5 weeks old and Magnus is growing fast. Here he is wearing one of my favourite outfits, made by a dear friend in Orkney. He is lying on a quilt made by one of my sisters (he has another quilt made by a friend, what a lucky boy). I must try and photograph all his handmade gifts at some point.
Absolutely nothing prepares you for life with a newborn, no matter how many friends tell you how hard it can be! But he's beginning to smile now and babble a bit, these interactions make it all worthwhile.
We had a horrible week when we were told that he probably had cystic fibrosis, this was from the Guthrie heel prick test babies have when they are 5 days old. This was a total shock to us, it had never shown in either of our families (we didn't know of anyone who was a carrier), and left us in a kind of limbo. If he had cystic fibrosis, our lives would be very different than if he didn't. We were told that the test was rarely wrong, but as the week wore on we discovered this wasn't necessarily true and there could be false positives. We didn't want to cling on to this but last Monday morning we got a phone call to say that he was absolutely fine. I cannot describe how relieved we were. The prognosis for cystic fibrosis can be pretty good these days and we would have really stepped up to give him as great a life as possible, but we are so glad that he doesn't have it and is a healthy baby boy.
Who knows what the next 5 weeks will bring!
What a darling baby! I'm certainly glad that the CF scare came to nothing. It really is true that when you have children you discover that "your heart is now walking around outside of your body" in Elizabeth Stone's words. Well, maybe not quite walking yet!
Take good care, I think of you all often! Enjoy each day. They metamorphosise so quickly...
Posted by: Christinelaennec | May 07, 2012 at 02:58 PM
Thank you, I can definitely now relate to those words. I think I'd have done anything to make sure he was ok.
Posted by: Katherine | May 12, 2012 at 06:34 PM