Week 1

Gray DJ was 10 minutes old when the nurse asked me to follow her to the recovery room while C was being put back together and I don’t use that term loosely. The nurse instructed me to sit on a chair, she then handed me Gray and it was the first time I had held him. I just couldn’t get over how small and perfect he was but then reality kicked in when the nurse asked me how we were feeding him. I remember C telling me we were going to start Gray on Aptamil and see how he goes. The nurse came back with a little bottle of Aptamil (75ml) and said here you go. I had a look of terror on my face as I had never fed a baby before and with the risk of sounding extremely silly I hadn’t a clue what to do. The nurse was brilliant and told me just keep moving the bottle around and he will eventually start to feed. Indeed, she was correct but he was very slow and took about 10ml. A half hour had passed and C was eventually wheeled into the recovery room and she looked amazing. I was so happy to see her and I just wanted her to get a hold of our new little man. She was numbed from the boobs down but I honestly didn’t hear her complain once. We were a good hour in the recovery room and I used this time to cuddle my little boy, feed him and take photos of him with his mummy. I rang C’s Mam as soon as we got out of recovery and she was with us 10 minutes later. Finally, we had a happy moment in the family after 4 months of hell and Nanny J was over the moon and besotted instantly. We had a few visitors that day but by 8pm everyone had gone for the night and it was just the 3 of us. Gray DJ had been as good as gold but he wasn’t really feeding, the little lad just wanted to sleep. We were given a feed chart and it was dismal to be fair, the most we could get into him was 25ml. I stayed until 2am and I remember driving home tired but I couldn’t stop smiling. I was up the next morning early and it was straight back into the hospital with a few supplies. One of the nurses had taken Gray for a few hours during the night so C could get some sleep. We had another day of Gray not really feeding and the nurse told us if he doesn’t start feeding soon they will have to put him into an incubator. I remember fighting back the tears thinking please feed for us, I couldn’t bear the thought of him in an incubator. We gave him a little pep talk and the next feed went up to 35ml, after that he went to 45ml and we were in the safe zone. The days went so fast for me in the hospital as we had plenty of visitors but I really did hate going home on my own. I was wishing the days away so I could get C and Gray home on the Friday. The Doctor came on the Thursday night to give Gray the once over and once he got the nod we were good to go on Friday morning. I got in to the hospital early and we just had to wait for the nurse to discharge us and to cut Gray’s tags off. I had the car seat at the ready and we planned on putting Gray into a beautiful Mamas and Papas blue snow suit that C’s Dad had bought for the little man’s first adventure into the outside world. Unfortunately, Gray never got the memo and stopped growing so the suit was huge on him. We reverted to plan B and it was 20 layers up to his eyes instead. I proceeded to drive home in the lashing rain C crying in the back holding the side of Grays car seat, him asleep oblivious to the world, me driving at the slowest speed possible but I couldn’t have been happier with him but worried about C. Stay tuned for the lack of sleep and reality setting in. Kel