Taking Joe Home

After Joe was born, I spent one night in the hospital. I did not get any sleep as the other babies were crying, and I was too excited to sleep.

Phil picked me up from the hospital the following morning (Thursday 26th March), and we took Joe home. I remember Phil telling me that I needed some sleep and he sent me to bed, so this was his first time alone with Joe. When I woke up, Phils mum was round. She had cooked us some food that we could reheat to make things easier. We were so grateful.

Things went OK, apart from I was struggling to get Joe to latch (I was trying to breast feed). On the friday we had to take Joe for his 24 hour check. The GP said that everything was fine, although we were concerned that Joes nappies were not very wet. At the time, we put this down to the fact that Joe had not had very much feed. The midwife was supposed to come out, but she never showed up. I phoned the hospital and was told that the midwife would be out on Saturday morning.

I continued to struggle to get Joe to feed, so I phoned a helpline. I was advised to stick with it, and that this can be normal for mothers and babies. I was really worried, so on the Friday afternoon, I tried expressing milk and bottle feeding, but still Joe would not feed.

During the Friday evening, Joe would not settle, and was whining (not even crying). This carried on through the night into the Saturday morning. However, I did manage to get Joe to have some milk during the night, so I felt a lot happier.