Fun for all

I am watching Baby Style or Baby Time or whatever it is called, on one of those lifestyle channels that just show brides, fat people, people who live in dirty houses, i didn't know i was pregnant. You know! Breastfeeding TV. And there's a woman giving birth, in hospital, all good, only she's brought her bloody two-year-old along to watch the show! Why on earth would she do that? Did she realistically think her toddler was going to be entertained by this spectactle for the next, i don't know, 6-12 hours (or six days if you do it my style)? In fact, why do people bring their kids to hospital at all? When i was in hospital (you know, twelve days...) and i had the misfortune of sharing a room with three other snoring preggos, people did not only bring their aunties, cousins and their wives in, but their bloody kids. How much fun is that? And why do people think it's okay to let their kids run around and sing and play? Especially when yours truly is lying behind her flimsy curtain throwing up and screaming in pain. You don't really need an auditory audience, even when it is during general visiting hours. I won't be going on that holiday again!!!

The B Team

When you're in hospital, or hanging out with midwives and health visitors as much as i am, you soon come to realise that there's a very magic word that we believe they are commisioned to throw into every other sentence. "Breastfeeding" Midwives are trained to use this word every time they speak to brand new over-emotional mothers. Bill and i call them the B Team! Does it work? Probably, but after a while i was like shut up with your magic word already, i am fucking trying, okay! Simply put - breastfeeding is hard! But, and this is a big but, i think Tallulah and i are evidence that everyone can breastfeed because we've had our fair share of issues. 1. Lulah was premature 2. I had a c-section 3. She was (is) tiny and has a tiny mouth 4. I have massive boobs 5. It took about five days for any milk to appear 5. Tallulah is tongue tied. I cried when i had to give her formula those first few days. I might not have had a birth plan but i had a feeding plan, i was going to breastfeed! So what did we do? We tried boob every single time she was due a feed. That is a lot of hard work, and it probably would have been easier to give up and give her the bottle. We also do skin to skin every single day. I got nipple shields to help her get on. This enabled me to chuck the formula on day five. We had a lot of tears and tantrums, from both of us, i squeezed tiny drops of colustrum from my boobs until my nipples were sore. But guess what happened? One day she just did it! So i guess the B Team are doing a good job really! As frustrating as it was when the strict African midwife had baby's head in one hand and my boob in the other and basically shoving the two together, it did work in the end. And i am so proud! And so so pleased! I even think i need to join the B Team myself and become a breastfeeding support person. Coming to a boob near you soon!!!

37+6???

One of the strange things about having a premature baby is that all apps and automated emails still think i'm pregnant. Tomorrow i'll be 38 weeks apparently! Very very odd! Feels like it was months since i was pregnant, i mean tallulah has been here forever, hasn't she?

The style

Ok. I did write that last post using paragraphs, but for some reason blogger don't like 'em. Bloody hell! Also, apologies for general poor writing in said post, my short and witty posts shall soon resume. I hope!

Birth story, part 2

Tuesday morning. Okay, i was a bit sick again, but i thought whatever, i can still go home. Silly me. Also turns out different doctors have completely different ideas about getting baby out/keeping baby in. Dr Tuesday arrived, said i looked a bit poorly, to which i replied that i wanted to go home. He said there was very little evidence to suggest baby is better off in belly until 37 weeks, and that there's not that much difference between 35 and 37. The risk of infection is far worse and in his opinion it's better to get baby out. He wanted yet more blood from me to check for any infections and said he would return the same afternoon. I was a lot better that day, no sick, no major pain, the only thing was that i couldn't go to the toilet. Yuk! About 5 pm, dr Tuesday's understudy came along and said no infection, everything looks okay, so let's monitor things over night and make a decision in the morning. We were very surprised when, around 7 pm, midwife came along and said Jenny, you're going to the labour ward. Turns out dr took another look at my notes and decided that this baby had to come out. And thank you very much indeed, because it turned out i wasn't very well at all... At the labour ward, baby's heartbeat was checked again and instead of being between 110 and 160 as it should be, it was between 175 and 180. Turns out i was dehydated and had a temperature. I was put straight on a drip, with added paracetamol and antibiotics. As soon as i got enough liquid baby's heartbeat went down to normal. Time for the induction hormone... They asked me about pain relief and i was like naaah, i'll try without. I'd been in so much pain for so many days i thought at least this would be productive, and it would lead to something. The thing with artificial oxytocin is that it is instant and when you're induced you're not allowed to move. No one tells you this! So within five minutes i was in loads of pain, and i was like right i'm ready to walk around and find all these good contraction positions. Wrong! Don't move your legs, don't sit up, no you can't roll over. Who can have contractions laying down flat and not moving? Not me! I was definitely not allowed to go to the toilet but i went on about it so much, the poor midwife unstrapped my wires and let me go. Once in the toilet i laid on the floor crying, and finally decided that yes i did indeed need an epidural. I will add that at this point i am hooked up to a drip, blood pressure cuff, contraction monitor, baby heart beat monitor plus a catheter after my recent toilet issue. Add to this the epidural in my back - that's why i wasn't allowed to move, i was simply hooked up to too many machines. After the epidural things go a bit blurry. I remember things being a bit floaty, at one point i said to bill that it felt like i was on an airplane. I even slept a bit, but woke up every ten minutes to top up the epidural, eventhough i was only allowed a top-up every half an hour. This goes on from about 10pm until 6am. During this time the baby's heartrate drops to around 70-80 every time i have a contraction. I wasn't aware of this at all, but bill is basically super scared at this point. Doctors believe to cord got compressed with every contraction, but weren't worried as it went straight back up afterwards. It meant that instead of turning the drip up though, they kept having to turn it down. After around seven hours of this i was three cm dilated, and "my team" (i had a lot of people in and out of that room) decided (well, they asked us to decide) that it was time for the knife. Baby not happy, induction not working, so an emergency c-section was the best thing for baby. A very dramatic saga indeed. I don't remember a lot of this night. When bill tells the story i realise how stressful and worrying it was. Had i been aware of our little baby's heartrate dropping like that i would have certainly anicked. In the end, our little baby girl was born very happy and healthy, and i am very grateful to all the doctors for making the right decisions on those last few days... Might return at some point and write about the actual birth, and the c-section, but for now, this is my story...

