We had a visit to the maternal and child health nurse this week where we discovered that she has grown 4cm since she was born, and that she is also putting on a pleasing amount of weight. She currently weighs 3.45kg, and is finally beginning to fill out her little grow suits that until now have been a bit on the roomy side. She is a perfect size 0000 at the moment and we are trying to get a good amount of wear out of the lovely little outfits we've recently bought her before she grows out of them!
I just love dressing her up. I love any chance I get to look at her gorgeous little limbs and to feel her warm, soft skin upon mine. She's not a great fan of getting in and out of her clothes but she doesn't complain too much, she just squirms around a bit and screws up her face when we pull things over her head. We are still quite slow in dressing her, afraid that we will be too rough and accidentally pull off an arm or a leg, or a little finger or toe. We're slowly learning that she's a much more robust little creature than we give her credit for, though. She's actually getting really strong - I've noticed it in her little legs, especially, and two different medical professionals have also commented on how good her head/neck control is for her age. We've been encouraged to start giving her some 'tummy' time and her grandfather bought her the world's most gigantic play mat where she can practice (seriously, it takes up our entire living room). So far the cats seem to be enjoying the play mat a lot more than she has, though!
I can't get enough of Alice's milestones. I'll make a milestone out of pretty much anything. They were the things I desperately missed out on when Max died, and that I spent months and months longing for. It's why I'm going nuts gathering mementos of all of Alice's milestones, from ordering commemorative birth certificates, to having sculptures made of her little hands and feet, to buying a trolley load of albums and decorations from a scrap booking website to make her a very special baby memory/story book, to collecting all of the little tidbits from her hospital stay (ID tags, the name signs from her little cot). I even took photos of the first pieces of mail she received addressed to her (a package of presents from my mum!). I'm sure I'm going to end up with thousands of mundane photos. Maybe I'll forget what those random images meant at the time, but for now they seem important. I want to gather all the 'evidence' of her existence I can find as if those things might finally convince me that my baby is here, that she is safe, that she is mine.
Here's something else I did. I bought these little month-by-month stickers ages ago and daydreamed about being able to take photos of her wearing them as the calendar turned throughout the year. I bought them from this cute Etsy shop and there are tonnes of designs to choose from. I was beside myself with excitement about being able to whack one of the stickers on her this week. It gave me such a thrill that I didn't even get stressed that she was crying at the time - I was having too much fun! Here she is modelling her '1 Month' sticker. The photos crack me up. She's so expressive with her little arms and they are so long and skinny!
Speaking of photos, we were also excited to have a professional photo shoot of our little family this week. My friend Bek from Little Red Photography is an amazing photographer who is really able to capture the essence of the subject and the occasions she photographs. Bek took some photos of Leslie and I after Max died, incorporating some of his special keepsakes, and she also found some ways to include Max in our current batch of photos, which meant a lot to us. Alice was a good sport for the whole afternoon, only getting unsettled towards the end of our visit to Bek's lovely home. She was very accommodating of us posing her and passing her around. I haven't seen any of the images yet but I know they will be very special and that we will treasure them forever.
Les has been working from home the last two weeks. It's been nice having him at home - just knowing he is there in case all hell breaks loose is reassuring, though nothing of the sort has happened so far. I know that I will manage perfectly fine when he goes back to work, I'm just nervous about it. I'm nervous about not having any back up. I'm worried I'll never get out of the house. What if Alice starts crying and I can't make her stop and I'm the only one here? Nothing seems as scary or dire when there's someone by your side, even if there's nothing additional they can do to help. I have the phone numbers of a bunch of helplines that the hospital gave me on the fridge, so I suppose if all else fails I could swallow my pride and dial them up!
The week ended on a high note. Alice and I made our way, sans Les, to see Melanie this morning, then we took yet another trip to the hospital where she was born for an appointment with a lactation consultant. Feeding has been a very serious challenge for me (I'll write more on this later) and I've seen a bunch of consultants for help so far. The one I saw today was the only one who has really helped, though. It wasn't that she told me anything especially different to what I'd already been told, but she seemed to be able to communicate in a way that just made sense to me, and in the space of a few minutes she fixed a couple of simple mistakes in technique I'd been making and things pretty much improved instantly! I came home with a new feeding plan. It is going to take a lot of work, but I'm committed to giving it a red hot try over the coming weeks in a final attempt to make breastfeeding work for us both. Alice was an angel throughout, even sleeping peacefully while I had some lunch and a cup of tea in the now-familiar food court. Thankfully she also seems to enjoy being in the car as we had a long day getting in and out of it. There's not usually a peep out of her when I'm driving, which is a relief!
So that's a rundown of Alice's fourth week of life, although a mundane one (my update, that is, not her achievements!). I'm basically just typing what ever comes into my head, with very little forethought, which is about all I am capable of at the moment!
More from all of us soon!
