Erin + Mark = Ben

So it's been a long long long time since my last blog but boy do I have a good reason. I had a baby. A beautiful baby boy named Ben - I'll post photos soon but in the meantime you can see him at my sister's blog - www.everythingisaspoon.blogspot.com

The labour went better than I could have hoped for. I had the epidural and the rest of it really wasn't as hard as I had feared it would be. It's the since the labour part that's been hard. Really really really frickin hard. Way harder than I thought it would be. I got hit with the baby blues right away and then those lifted and I had two good days before post-partum depression hit. I didn't sleep for the first five days AT ALL. And little sleep since though the insane adrenalin high has ended. I've yet to have a day without tears though the anti-depressants mean I'm no longer crying all day long. I think I've cried more since Ben has been born than I have in my entire life up to that point.

And I had to abandon breast feeding, which was very hard. I never thought I wouldn't be able to handle it but I just couldn't. It was at the point where every couple of hours I fed Ben but other than that I didn't want to hold him or look at him and every time he made a noise I just cringed. Since starting bottle feeding, this has improved but the bonding process has still be disappointingly slow. I know that it takes up to a couple of months for lots of women to feel totally in love with their babies but for some reason, I thought I'd be one of the ones who fell in love the first day. It's been hard being patient and keeping faith that in a few more weeks our little family will feel like the dream I always wanted.

All that grousing aside, Ben is a great baby. He is healthy, pretty content, a minimal screamer and he goes down to sleep at night pretty well. I'm just crossing my fingers none of this changes. He's growing like a weed and his face changes almost daily. He's already outgrown two of his sleepers. Tomorrow was his original due date - he currently weighs 8 pounds 12 ounces so he would have been a big big baby. I'm extra glad he came early.

Anyway, I will endeavor to post more as I start to feel better but make no promises. And soon I'll stop Suri-Cruising him and let people come and visit! :)