My birth story – Part 4

Over the last few days I’ve been sharing my birth story. Although I finished up yesterday’s post with the fun details of my emergency cesarean, there’s still a wee bit more to come, but don’t worry, this is the last one! I was so relieved to be wheeled to recovery with it all over. I was still numb but could feel the effects of being put back together again, so I got some more awesome drugs. The most important thing was that I was back with my boys! Luke was already picking up on Jenson’s wants and needs (he knew that he doesn’t like having his feet touched already!) and had the pleasure of putting his first nappy on. We were also treated to tea and toast – it was 5pm and I hadn’t eaten anything since dinner the night before. Once everything had calmed down and I’d had my first go at breastfeeding (Jenson took to it straight away) we were taken to the post-natal ward for the night.

While I was in labour I was told that with a cesarean I’d likely be able to go home on Monday evening but we didn’t actually go home until Wednesday lunchtime. I’ll spare you most of the details of the four nights post-labour in hospital (I spent five nights in there in total if you count the night I was in labour) but I do want to tell you a bit about why we had to stay, especially when everyone and their mother seems to have an opinion about breast vs bottle feeding. It turns out that you don’t really have an opinion until you’ve given birth and are in a real-life situation where you have to decide what’s best for you and your baby. Normally with a cesarean you have to stay in for 24-48 hours to give the epidural a chance to wear off and check that you’re safe on your feet and can pee properly, etc. If you’re planning on breastfeeding you can opt to stay in longer to make sure you’ve mastered the art. As I wrote before, I wanted to breastfeed. I knew the benefits for myself and the baby and it seemed like an easy and cheap option. And for the first day or two it was an easy option – Jenson was latching on regularly with no problems, nothing hurt… Then on the day we could have gone home everything went tits up. He was sleeping for long periods of time and I struggled to wake him for feeds – and when he was feeding he wasn’t getting enough colostrum. He had a couple of syringes of formula that night but the next day I was told that he had developed jaundice and would have to be tubed to be fed through his nose if he wasn’t feeding more later in the day.

The midwife tried to get me to express by hand and continue to formula feed until my milk came in. When he tried breastfeeding the night before it was agonising. I was told your nipple was supposed to look the same when he is done as when he starts but it was coming out squashed and square-like because he was sucking so hard and getting nothing out. And hand-expressing hurt too, especially as it took ten minutes to get two whole drops out. It was ridiculous. I had to feed him via syringe and encourage him to keep sucking in preparation for breastfeeding by putting my little finger in his mouth to suck as the milk was pushed into his mouth. He needed to be consuming 45ml of milk every couple of hours and each syringe only held 5ml so it was pretty time consuming.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukG9wtavwJQ]

I was getting emotional by this point because breastfeeding wasn’t what I thought it would be. I was frustrated at myself for not being able to feed my baby, I was tired from trying to get him to feed the night before and I was worried because he was poorly and might have to be tubed. The most important thing was that he got better so within a few hours I made the decision to switch completely to bottle feeding. I didn’t want to put him on formula until my milk came in and then switch back; I wanted to make a decision and stick to it, which I did, and I felt so much better once I did. So did Jenson. He was soon feeding better and two days later we were allowed to go home. Scarily, not until his jaundice levels rose to just below treatment levels. We almost went home on Tuesday but had to hang on until Wednesday to make sure they were falling.

The worst thing about those extra couple of nights in hospital was being away from Luke. It was great having him around in the day for feeds, nappy changes and cuddles and when the night came around it didn’t half drag – especially on the last night where Jenson was up from 2-6.30am, unable to settle. I didn’t want to keep disturbing the staff when there were women on the ward worse off than me and all I needed was to be able to sleep. Over those four nights I slept for about 12 hours so for my first two nights at home Luke took Jenson completely on his own so I could catch up. He’s pretty friggin’ awesome. Since then we’ve been sharing everything (well, what I can do while I’m still knitting back together again) and it has been great having that support. He’s an incredible dad and I don’t know what we’re going to do when he goes back to work. God knows how other new mums cope when their partner returns to work and they don’t have a support system. I’m lucky that my mum lives a ten-minute bus ride away.

I’ll be posting regular updates on Jenson’s developments on the blog as a record for when he’s older, so if you go ga-ga over baby photos, keep checking back! You can read my ‘one week old’ post here.