Then Sleep In A Cupboard... in Chapter 7 : To Qualify As A Phoenix...

So…I had a baby.

Pidge was born 11th Feb at 2:22pm. She weighed in at a healthy 7lb 15oz. They sterilized me and also gave me a tummy tuck, you know, just because. I joke, of course, they did give me a tummy tuck, but only because my previous scar was “too neat, too good”. He told me that he couldn’t go through it as he didn’t want to cause complications ort “make a mess” of sewing me back up whilst trying to follow someone else’s line. So, free tummy tuck, YAY!!
All went fairly to plan…kind of…not really. There was 2 emergencies before the girl who was first on the list. I was second on the list. By the time the emergencies had been dealt with we were already 2 hours behind schedule, then the girl before me lost a litre and a half of blood and required a transfusion, which put my section a total of 4 and a half hours behind schedule. Not fun when you haven’t eaten for 16 hours, yet your birthing partner is eating a sandwich and all the surgeons have sodded off for lunch before you get to have your baby. The reason this is a big deal is because me + any form of anaesthesia + hunger + vomit. Vomiting + abdominal surgery + staples = not fun. Pidge was not exactly happy with the situation either. Then whilst on the table, I almost had a seizure (twice), because turns out that I’m not great with spinal blocks. Last time we (inc. anaesthetists, docs & surgeons) all thought that the spinal basically (temporarily) paralysing me was a fluke. Turns out it wasn’t. Exactly the same thing happened this time, but without the prior epidural, I had pins and needles which triggered my Epilepsy into to panic mode. Once I was ok and out into recovery with my very angry, very hungry little girl, the inevitable happened I was sick....lots and lots of sick. So what we had hoped wouldn’t happen this time, happened anyway. Well done NHSAA, keep up the good work eyeroll. Add to this list the lack of communication that saw recovery fail to tell the ward that I had medical issues, that saw dayshift fail to tell night shift that I had medical issues, that saw one do-goody nurse attempt to stop my Diclofenac because she thought she knew better than the anaesthetist who had actually consulted with me…not to mention they forgot to do Pidge’s cot-tag, repeatedly forgot to bring my Morphine after it had been requested, the shock of actually having a breastfeeding mother to deal with (12 of us passed through our room in 3 days, I was the only one who even attempted breastfeeding) and the sneer every time I requested terry squares rather than use disposable nappies.

Needless to say, I was quite glad to get home.

Last updated February 08, 2018