To bath, that is the answer.

Turns out her tummy was just too small to fit 26ml in :(

A little bit of a dispointment but there is a silver lining, turns out she is not the first baby to not get to her target feed level and that they have a back up plan, surprise surprise. They are going to fortify her her breastmilk with something that will boost the calories in it, in this manner she will get the food she needs in the 23ml she can fit in. So her drip could come out after all, and it did, choice.

So we got to give her a bath

Now this was my first time bathing a baby, yet alone one so tiny and it was an education. Filling the bath, unwrapping the baby, easy. Picking up the baby and transferring her to the water and holding her there whilst simultaneously preventing her constantly wriggling soapy slippery body from slipping out of your grip, not easy. Then you have to let her go and hold her with one hand while you use the other to wash her! A feat of co-ordination that I was proud of even though I chickened out half way through and held her with both hands while Deb washed her. Phew, that finished we got her dried, dressed (and this was the first time she wore clothes) and fed and what did she do? Why she chucked all over her clothes of course. So it was undress, clean and redress and then what did she do? Why she had a poo of course. Can you see a pattern forming here? Never mind, we love her all the same.

We covered out her privates to preserve her dignity a little bit :)

A bit more on Deb, as mentioned in the first post in this blog one of the symptoms of her pre-eclampsia was foot swelling. Paradoxically her level of swelling went up after the birth and was causeing her a bit of pain, despite my foot rubbing efforts. This was something to be expected apparantly, although we weren't warned about it and it can take up to 6 weeks for it to correct itself. Not my Deb though, just over 1 week and now her legs are coming back to normal, Yay.

Deb has come home for one night tonight, will do her good to get out of the hospital for a while although she has found it hard to leave I think it is good for her to come home now while she can, because when Sophie gets on the breast she won't be able to. She was given a breast pump to take home with her, great that they should supply her one but wait till you see it, it really must be circa 1950! It weighs in at about 20 kilos and is a VERY solid piece of engineering, we were a little bit disappointed with it at first but now that it is home and set up and we don't have to move it around it is actually quite good, not too noisy and does the job well. I bet the light little plastic ones she has been using up until now will not be working in 60 years time.

Thank goodness Debs friend Lorraine has been very generous and donated us heaps of baby stuff, including a small portable breast pump, so if you read this, thanks heaps Lorraine.

And now for the main act, todays cutesy pic and vid. The picture is of her in her first clothes, and in the video she got the hiccups, which was just a delight and so we just had to video it.

Don't know if I can keep up daily posts now, if you have ever written a blog you will know that it takes a lot of time and effort. So there might be a post tomorrow and there might not, so check back anyway.