Surreal moments after just having a baby

[TheOddity]

It can't just be me who had this please say it isn't as I already think I'm a bit nuts.

The next evening after I gave birth, I distinctly remember going to Asda to buy some medication for all my sore parts. I insisted on driving there alone while DH stayed with baby as I basically wanted to escape the baby hell hole for half an hour.

The whole Asda experience was as close as I've ever been to a 'trip'. I remember thinking how no one realised I'd given birth less than 24 hours before. Everyone was still just living their lives, being normal, coping. I felt so weird, I can't describe, it was like a psychedelic dream.

Did anyone else have this surreal feeling? Strange stuff you did immediately post birth?

[Darvany]

I remember DH driving us home at about 5 mph. It was like being in a presidential cavalcade.

Just as well really, since the baby wasn't actually strapped in to the meticulously strapped in car seat

[ImperialBlether]

Yes, I started to hallucinate - I saw my daughter's face everywhere - in the doorknob, on the taps... It terrified me.

[myotherusernameisbetter]

I can remember standing in the shower in the hospital thinking that something wasn't right. I then realised I was wearing my glasses so took them off and put them on the floor outside. Continued in the shower still thinking there is something wrong and realise I am still wearing my slippers - suede slippers... :(

[HumphreyCobblers]

Yes, I felt like this on and off for a while. It was horrible and disorientating.

[WatchedFrozenWayTooMuch]

I remember that feeling too. When I was out I kept thinking I just had a baby, don't these people know? I couldn't understand why life was carrying on when it had completely changed because I had just given birth. It was very strange

[purplewhale]

Haha YY to Asda and the glasses in the shower

[fatandfurious5]

After 3 sleepless days in hospital, where I thought people were standing in my bay watching me (it was just stuff on the walls, combined with the general noises on the other side of the curtain which confused me), and was generally a bit disorientated, for the first week at home I had several weird sleep/ wake experiences. Thinking the baby was in one of those vacuum storage bags on top of the wardrobe, which I swear was moving, getting up to help him out....telling DP his plate of baked beans looked like baby's lips was another. Thankfully this has stopped now.

[myotherusernameisbetter]

Ah yes, the slow drive home and shouting at any car that dared to come within 20 feet of ours :o

We stopped off at Sainsbury's on the way home and remember being hacked off that people weren't all asking me why I had a 2 day old baby (I had a C Section) in the shop - probably because he was almost 10lb and looked about 3 months old :)

I have also no idea why I wanted people to notice

[Scoopmuckdizzy]

I went to tesco after DS1 was born and left him at home with DH. I think he was around a week old. I really missed him and ended up abandoning the trolley full of shopping so I could get back to him quicker.

[Backingvocals]

Immediately after DD was delivered ((c section) they had taken her away and I was being patched up. I remember seeing this odd, large pink angled thing in front of me and I couldn't think what it was. It was my leg, bent at the knee.

[Pipestheghost]

The first time I went to the shops after giving birth I walked out of a shop leaving the pram behind.

[LucyMouse]

I remember being taken in to theatre soon after having given birth, and they had the radio on. The radio!! It blew my mind that the most amazing, life changing thing had taken place, and other people were just humming away to cheesy 80s pop while they worked as if nothing had happened. I even commented on it to one of the nurses.

[ShatnersBassoon]

I thought the ward I was on post-birth was Wizard of Oz themed. Everything was Wizard of Oz, all the curtains and pictures, and people dressed as the characters appeared at the door from time to time. I couldn't fathom why they'd put me on the children's ward, or why the children's ward wasn't given a more up to date theme.

It happened again with my second birth

[BirdsInMyPants]

YES I had this.

We were walking out of hospital, DP was holding ds in the car seat walking ahead of me.

A couple walked past and the woman was pregnant and I thought "Awww that was me 2 weeks ago."
The looked over at brand new ds not even a day old and the world kinda went weird for a minute. I was like fuck, is he only a day old? What happened to the last two weeks that I had him?

During the birth I had ALL the drugs, the injection, the epidural, the GandA so I blame one or all of them.

[WatchedFrozenWayTooMuch]

I also remember saying to my husband when I had my baby boy and he was a few hours old if I fall asleep make sure they don't swap him for a hamster

[Diggum]

I remember a congratulatory text from my SIL waking me from a brief nap on day 1 home post-CS and having a weird hallucination involving it and something to do with going to school with the baby? It felt like sleep paralysis but I later realised I had actually sent her a semi-coherent reply.

I've never felt so utterly exhausted and in a parallel universe in my life.

[Outaboutnowt]

Yes I remember feeling very on edge and weird. For about 2 weeks after DS was born all i could hear was babies crying. DS barely cried as a newborn too, he was either asleep or feeding
For example I would be watching tv in the evening, cuddling a sleeping DS and I would be able to vividly hear newborn babies crying in the background of the programme - which no one else could hear. I was convinced at one point that the neighbour had also had a baby as the noise sounded so real. It's a weird feeling to realise its all in your head!

[CustardOmlet]

DS was 4 days old and had to go to the doctors to collect his red book. Drove there, parked the car, went to reception to collect said book, sat down then realised I'd left DS in the car in the car park. I remember feeling really confused and worrying that if I went back to the car they wouldn't give me the book. Needless to say the receptionist prompted me to retrieve DS from the car!!!

[Finallyonboard]

One night I woke up after dreaming that I'd misplaced my baby. I couldn't see her when I woke up and couldn't breathe, was dizzy and soaking wet from the stress of the dream. I have never experienced panic like it (and I'm a worrier). It was traumatic!

[Justmuddlingalong]

After DS1 was born I went for a shower. The next thing I remember was leaning on the MW's shoulder as she pulled my massive knickers up, complete with massive maternity pad. She had dried me too. Totally surreal, spaced out feeling. to that MW.

[DiscoSpider]

After dc3 was born I was desperate for sleep (obviously) but couldn't take my eyes off him because my pregnancy had been so awful I couldn't believe he was actually here. He was fast asleep in his little fish tank, dh was there but I just couldn't drop off.
It got to the point where I could hear people talking and respond properly but nothing was sinking in. Ds was having his hearing test and I was holding conversation with the woman doing it but I could hear my own voice echoed in my head and it felt like I was watching myself on TV. I was fine after I finally slept for a couple of hours.

With dc2 I actually properly hallucinated. I was at home but I could still hear voices in my head like I was still on the busy hospital ward. I went to bed with the baby and we both slept for 5 hours straight, that sorted me right out.

[hootlemcowlface]

I kept thinking my baby was staring at someone over my shoulder when it was just the two of us at home. Scared me.

[timelytess]

No but I'd had drugs and saw things - l saw my husband's head, about nine feet high, coming out of the wall of my hospital room (private, £4 a night in the Jane), and saw trains hurtling out of the same wall and narrowly missing me!

[thiskiwicanfly]

I remember waking in the middle of the night convinced that DD was stuck under the pillows and suffocating. She wasn't even in our bed!

[CwtchMeQuick]

Immediately after I had DS he was blue lighted to hospital. I sat on my bed and watched the midwife wrap him up and take him, heard the sirens etc. Then two lovely paramedics appeared with a stretcher for me, and I had a very loud whispered conversation with them through my mom. The paramedics were talking to me asking me to get onto the stretcher, and I was whispering to my mom to tell them to go away and leave me alone and I was not under any circumstances going on that bloody stretcher do they not know I have legs?! Obviously they could hear me. It took me weeks to realise they could hear my strop about the stretcher they blue lighted me to the hospital as soon as they'd coaxed me into the ambulance because they thought I was delirious.