43/365 - 6 weeks

Bub and I had our 6 week checkup at the local GP today and I'm still in mild shock that that the bub has grown 7cm in length and packed on a whopping 1.7kg since birth! I'm calling him my little sack of potatoes; yep he's nearly 5kg and its no wonder that both my wrists are starting to feel like they're about to collapse. Ironically, I was going to go see the physio near me and it turns out the physio is out of action due to a fractured wrist! I'm hoping I'll hang in there till he's back.

Bub seems to have handled the immunisations reasonably well. One jab in each thigh and then one vaccination taken orally. A little bit of crying when the needles went in but the GP was speedy gonzales with it. Though the one taken orally might have half come out in a spout of milk vomit which the GP was quite stern to tell me that I shouldn't have fed him half an hour before the visit.  Now can I just say, how was I meant to have known if no one told me in the first place?

On a side note, mum had to plead with the receptionist for the GP to see bub as after 4 weeks of submitting our Medicare form to add him onto my Medicare card, I still hadn't heard back. Was told initially that it was going to be a $150 consult fee but perhaps I was looking like I was about to break down in tears with the news that the receptionist said she could put the charge on hold whilst we went over to Medicare to get the temporary number. We did that straight afterwards and of course, my posted form had been processed as they issued me with a temporary slip and ever so quickly took my old card away from me. Now let's just see when my new card is going to turn up. 

So immunisations and Medicare aside, we also made the trip to Centrelink to follow up on my parental leave claim. Bub's birth certificate only turned up last week so we could finally provide proof of birth for those payments to come through. Lovely lady at Centrelink was ever so helpful but did mention it might be a few weeks away before that gets processed. We then come home to get some letters in the mail and guess what, hubby has been granted his daddy pay already and he didn't even need to provide proof of birth. Seriously - what happened there?

But you know what, after 6 weeks of minding bub, nothing really phases me these days. Some lessons I've learnt:

1. You are meant to know anything and everything despite dealing with the professionals

2. Chaos is the new normal. As a mum, you can deal with it.

3. Play the mummy card to your advantage - sometimes you need to remind people that you are exhausted enough already looking after a bub

Happy 6 weeks Liam!