I spent today with Julie and Jonathan.
Julie is walking around (slowly). Jonathan is still in the neonatal high dependency unit. They think he’s not making enough surfactant for his lungs. This should resolve itself fully in time, but until then they want to keep him on the CPAP machine.
We’ve been advised not to expect him to be released until at least Monday.
For those interested in more pictures, there is an album here.
It’s official, his name is Jonathan Henry Thomas Brazier. Thomas is in honour of my maternal grandfather who I sadly didn’t know well enough what with growing up in a different country. But a deep, strong man who I respected and loved greatly.
Julie is fine after the caesarean, but obviously not massively mobile and Jonathan is in the neonatal unit getting a little bit of help with his breathing. This is something that should sort itself out in time, hopefully soon. I wheeled Julie up to there yesterday afternoon and she was able to get a good look at our son and do some cuddling:
It’s been a very long week, but finally as of 04:53 this morning, 28 June 2007, we have a little boy. Here he is:
Julie and baby are both fine, despite the mass of appliances he’s attached to. He weighed in at 3.2kg, or about 7 pounds 1 ounce.
We don’t have a name finalised yet because we’re still awaiting a chance to get to know him. But watch this space…
I went in for our final “growth” scan on Thursday.
It all looks fairly positive — their estimates put our little fella at pretty much bang on 3kg (or 6lb 10oz depending on your unit of choice for measuring babies).
So he’ll be coming out slightly on the smaller side of average (3.4kg) but he has done quite well in the time he’s been allotted…
Roll on Monday!
Turns out that Amazon stock some pretty cool stuff for babies… 
People have been really generous to us in the way of clothes and baby hardware, but we’ve not really looked at any baby toys and books. So for those who like having a list to choose from, I’ve been having fun creating a wishlist for the little guy to redress the imbalance.
Doing the paperwork for when our 37 weeks are up:
Eek! It makes it all feel so final! :zipit:
This entry originally had the title “The longest week ever”. That was the predominant feeling as the Tuesday of my last week at work dragged to a close. Not because I was hugely uncomfortable at work, but all the mundane stuff to get through had each day feeling like a week long…
Then came Tuesday night when my home blood pressure (BP) monitor was indicating that things were running a little high. Added to that, the urine analysis sticks from the doctor showed that there was protein where it shouldn’t be, and my ankles were quite a bit more swollen than usual. (I’ve come to expect a certain level of puffiness around the feet, it’s been a fairly low-key side-effect so far.)
All those symptoms together were enough to make us call the hospital at 21h00 to see what they thought. Which – very unsurprisingly – led to an invitation to visit the labour ward so they could look at things for themselves.
45 minutes later found us in one of the delivery suite rooms with me strapped down with the standard set of foetal and BP monitoring gear.
One of the first things that we noticed was that the home BP monitor’s results appeared to have been wrong. 
That was after a series of impressively low readings on the hospital’s machine.
Not enough to get us off though.
By that point — past midnight I should add — the doctors had turned their intense scrutiny over to my blood test results from the week before and some fresh results from that night. And that had them concluding that I should stay over for some further tests the next day… sigh :yawn: (Tried offering to come back in the morning but it didn’t work.)
We’d come prepared so Tom brought my bag in from the car and then headed off home (around 01h30) to get some sleep.
An hour later, they woke me up to say that my bed in the antenatal ward was ready and a large, friendly nurse herded me downstairs to my, blissfully, private en-suite room.
So instead of another day finishing off at work, I got to spend Wednesday with my feet up, reading, napping and submitting to more tests. Including a liver ultrasound (didn’t show anything special) over in the main hospital where the sonographer gave me another look at our little boy’s profile.
Fortunately, as the day drew to a close, it started looking fairly certain that I’d be let off in the morning, when my consultant came by on her rounds.
Thursday morning, Tom and I were all ready and waiting to hear the verdict. The conclusion was that it probably wasn’t pre-eclampsia (BP too low) — a relief — but they had settled on another condition called obstetric colestasis and they were fairly sure that I had a mild case of that instead. Whee! :huh:
The general outcome of this sort of condition is that they want to deliver the baby at 37 weeks — not because it’s bad for me, but there is a risk for the baby. More details to be finalised at a slew of further out-patient appointments for baby-monitoring, blood tests etc.
So that left Thursday afternoon for a brief time at work, and then Friday to say my farewells and finish everything off. Slotted between another session with the over-worked maternity blood services (9 — 10), and another baby monitoring session mid-afternoon.
So all in all, hurrah for the weekend! (And to the start of maternity leave!) :party:
for the little guy to redress the imbalance.