Our hospital stay

Hello Lucas,

We spent 5 nights at the Mater hospital after you were born, it was such a great place for me and Daddy to learn the basics on how to look after you. Considering Daddy had never held a baby before, there was a lot to learn! Surprisingly, Daddy picked up all the skills very quickly. Actually for the first few days, Daddy changed all your nappies and gave you your first bath. I was still recovering from the caesarian section and couldn't get out of bed easily.

Here are some photos of Daddy in action:

Day 2 - getting changed and burped

Day 3 - getting taught how to bathe you

All fresh after a bath

Daddy would stay with us at the hospital during the day and would go home after your 11pm feed since the hospital did not allow dads to stay overnight. Here is a pic I took of him gazing at you, reluctant to go home after the 2nd day at the hospital. Isn't it sweet?

 

Our days at the hospital revolved around your feeding sessions which were every 4 hours. My milk didn't come in until the 4th day, so the first few days were spent trying to speed up the process by giving you skin to skin and trying to express colostrum. I think it was the c-section that caused the delay in my milk coming in. We had to give you formula to supplement your feeds since you were so small (2.63kg at birth) and we couldn't let you lose too much more weight. Most babies lose about 10% of their birth weight during the hospital stay, the midwives were so surprised when you only lost 8g. It was hard sometimes to wake you up for a feed, there were a couple times when after 6 hours, the midwives told us we had to wake you up to eat.

Here is a video of me trying to wake you up for a feed at 2.5 days old:

We also had a lot of visitors in the first week, with your Grandparents visiting almost every day and many Aunties and Uncles. Without exception, as soon as they saw you, they would remark how much you looked like Daddy. After carrying you for 39 weeks and going through the pain of labour, I was pretty bummed that you didn't have any of my features. Though now I've had time to marvel over you, you definitely have my hands. I think you have my nose too but Daddy disagrees. We saw some photos of Daddy as a baby, and the resemblance you have to those photos is uncanny.

I think you have my nose...

Daddy's little boy

In the baby capsule, ready to go home

After almost a week at the hospital, we were finally discharged!