Hi Katfish and welcome to the forum. I found it a very similar way to you and spent many nights reading through posts. It made me feel a lot better and a little less alone in this whole experience. My daughter has had a very recent diagnosis as well. We have now had 5 days in a DB brace and I really feel today that it is starting to get easier. I know what you mean about loosing that intimacy the first day I felt like she was a totally different baby but now we have both settled in to things a bit better and after a massive shopping spree of new pram, car chair, bean bag and clothes I at least feel like I have places to put her and things to do with her.
it is a massive adjustment and very emotionally exhausting to begin with. My advice is to let those feelings out, not to bottle them up. People keep saying to me "Oh she'll grow out of it, it's not forever, it's for the best in the long run" and I agree and know all those things but that doesn't take away the fact that it is hard right now, that it is not how we picture our beautiful babies to be. As my mum put it "Yes, it's not like she has cancer, but it's also not just like she's teething. It is still hard and it is still a big deal. Don't let people disagard your feelings about it" Couldn't agree with her more.
So use this forum to vent, it makes me feel better! Things will get easier and somehow you will work out a new way of connecting her. I think the speed of which it all happens can put us in a spin to all of a sudden they have gone from soft cuddly baby, to baby in a harness or brace and that is difficult.

Mummy Naomi - thanks for your support, things are getting easier now. She has had an 1.5 hour nap (and is still asleep now) which is the best she has done since getting the brace on. So hopefully that means she is settling in to it all. Hope things are going OK for you. Chloe has also had some red marks but took her back to the RCH yesterday to the orthotics dptmt just to get her brace checked and he said it was OK for the moment, is just her super chubby thighs .