn high caffeine content). So I couldn't breastfeed...had to express and throw...soooooooo wasted. Both of us were discharged on Monday and are doing fine now - fever and headaches are gone (*touch wood*). Daddy Glenn had been quite the superman, running around doing all the adminstrative procedures and taking care of us... but now his turn to fall sick - he's got the flu and is all grumpy :P

On hindsight, we'd gone overboard with the number of visitors in the hospital after the delivery...there were close to 100 people that came by. That would be equivalent to many many germs in contact with baby...and I didn't get a chance to rest properly after the C-section (kinda underestimated the effects of a C-section...didn't expect it to be so painful). So now we've decided to not have visitors at home during the 1 month of confinement...

We're still trying to get used to the responsibilities of parenthood...the most difficult is figuring out why he's crying and how to stop him from crying. But hey, babies cry right, that's what they do :) And the breastfeeding... the little fella drinks so much (about 90ml per feed) that my poor boobies just can't keep up. So now we're supplementing with formula (instead of letting him go hungry) and hopefully my boobies obey the law of economics, i.e. Demand = Supply.

My mom and parents-in-law have been taking turns to come over and cook and take care of baby. I'm not really on a confinement diet (except for the various soups that my mom makes)... just trying to eat healthy...which by the way, is really boring and bland. Managed to get out of the house today - we were witnesses at Glenn's cousin's ROM ceremony. Felt good to dress up and do something else besides fussing over the baby :) Can't wait for him to grow past this needy stage when we can bring him out. Glenn went down to the ICA to register for his birth cert - his official name is Jonah Glenn Loh (for egoistic reasons) and his Chinese name is Luo Jun Long (noble handsome dragon - watever lah, only his Chinese teacher will call him that).

Okie dokes, Jonah's crying (it's like clockwork)...means its mum mum time....