A Wonderful Wife and Marvellous Mother

Whilst there are a great many things I worry about as far as my daughter and fatherhood are concerned, there is one thing I don't need to worry about.  I have never worried or will never worry about what kind of mother my wife is.  She is an incredible mother.  My daughter and I are exceptionally lucky to have her in our lives.  As we have just celebrated our first wedding anniversary, this post is a chance for me to describe what a wonderful mother my wife actually is.  Warning: If you have recently eaten, then you may want to read this at a later point, as the content of this post may make you feel nauseous!

Let's start with her selfless attitude during pregnancy.  Not once did I hear her complain about having to significantly adjust her diet to cope with her gestational diabetes.  Despite her physical appearance, she does actually really enjoy chocolate and cakes, so I know that it was harder than she let on.  She didn't even mind injecting herself twice a day with insulin.  Her only focus was what she needed to do to ensure our daughter was growing healthily in the womb.

Then there was the ECV.  I would have skipped it and gone straight to the Caesarean-section, such is my aversion to pain.  But my wife wanted to try to provide a safer natural birth for our daughter.  So she gritted her teeth and allowed someone to subject her to some agonising pain.  Again, there were no complaints, there was no screaming or shouting.  Unbelievably, after it was all over, her only thought was that of guilt.  She hoped our daughter hadn't suffered and wouldn't blame her mother for her ordeal.

After our gorgeous little girl was born, there were some real challenges with breastfeeding.  Once again, my wife showed what a selfless individual she is by persevering with feeding for almost a month.  This was despite difficulties latching which resulted in several problems.  Firstly Daisy screamed and screamed for the first few days every time she was meant to be feeding, which broke my wife's heart.  It also made us both very apprehensive about feeding time.  Once that subsided, then the pain became apparent.  But my wife continued through it, seeking support and advice from various breastfeeding advocates so that she could continue to do what she felt was the best thing for our daughter.  And Daisy gained lots of weight, justifying her mother's decision to continue.  My wife had two painful infections, one of which required antibiotics, in the first couple of weeks which still didn't sway her unerring persistence.  Finally, a third infection was the final straw and she very reluctantly conceded that breastfeeding simply wasn't working for them.  And yet, she still asked my permission (because we are a team and both of our opinions about parenting matter, even though I wasn't the one who had to suffer extreme pain every two or three hours and the immense discomfort in between) and she still cried with guilt when we gave Daisy her first bottle of formula milk.  This just shows what a remarkable mother she is.  Her only concern is what is best for our daughter and it was her body, not her heart or mind, which finally decided that enough was enough.

She is also a very loving mother.  It is the most incredible sight to see my wife and daughter together.  Daisy always appears a little indifferent to the hundreds of kisses I bestow upon her each day.  Maybe it's the beard!  Maybe it's my breath!  Maybe she just isn't that bothered by my affection.  However, when my wife kisses her, she turns her head, her eyes light up and she puckers up to receive the kisses with sheer delight.  They gaze into each other's eyes and Daisy is very contented when she is doing this.  She loves her mother very much, that much has been obvious from the very first day.  And who can blame her?

She's also great at everything else being a mother entails.  She gets up in the middle of the night to feed her, change her and cuddle her, often for two or more hours (because our 'naughty' daughter still hasn't figured out when she should be sleeping and when she should be awake) despite the fact that she is exhausted after having undergone major abdominal surgery less than four weeks ago.  She is affectionate and caring.  When we have visitors she very subtly makes sure that Daisy is never away from her for more than quarter of an hour by suggesting to even the most strong and healthy of them that their arms 'look tired' (from holding our huge 3kg daughter!) and then asking the rhetorical question 'shall I take her now?'

Daisy and I hope she realises how grateful we are to her for everything she does for us.

Daisy: Part 1

The more observant of you will have noticed that I haven't been blogging for a couple of weeks.  There's one reason for this.  She's called Daisy.

