Why am I the one in hospital?

[FourPlasticRings]

Warning;l: Self-indulgent whiny post ahead.

Maybe it's the early hour, the afterpains or the stitches but I'm finding myself sitting here in hospital, with 36 hours left to go until I can leave with baby (baby needs antibiotics) wondering why the hell I'm the one stuck here. Why is it me who gets to have zero sleep tending to DS, having been up basically 48 hours due to labour and with a body in desperate need of rest, while DH goes home and enjoys our lovely bed, getting some proper sleep in? How is that even remotely fair? I want to I be at home, with my lavender bath for my poor perineum and my comfy bedroom which I can turn the lights off for! Sorry to mope, I think I just needed to vent that. Feeling so miserable from sleep deprivation and quite alone.

''My aunt was a midwife (worked in multiple cities/countries from 1980s onwards) and the way she tells it they used to basically take the babies for the first 24 hrs to give the mothers a chance to rest. She says they also used to give first feeds (formula, sugar water) during this time which I suspect many would be very against now. But it certainly seems more humane for the mother.''

BF mothers I thought had their baby fed from a milk bank back in the day ?
I know a mum who was upset her baby had his first feed of 'Breast milk' from what she assumed was from another mum...as in : Wet nurse!

But there wasn't a kindly volunteer woman providing this service, but bottle with breast milk in.

Back then, BF mothers could donate to the Milk Bank...Probably still can.

Re tears{rips, not the thing that comes from eyes} ...they sting.

Like sitting on a thistle patch if you have stitches.

I think though stitches are a good idea.. They is say put extra ones in to 'tighten things up'

Is this actually true???

Contrast [surgical care] with maternity

I agree. I was in for a week after DC1 and the care was at best fragmented, at worst downright neglectful. The contrast with support available, and simply the attitude toward me as a patient when I've been in for 'proper illness" was stark.

I had the others at home and recovered quicker without the "help" of maternity staff than with them.

I gave birth at the end off April when no partners were allowed in postnatal ward. However, they allowed partners to bring a good bag and leave it at reception. He snuck in a delicious dinner with the extra clothes for baby I had asked for (and his 🎧).

Ds3 was in NICU for almost two days and one parent once per day allowed. I visited ds3 after breakfast and pain medication and returned to cold lunch and ready for next round of pain medication. The rest of the time I decided to sleep. Baby was being taken care of by professionals with more experience than me and dh. It is the best time to sleep if your body lets you. Since I wasn’t allowed to visit I put on headphones listening to the sound of the sea and slept. If for some reason you are needed they will call you. My NICU called me during shift change to give me an update. So all calls from NICU are not not bad.

I also had an alarm on my phone for every four hours so I could express breast milk.

If your pain medication is not enough you can ask for something stronger.

Had DS2 in Germany, he had to be in hospital for a week due to needing antibiotics. We were moved to a paediatric ward, either me or DH could have signed in to be the rooming-in parent. I went because I was breastfeeding and it was much easier to be there than to be pumping and sending it in from home! However in Germany the rooms are max 2 people so he wouldn't have been sharing with a load of postnatal, newly breastfeeding mums, which would be a bit inappropriate IMO.

TBH I quite liked being served food 3x a day! And not having to do any laundry or anything.

That's motherhood! Give birth then you have to get on with it whatever state you are in. But yes, it's deeply shite and hard and postnatal wards are the worst. I remember having to wait for a consultant to peer at my baby to "sign me out" and it was 24 hours of pointless waiting - that's getting off light considering! Hope you can get home and get some support from your DH soon. Could you discharge yourself? I have a vague memory that that's an option, even if they don't tell you. Could you administer the antibiotics?

Congratulations on your baby .Yes it's horrific. However the more rest your husband gets the more he will be in a position to help when you get home. When my eldest came home then of course I had to deal with the feeds but mine was very good at holding the fort while for example I went to bed early and had lie ins.

I can't really remember but when we first got home I think we mostly slept in shifts and were both as knackered as each other. But I was probably less knackered than I would have been if he hadn't been so helpful.

