I’m seriously feeling the deep pangs of mommy guilt this week. Every time I look at my baby boy I hear a voice in my head saying “bad mommy, bad mommy!”

Sunday was a hot, but overcast type of day. I had my brother and all 3 sisters over for lunch, in a very impromptu get together. In fact the last time we were all together was at Mason’s first birthday -over a year and a half ago. I see each of them often, but we never seem to manage to all get together, so it was a really good day.

We sat outside on the patio under the umbrella, the big boys built Lego and swam while Mika was passed around between us -snoozing in his aunties arms. Sounds blissful right? After a few hours of sitting outside, talking, eating, laughing and baby cuddling, I took Mika from one of the girls to feed him and noticed his face was quite pink! OMG! I burnt the new baby!

Somehow my little sausage roll got his face sunburnt. His brand new precious baby skin. I feel shocking! I am so careful about sunburn and always lather it on my boys before outside play, but quite honestly it never crossed my mind to put lotion on Mika. Especially since he was always under the umbrella and never in direct sunlight. Sheesh what a bad mommy!

I’ve been cleaning his face with cooled rooibos on cotton wool and today I started applying Sudocrem. His little face is much better, but he still has this light red stripe across his nose and top of his cheeks. Thankfully it hasn’t seemed to bother him at all, and he is his cheerful, smiley self.

I had to go out today and kept Mika’s face tucked safely into the wrap so as the parenting police didn’t see how I had burnt the baby. Third baby and still getting things wrong! Huge mommy guilt. Tell me I’m not the only one?

Mandi xxx

Seriously! Two months old already? I love this squishy baby stage so much, but it just goes by so very quickly.

Mika had both his well baby visit for vaccinations last week and a check up with his pediatrician this week. The visits were like night and day opposites. My exclusively breastfed chunky monkey has just about doubled his birth weight (which babies generally do by 3months).

The nurse at the baby clinic last week told me that Mika was a fat and greedy baby and I need to give him water between feeds. I was quite upset by her statement and instantly doubted myself. Even as a mom of 3, I still have doubts and was left wondering if I was over feeding my new baby. My gut told me that there is no way to over feed a breasted baby and I know I have never given any of my other babies water until they were eating solid food. I reached out to twitter and one quick tweet had literally dozens of twitter mommies responding and confirming that I was right and the nurse was a bloody idiot. Instinctively I *knew* she was wrong, but it was really awesome to get so many validations from other mommies. I heart twitter for that!

My pediatrician is such a divine doctor. She is gentle and kind and super supportive. And best of all she just LOVES the babies. She checked my fat baby out from head to toe and told me he is absolutely perfect. She is very happy with the way he is meeting his milestones and loves that he is a chubby guy considering he was supposedly a preemie. So all is well.

Mika is much more alert during the day now. He loves to be kissed and when he focuses on my face I get the HUGEST gummy smile and sometimes even a little giggle comes out. It brings tears to my eyes. He has started “talking” quite a bit now, and I love listening to his content little noises. He is sleeping great at night time – doing 5 hour stretches between feeds and luckily goes straight back to sleep once he’s nursed.

Michael is a fantastic big brother, he has always been amazing with Mason since day 1 and his patience and love continues with Mika. Mason has been surprisingly wonderful with this new little person in his life. If I come downstairs in the morning without the baby he asks me “mommy, where’s MikaMika?” And he LOVES to kiss his baby brother.

All in all I think little Mika Jack has fit into our family perfectly and so far things seem to be going swimmingly. *touch wood*

(I did have a rough time last weekend with all 3 boys, but will save that for my next post.)

Isn’t he just delicious?

Much love,
Mandi xxx

A month ago today, on the 6th January 2012, our little Mika made his very quick emergency entrance into our lives.

At only 35 weeks pregnant, I woke up at 5am that morning with a shocking headache which was affecting my vision. I emailed my doctor begging him to prescribe something stronger than Panado. He replied and told me to get my blood pressure checked straight away and get back to him with the reading. My BP was 164/110 which is extremely high for someone who usually struggles with low blood pressure.

After calling my doctor back with my reading he asked me to come in to his rooms straight away so he could check everything himself. By the time I had sorted out my big boys at home with the nanny and my friend Jill had come to fetch me it was already past 11:30am. I walked into his rooms and he saw me immediately. Honestly at this point I had thought they would give me a shot to lower my BP and take away my headache maybe. I had no idea what was coming next…

After checking my vitals twice my doctor rushed into his brothers office next door, came back to me and announced that we had to get the baby out right away and then sent me straight to the labour ward.

Within 15 minutes I was admitted, in my hospital gown, had blood drawn, drip up, baby monitored and was wheeled into theatre where they gave me a spinal block and just had time to let my husband know that OMG we are having this baby RIGHT NOW!

I was on the operating table, iPhone in hand trying desperately to get my Skype to connect so my G could at least experience some of the birth with me and the next minute baby Mika was out and being handed to the pediatrician while my doctors quickly cleaned me up and glued me back together. Yes they glued me up, no stitches! Amazing!

Mika Jack was born at 12:40 on 06/06/12 weighing 3,37kgs (huge for a 35 week-er) 49cms tall and absolutely perfect. Thankfully! He was ready.

All I was worried about was that baby was ok and his lungs were working and that he had baked for long enough before being ripped out. All my doctors were worried about was closing me up and pumping me full of magnesium to prevent seizures. Apparently I had developed HELLP Syndrome which could be fatal to both mother and baby and the best way to *fix* it is to get baby out ASAP. I had no idea how serious it was and am so grateful that I decided to contact my doctor that morning.

Mika has been the perfect little addition to our family. His brothers absolutely adore him! I was quite worried how Mason would react to having a new baby in the house but I needn’t have given it a second thought as he has shown only love and gentle affection towards his baby “MikaMika”. Of course Michael has been wonderful, but I never doubted him as he has always been amazing with Mason.

I’m feeling extremely blessed right now. Not sure how I got so lucky really. I am overwhelmed with love when I look at these three amazing little boys we have brought into the world. I only hope to continue doing a decent job of raising them into strong, sensitive, amazing men.

Happy one month our little MikaMika, we love you!