We'll take a step back to last Wednesday, which was our date for the Caesarean-section.  Actually, let's go back to Tuesday evening.  My wife and I, at this stage without a daughter, spent the evening and night excited but incredibly nervous.  People kept telling us 'Sleep now, whilst you can!'  Ironically, we didn't sleep much the few nights before the big day and almost not at all on Tuesday night.  We'd had our pre-op assessment on Monday, so we had been made fully aware of what would happen.  Of course, being informed about everything that will take place is a great thing, but it also makes you aware of the risks and possible complications, which only makes you more worried.

So, tired and growing increasingly nervous, we headed off with all of our bags on Wednesday morning to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.  We were first up.  This meant that we had a firm time which was very unlikely to be changed at the last minute.  My wife's bump was scanned to check that our 'naughty' daughter hadn't decided to turn at the last minute.  She was still breech.  Therefore, we headed up to the delivery suite to get prepped for surgery.  I was allowed to change into some very fetching scrubs with a pair of 'Crocs' and a disposable hat.  I'm not wild about hats.  I don't like the fact that hats mess up my hair.  Why spend time in the morning sorting my hair out if I'm going to put something on top of it which flattens it?  But I swallowed my pride and put the hat on, which was the least I could do bearing in mind the morning my wife and daughter had in store.

In the operating theatre, my wife didn't fuss or complain when the anesthetist prodded at her spine with a needle.  I would have.  She was amazing.  I wouldn't have been.  I didn't really know how brave she was until the ECV she had a few weeks ago.  She showed even greater bravery that Wednesday morning and she made me exceptionally proud to be her husband.  After the anesthetic took affect, the very young looking registrar opened up my wife's bump at 9:26am.  4 minutes later, to the sound of our specially selected playlist, our daughter was born.  She screamed a little and was taken to be checked out in the corner of the room.  She soon settled down and was given the all clear.  She was healthy and she was gorgeous!  I then got to cut a small part of the umbilical cord off.  It was a very weird feeling and it took me more than a few snips!  Bundled up in to several blankets and with a knitted hat on her little head, my daughter was handed to me for the first time.  I'm not ashamed to say I welled up, in fact I'm welling up now thinking about it.  But I wanted to get her back to her mother, so I blinked away the tears and focused on making my way around the assault course of vital equipment back to my wife without dropping the most precious thing I have ever held, my 2.7kg or 6lb 1oz daughter.  She certainly wasn't the larger baby we had been expecting as a result of my wife's gestational diabetes.

The rest of the operation passed in a blur.  It was chance for my wife and I to gaze adoringly at our daughter.  It wasn't an easy time for my wife, she was uncomfortable and sick, but she only had time to focus on our little girl.  She astounded me that day and continues to do so.  Since Daisy was born, she has shown remarkable patience, calmness, perseverance, persistence and most of all overwhelming care and love for our daughter.  I owe her so much and I'm worried that I will never be able to thank her enough for the gift she has given me.  Soon enough the operation was complete and we were all moved to the recovery room to spend more time as a family.

Daisy's first day with us was perfect.  It involved more time than I can ever remember on my phone, sending texts and updating friends and family on Facebook.  The great thing about having a smaller baby is that this can be done whilst still holding on to her.  Whilst the recovery room on the delivery suite was air-conditioned, the top floor maternity ward was far from it.  It was sweltering.  It made my wife feel very sick for a while, which of course she didn't complain about.  She just concerned herself with making sure Daisy was still okay.  We had several excited visitors during the day.  Her Nain and Taid (Welsh for Grandmother and Grandfather) got the train over from south Wales to spend an hour with their first grandchild.  Her Nana and Nel came up later in the day to visit too.  Daisy was being spoiled rotten with hugs and kisses, present and cards.  In fact, even before she was born she had been given many amazing gifts from family, friends, colleagues and even children from my school.  We are incredibly grateful to everyone who has been so generous and kind with their thoughts and comments and cards and gifts.

