After the caesarean I was monitored closely for the first day as I was told I had lost 1.5 litres of blood during the surgery. The next morning I woke up and the pain hit me! The best bit of advice I’d been given was not to be shy of the painkillers, accept anything I was offered! I remember every four hours a lady entering the room with the drugs trolley, she was the most popular person in the ward and was always greeted excitedly by us all!
The first time I attempted to get out of bed I was supported by two midwives as they were concerned I would faint due to the blood loss. I honestly felt like I was learning to walk again. I was unable to stand up straight and the walk down the corridor to the toilet took forever as I shuffled along in my slippers. Getting on and off the toilet wasn’t much fun either!!
I had to make a really difficult phone call to my sister to tell her I wasn’t going to be able to make it to her wedding. It was in two days time and an hour and a half away. There was no way I was going to be able to travel that far and make it through the day after my surgery. We were both crying over the phone and it was during the call that two doctors came to do some routine checks on our baby. My husband talked to them and I could see them keep looking at me obviously thinking I was having some sort of breakdown!
We spent two days in the hospital before I was discharged. I was so excited to take our little girl home and introduce her to everyone.
The next day was day three. I had been warned that every woman’s best friend...the hormones tend to hit you that day...great! I was an emotional wreck from the start. Our first night at home, and I’d had twenty minutes sleep due to being up all night feeding. It was also my sister‘s wedding day.
I spent the morning in tears thinking of all our family being there to celebrate together. Even now, nearly two years later, I still can‘t look at a picture of her in her wedding dress without crying. When we were kids we would always talk about being each other’s bridesmaid and I was absolutely heart broken that I was unable to be there on her special day. Even though I know it was the right decision, I had to look after myself and my daughter...I don’t think this is something I will ever get over.
It‘s also on day 3 that a midwife does a home visit to weigh the baby and see how you’re getting on. We had a lovely midwife who was really reassuring about everything, but after weighing the baby she had to break the news to us that she had lost too much weight and we needed to get back to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital where she was weighed again. She had lost 13.1% of her weight. She had dropped from 8lb 6 to 7lb 4 in three days. I was devastated and felt such a failure. I couldn’t believe I had let this happen and was convinced the midwives would think I was a useless mum and she would be taken from me.
A paediatrician came to do some tests to see if there was a reason for this big a weight loss. Watching her carry out the tests we could tell that something was wrong as she kept returning to her heart. She explained that our little one had an irregular heart beat, something that she had not come across before in a baby this young. She also told us that she wasn’t responding as well as she should do, was very lethargic and had a hint of jaundice. The fear and the guilt I felt was overwhelming. More tests were carried out and it was found that our girl’s sodium levels were too low. This was a result of severe dehydration. I could not cope with the fact that my feeding her clearly had not been working and as a result she had lost a lot of weight, was dehydrated and was not functioning as well as she should. The thought of her being that hungry and her needs not being met, made me feel like the worst mum in the world.
We were given a feeding plan. We had to regularly feed her alternating between breastfeeding and formula to help her regain the weight. It was relentless and exhausting as we had to wake her at regular intervals through the night, but she slowly began taking more and more milk.
We also had to take her for a couple of heart scans to find out why there was a irregular beat. Seeing my little girl hooked up to a machine with so many wires to assess her heart is one of my main PTSD triggers. Luckily everything seemed ok and the paediatrician just couldn’t explain why it was there, but everything else was functioning so she was happy.
Finally, three days later our little one had put on enough weight that the doctors were happy for us to go home. This time I really hoped it was for good!