I m sorry to here you re struggling OP, can you get your DH to drop off some nice food and more comfortable things from home?

I m due in a bit over 2 weeks and I ve heard so many bad stories of post natal wards, that I ve packed my own painkillers in my hospital bag just incase and have talked over self discharge with DH, the visiting is decent at the hospital at the moment but as we re in a local lockdown area it could change back and if it did unless baby or I need an IV or a treatment that is impossible to have at home. I think an hours visiting a day is not going to do anyone any good for recovering post birth.

randomabreuse makes a good point about the difference level of support and attitude of staff between post-surgical wards and post-natal.

There was a woman opposite me who was struggling to pick up her newborn (post section) and asked for help and the hcp responded something along the lines of it's your baby, you need to get used to looking after her.

There's no way post-appendix removal that a hcp would say well, you're going to have to be climbing up and down stairs at some point so you better start today.

The blind spot to what women's bodies have been through during birth, even without a section, was pretty shocking in a health care setting tbh.

I wouldn't have wanted to be in hospital for days on end but would have liked eg someone to help me change the baby's nappy just once when I hadn't slept for 3 days and could hardly stand up.

It’s very unfair. In my local hospital the maternity ward is in the old part of the hospital with no natural light. I was in agony, had had no sleep for three days (very Long, very bad labour and then needed surgery). Maternity assistants were sent by the devil. The whole thing was awful.

In contrast when my husband had a very minor op he stayed in an huge en suit room and had nurses running back and forth to him. He also got told they wouldn’t discharge him for an extra day because he had small children so wouldn’t be as able to rest at home (true but can’t imagine them saying it to a woman!).
I think nurseries were a blessing and a curse. My mum was upset when they took me off her. But you could have optional childcare. Or provide purpose built maternity units with space for dad (or second partner to sleep and take care of baby). There is somehow this idea it’s natural and therefore less of a big deal. It’s a very big deal and in more ‘natural’ cultures woman basically lie in bed for a month while the women of the village take care of her and allow her to feed. You can’t keep mum locked up away from support networks in a neon lit room and wonder why she isn’t thriving because it’s a ‘natural process’ FFS.

Sorry.... I clearly still feel strongly about this some years later!

Because he doesn't have breasts. Although one of the main reasons I went for a home birth worn number 2 and 3 was because I was so exhausted after having dc1, and then couldn't sleep on the ward, and I just wanted my own bed to recover straight after birth. Babies usually sleep solidly for the first 12 hours or so after birth, a biological trick so we can recover from birth, but this is impossible in hospital. It's been proven that extreme sleep deprivation immediately after birth is a trigger for PND, so I think more emphasis needs to be put on the importance of rest post birth. Can you discharge both of you once he's had his antibiotics even if it's against advice?

And congratulations! I hope you get some sleep soon.

I remember this so well!

My births were always fairly untraumatic (except DD1, who came too fast) but I remember the sheer sense of INJUSTICE that I'd gone through all that agony, and now I was being told to go home and get over it!

If you had virtually any other medical procedure that involved invasive examinations, massive blood loss, and ongoing pain, you 'd be told to take it easy for a long time, rest up, not do too much, etc etc. When you have a baby you're expected to pick up normal life and just get on with it, despite acute lack of sleep and the pain!

We should go back to the 'lying in' days of yore if you ask me.

@user27378 my first listened to that rule, having been born at 2pm. And needed 2 hourly obs for 12 thanks to meconium. So when my 2nd was born at 10.30pm, no need for extra obs I was seriously offended that he did went straight into feeding voraciously all damn night!

@randomsabreuse I assume it doesn't apply to all babies for all kinds of various reasons . I read about it the 'quiet alert' state after birth then a long stretch of sleep is apparently really common, and was true with mine, but all three of mine were born in the morning or early afternoon, and then they perked up big time in the evening. Maybe what time of day they are born has some baring!