Living With Gestational Diabetes

My wife has taken to regularly injecting drugs.  Don't panic, she isn't mainlining heroin.  She is injecting insulin.  Unfortunately, she has been diagnosed with gestational diabetes.  As I have confessed previously, I am not any kind of medical authority.  I don't know how well I am able to explain this condition.  But I will give it a go.

Several weeks ago, because of a family history of later onset diabetes, my wife undertook a glucose tolerance test during a visit to the midwife.  I received a text later that morning from my wife saying that I should phone her when I had a minute.  Everything was fine with our baby, but the results of the test showed that my wife had gestational diabetes.  We were prepared for this because of her family history.  However, it still worried me enormously.  I was worried for my wife and for our unborn baby.  I didn't know much about it, so I promptly Googled it.  This is a dangerous thing to do.  It often leads you to finding the most severe facts about the condition which only served to worry me further.

I know the NHS is often criticised, but we have received some incredible support, care and attention from everyone we have met during the pregnancy.  We found out about the diabetes on the Wednesday before the May Day bank holiday.  The diabetic nurse insisted upon seeing us before the weekend and opened her clinic half an hour earlier on the Friday morning in order to see us and get my wife started on testing her blood sugars.  This is indicative of lengths people in the NHS have been prepared to go to help us during the pregnancy.

We were initially told that my wife's blood sugars might be controlled with diet alone.  However, they weren't.  So within a few days she started tablets which help to lower blood sugar levels.  This had a positive effect for a few more days before it became obvious that even this wasn't helping.  This was an incredibly frustrating and upsetting time for her.  She was doing everything she could do in order to control her sugar levels for the sake of our daughter.  It was yet another point during the pregnancy where I have felt utterly useless.  I was worried and I couldn't do anything to help because she was doing everything possible and it still wasn't helping.  As it turned out, the insulin, which was a last resort at the beginning of the process, was quite a relief to my wife.  Through injecting insulin, she has seen her blood sugars reduce and feels happier that our daughter isn't getting too much sugar.  She feels happier, which means that I feel happier too.

As part of the extra care you receive when you have gestational diabetes, you attend an antenatal clinic where you meet with the diabetic team, including a dietitian, a diabetic nurse and a diabetic consultant who check how well you are getting on with the drug regime and diet restrictions.  You also see an obstetric consultant (or a 'baby doctor' as the diabetic consultant referred to him as).  They check on the baby and how well mother is doing. You also have a scan to check that baby isn't getting too big.  This is the one of the real concerns with gestational diabetes.  Because my wife's body isn't able to control her blood sugars properly, there can be too much sugar in her blood.  This could lead to our baby taking on too much sugar and becoming too big.

We have been to two clinics now.  Our first visit was arranged last minute so we didn't have a scan.  Everything seemed well and my wife's bump was described as 'perfect' in size by the consultant.  In case you are wondering he didn't just have a look, he actually measured it!  The scan at our second visit showed that our baby is progressing well.  She isn't too big.  This is a relief.  In fact she sits very nicely in the middle of the upper and lower percentiles on her growth charts.  We need to return to this clinic a week on Monday where we will have another scan and meet with all of the wonderful healthcare professionals once again to check how both my wife and daughter are keeping and progressing.

Our baby is actually due on 21st July but because of the diabetes and complications which can occur if the pregnancy is allowed to go on past the due date we will be offered an induction at 38 or 39 weeks even if our daughter isn't too big.  On finding out about the induction, largely due to my medical ignorance, it wasn't actually me who was fretting this time, it was my wife.  I don't know much about the process.  I have read about it since finding out and it seems like it could be quite difficult for my my wife.  I now understand (in a very simplified way) what it entails and, therefore, why my wife was panicked.  But what I also know is that she will be given the very best care by the 'baby doctors' and the midwives at Gloucester Royal Hospital.  And I will be there every single step of the way to act as her personal punchbag!  So she needn't fret either!