Hospital stay

Still in theatre, once the medical team were happy that baby BishBosh (BB) was OK, they put her to my chest. As I was lying down it was a bit difficult to keep hold of her and unfortunately I had a sudden urge to be sick. Nothing to do with BB but, I think, it was simply as a way for my body to cope with what had just happened with the delivery. I have always had a bit of an upset stomach during stressful times so it was not a surprise to me that this was the case now. BB was handed over to Mr B who was promptly told to take her to the delivery suite and to wait for me there. Having been sick, filling up two of their cardboard trays – so glamorous - the team moved me to another bed and changed my gown. I presume, as I could not lift myself up to see, that my original one was now quite a mess. I started to cry as I was on my own with total strangers who were clearly seeing far more of me than I would normally be comfortable with and feeling totally overwhelmed by the recent events. I was then wheeled back to my room in the delivery suite where Mr B and BB were waiting. I was relieved that the birth was over but I did feel somewhat removed from the whole situation and utterly exhausted.

Now that I was back, the midwife weighed BB and did a general inspection before handing her to me to do some skin to skin and to establish breastfeeding. BB latched on pretty well considering I had no idea what I was doing. 

We were allowed to stay in the delivery suite for quite a while longer than I thought we would, which made me feel as if I at least had a chance to catch my breath. I smiled for the new family photos of the three of us, but not feeling at my most photogenic quite frankly. Soon, the midwife who had been with us the previous night and in the early hours was back to start her next shift. She came straight to me and gave me a big hug and kiss. A little overwhelmed by this lovely gesture I smiled and showed my lovely baby daughter proudly to her. 

My bed on the ward was now ready for me and I was swiftly transferred. I sleepily settled into my curtained off room. Mr B helped me unpack before he went back home for some rest. The visiting hours for partners were from 10:00am till 8:00pm. The time in between seemed to stretch out as thinly as humanly possible and I would crave for the time to speed up, not wanting to be left on my own with BB for too long a period for fear of not doing something properly. 

Because of the use of the forceps, BB had two sets of quite severe red marks on both cheeks which looked as if they may not ever heal (they pretty much have now) and because of the pethidine (I'm sure) she had a glazed look in her eyes and was very still. So still that I would check that she was still breathing. So still that when she had her eyes open just looking up at the ceiling that I was sure she was no longer with me and I was scared to check for sure. I was torn between checking her and not wanting to know, so would end up doing both.

For the first couple of days and nights BB did not feed very frequently and would easily go 5-6 hours without a feed – a length of time which the midwives were keen to reduce but whenever I tried to feed her she wouldn't always latch on. I would press my buzzer requesting assistance to feed BB which would inevitably end up with my breasts being manhandled (with my consent) trying to squish my breast into BB's mouth, sometimes successfully, but most often not. I had to resort to hand expressing into a syringe so that my milk could be fed to BB. I was amazed at how little milk came out at first.

In between feeds I tried to rest as much as possible, quite a difficult task with the three babies in the ward crying, particularly at night. The night times were often the worst for me, knowing that I would be on my own, caring for BB, in a room of strangers, and not getting any visitors till at least 10:00am the following morning. 

As I had an epidural I had to have a catheter, which meant that I would have to stay in hospital for at least 48hrs so as to make sure that everything was working properly in that department. Having to carry the bag full of urine to the bathroom in order to empty it several times a day and night, infront of the other new mum's who didn't have catheters, were pretty low points for me. As well as having to deal with the catheter there was the usual post birth bleeding to contend with. This was quite heavy over the first few days and the hospital did provide a few jumbo pads – hence the need for big black knickers in the hospital bag, which everyone advised me to get – but I soon resorted to my own maternity pads. This bleeding did slow up after a week or two and stopped totally at 6 weeks after the birth.

In the end I had to stay in hospital for three nights following the birth, and with the two nights following the inducement I felt as if I had been in hospital forever. Just as I was being checked to make sure that I could be discharged, one of the nurses informed me that I had divarication of rectus abdominis muscle and that the gap was a whopping 8cm. The nurse gave me some exercises to do at home, as well as being reminded to do the old pelvic floor exercises, in order to try and close the gap and gave me a support tube to wear around my stomach. Perhaps naivly I had no idea that this could happen and as I had no symptoms (no pain) I was quite shocked and scared that this would set me back in my recovery, or worse, that the hospital would want me to stay even longer. Luckily, for my sanity, the nurses were happy to discharge me and I was able to go home on the Tuesday afternoon. 

The journey home was fairly surreal, and a little painful to sit in the car on the bumpy journey, but I was simply relieved to be going home. Going home with my lovely little baby.