I know you've got baby with you, but can you binge watch netflix or something with some treat food? That's what i did and i was only in 1 night, baby slept most of the time but i couldn't sleep as was worried someone would take her (no idea why, the ward was alarmed!)
Huge congratulations on your baby and hope your both ok. As soon as you get home husband takes the baby and you go enjoy that bath!

You moan away, it’s such a tough time. Afterpains are horrid, everything feels wobbly or sore and your exhausted!

My survival tips are...
spacemask for when baby is asleep, it’s soothes your tender eyes.
So much chocolate.
Fluffy socks
Decent food. I would rather eat sandwiches from home with crisps and fruit than anything the hospital offered!
A good book.
Netflix!

I hear you! After DD2 was born in the late afternoon I had a really terrible haemorrhage where I lost 4L of blood (for reference, the average person has 6-8L of blood in their body) and so ended up in intensive care. When I came round after passing out in the delivery suite, I find myself covered in wires and tubes in the ICU with my baby in the crib next to me and my husband sat on a chair. I was attached to a heart monitor, a blood pressure monitor and had several transfusions that went on for 16 hours. But at 8pm sharp my husband was turfed out and I was alone with my daughter, and was expected to take care of her. At one point around 10pm she was crying and I was struggling to lift her from the crib due to being attached to various wires and tubes. One of the nurses put their head around the curtain and said very tersely “If she’s crying you need to pick her up!” But despite seeing my struggle didn’t help in anyway. She came back later and criticised my breastfeeding technique/latch (ridiculous as I had been feeding DD1 throughout her babyhood and still was although she was two at the time).

The whole thing made me furious at the time, but I am even more furious now I think about it from a distance. I was in such a vulnerable state and no one bothered to help me at all!

Ds was born on Dh's birthday. His mum visited that day and asked if dh was doing anything for his birthday. She also brought in a cake for dh and went in a strop when I said lighting the candles in a hospital ward maybe wasn't the best idea.

Congratulations on your baby. The after care is appalling. I discharged myself two days after a section because the care was so poor. I just knew I’d be better cared for at home. I had to sign a load of paperwork as it was against medical advice but there was no way I was staying a minute longer.

Argh you poor thing :( this is one of the several reasons I had my 2nd and 3rd babies at home. I just LOATHED being stuck in hospital with the baby whilst my husband was at home.

My friend got herself discharged at 1am with her 4th baby after 5 days.. she said she was literally going do-lally!!

I understand completely.

I had the same situation OP... we were in for 5 days after the birth because we were both on antibiotics. DH went home and had lovely relaxing nights of sleep, then wouldn't come in until about 11am as he was too tired.

And then, the day we did get to go home, he announced that he wasn't feeling well so would sleep in the spare room! To say I was unimpressed is an understatement.

Moan away, OP, it sucks! I had to stay in hospital for 5 nights with my first (2 nights pre labour, 1 night of labour and 2 nights with a jaundice baby who wouldn’t latch properly). I had a forceps delivery too and pain was far worse than the caesarean I had the second time. She’s 11 now, and I still give her a hard time about it

Make sure your DH gives you chance to rest when you get home

I feel for you. When I had my first baby I had am emergency csection on Tuesday after going into Labour on Sunday. I was exhausted and in agony. My baby also had jaundice so I ended up staying in hospital for 7 days. I ended up collapsing on the ward due to dehydration. I felt so down, the ward was hot and noisy. I don't remember receiving one meal at the hospital, my husband brought food in for me during visiting hours. I just couldn't wait to go home, have a nice meal and a decent rest.

Get him to bring you a tea or coffee from costa on the way in?

You are there because you’ve given birth and your baby needs you. Hopefully you both get discharged very soon. Congratulations

Huge sympathy from me OP. I was in hospital for 5 days with DS1 (he was jaundiced and lost weight) and really resented DH going home to sleep. Then I found out my MIL was cooking for him too and looking after him (not unreasonable, but I was jealous I can tell you!).

Just make sure your DH looks waits on you hand and foot when you get home!