All in a day

Yesterday i managed to eat, shower, sleep when Lulah slept, entertain visitors, cluster feed and have a good night's sleep. Yey, super mamma. Today's mission was to wax my legs (my leg hair stopped growing towards the end of pregnancy, sadly this didn't last) but i've given up on that now. Lulah and i went for a walk today and i was not a super mamma because i forgot to bring nappies and spare clothes and my little baby girl was soaking wet when we got back home so my new focus for the day is cuddle cuddle cuddle to make up for me being such a naughty mummy... :(

Birth story, part 1

So... where do I start...? First of all, I will probably have to write this in stages, as my birth story lasts over 6 days (12 if you count ALL the days I spent in hospital).

So our baby girl Tallulah Brenda Lisa came early. Five weeks early. She weighed 2.270 kilo which is a good size for such an early baby and if you look at the last picture taken of me as a preggo, you can see that I looked full term. Picture taken at 33 weeks, when I measured 36 cm. A week later, at 34 weeks, I was measuring 40. Now I look at Tallulah and I see this tiny little thing I wonder what else I had in my belly. I think the answer is water. The minute my waters broke I felt like I'd lost 5 kilos or something. My hands, feet, face went back to normal almost immediately and now, 7 days after delivery, I feel really thin and almost back to normal (but not ready for a picture yet). 

 It all started on Thursday 5th July. 34+2. I was off work because I had a midwife appointment in the morning. All was good, measured 40 and mw said it felt like a good-sized baby. I also got the results from my GTT which showed I did not have gestational diabetes, hurrah. I celebrated with a big fat ice cream on the way home. The rest of the day I did nothing, went to Waitrose, bought lots of food (which I had to bin as I didn't have time to eat it).
That evening, I sat watching Home and Away, when it finished I stood up and a massive gush of warm water just poured out of me... Bill thought I'd spilled a drink and I thought I'd wet myself, but at the same time I knew it wasn't wee.
We phoned the hospital, as I was so early, and they told us to come in straight away. Luckily I'd packed my bags already so off we went. I had to wait in triage for ages, from about 8pm till 1.30 am. Nothing else was happening, no pain, but the dr decided to keep me in as things might happen pretty soon. They decided to give me two shots of steroid injection to help develop the baby's lungs, should it come early. They explained to me that the baby is perfectly fine in there without the water, and that the water can even rebuild itself. There's a risk of infection, so was put on antibiotics.
On the Friday I felt fine, completely normal, apart from being very tired, as I shared a room with three other snoring preggos. I had no earplugs, one flat hospital pillow, no books, no music...  I was seen everyday, and all doctors said the same thing - we won't start you off, it's better if baby stays in there for a few more weeks, and I was hooked up to CTG about three times a day to check baby's heartbeat.
On the Friday night/Saturday I started having a lot of cramps. Braxton hicks I guess, they were quite managable and I went for a few walks around the hospital grounds. Still doctors said the same thing...
On the Sunday I started to feel really ill. Cramps were so bad they gave me gas and air, but they weren't showing up on monitor so they didn't think they were real contractions. I couldn't breath through them, walk them off and they were really painful. Bill stayed all night, and at this stage I am still sharing a room - I was screaming and crying all night, started throwing up, kept wanting to go to the toilet... Around 5 am things had settled a bit, I fell asleep and Bill went home for a couple of hours.
Monday - suddenly I felt a lot better. Doctors decided this wasn't the start of labour, and if things didn't progress I could possibly go home on the Tuesday and wait things out at home. I was desparate to go home at this stage. I wanted my bath, my bed, my TV and I was getting so fed up with this horrible hospital room with lights on all night, snoring women all around me, visitors (including toddlers, wtf?), being interrupted by midwives and their urine samples and beeping blood pressure machines.

Here she is - my gorgeous baby daughter Tallulah. I will continue to write another time. I don't remember all the details, especially not the next stage, so will check with Bill later and continue writing soon...

Tallulah

Just a quick update: Our little baby girl Tallulah was born five weeks early on the 11th July 2012. We've just got back home after spending five days in hospital (although i've been there for a total of 12 days). I'll write more when i'm a bit more settled back home, including my 6 day build-up to deliver, phew...