I swallowed two paracetamol tablets in a vain attempt to shift the heavy pain that had settled across my right eye, and shuffled, bleary-eyed, into the lounge of the birth centre, where I found Sally holding our baby. After sleeping through the visits of her six grandparents the previous day, at 8pm little Luna (I was still using her "womb name") decided it was time for a drink - and had pretty much sucked for the next 14 hours. I had spent the night lying next to her, blinking away exhaustion and periodically setting her in her cot, only to see her eyes open, face turn side to side rooting for milk and arms and legs wave a distress signal. It was now midday and time for our baby, now almost 36 hours old, to go home. After our nocturnal marathon, there seemed no doubt that the breastfeeding was pretty much sorted; we'd managed a nappy change without getting tarry meconium in too many places and we'd learnt a couple of tips on sizing: that 'New Baby' nappies actually come in 4 sizes and you need the smallest ones at first, that the '0' in '0-3' should more accurately read ¾-3 (at least for smaller babies) and that the tiny clothes labelled 'Newborn' are not 'pointless'.
So after packing our belongings, we carefully followed the instruction leaflet to get Luna settled into the stretchy wrap sling on my chest and headed out into the May sunshine.
The next few days were a haze of milk and lavender baths, pint glass after pint glass of water and squash, mountains of cards and gifts arriving with the postman and the endless hours of feeding: in the daytime when Sally would bring me drinks and nutritious meals that my baby-fuzzy brain could not have worked out how to prepare; in the nighttime when I'd sit in the rocking chair, my lap a little overcrowded when the cat joined us as well. And the Catch-22: the virtuous circle of feed/sleep/feed/sleep which became a vicious cycle of feed/nappy change/feed/nappy change in our quest for a clean bottom.
Despite the fuzzy brain, and the nights of feeding though, in those first two weeks, it was all going quite nicely for us. I'd been terrified about the prospect of caring for a screaming bundle of chaos. But little Luna (perhaps we'll stick with the womb name for now) seemingly perfectly content living at home with her two mummies, just wanted to drink and sleep - no screaming, no chaos. And then came Week 3...