Day 6 – 28 October:

Michelle: The nurse came and checked Conor’s weight and drew bloods again. His bilirubin count hadn’t reduced by enough to allow us to ditch the bed and his weight had dropped, but it was still within the acceptable 10% that newborns can lose after birth. I felt a bit stressed out about it all and was trying to find my feet balancing a toddler who needed me as well as newborn who also needed me just as much, if not more. While my heart was overflowing with love for them both, I wondered how I was going to manage to give them both the love and attention they needed.

Michael: One forgets all about the small challenges of caring for a new born. More so for us, as we never got to experience that with Rachel as she spent three weeks in ICU, being a preemie herself. But that is what the joy of parenting is all about, new challenges, learning how to care for someone else. Always trying to do your best. Seeing what works and what doesn’t. Sure, he was sleeping loads, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything new to learn. Doing the nappy changes etc was different to the experience with Rachel, his personality is different, so one doesn’t worry about anything, you chalk it down to the kids being different.