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.

They should absolutely NOT be putting extra stitches in to "tighten things up". Vaginas aren't like the neck of an old jumper. If you have too many stitches/are stitched incorrectly this can lead to horrendous ongoing problems and pain.

Allegedly it happens but if it does it's gross medical negligence, not a joking around point.

I had to stay in for a while because DS has a heart condition they had to keep an eye on.

I didn't mind but I was next to an old school radiator which was on full blast, it was fricking horrible being next to such intense heat.
I would open the window but we were on the 13th floor (so many people will know exactly the hospital I mean when I say that!) and the wind was FIERCE.

It was a bloody uncomfortable and sleepless time.

Not to mention the person opposite who was having after pains and making labour noises.

And the baby next to me who was starving and trying to establish breastfeeding.

All in all, it's a bloody horrible time to be in hospital.

You have my sympathy.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

It’s not fair OP- moan away, every right too! Until you’ve been through it, you can’t fathom the sheer hell of giving birth with no time to recover. I swear when I was born the midwives took me away to give my mum a nights rest...god the 80s sounds good! Make sure you tell your husband all that you need once home, don’t lift a finger!

You’re not wrong, when I had my DD in the 80s I was given sleeping tablets for the first 2 nights of my one week hospital stay (completely normal birth, no issues with me or DD) while the nurses looked after her. It never occurred to me to think this wasn’t right.

Poor you OP. It’s grim when you’re so exhausted. Hopefully you’ll be home soon and DH will be a fab help and you’ll get some much needed rest!

I'm sorry you are struggling op. Congratulations on your new baby and I hope things get better for you soon! Sadly my experience of aftercare was also terrible. Dd had step B and they took her away straight after birth because she had a high temp. I was taken to the ward with no baby and no information about what was happening and where my baby was. After a 23 hour labour I was shattered and panicking and terrified. When she came back she had was on anti biotics and we had to stay in 2 extra days, and she was bf I could barely put her down (apart from when visitors came to hold her, while still screaming)and I was so scared I would fall asleep on her that sheer fear was the only thing keeping me going the whole time. No one explained i had to get my own food or what times hot food was available so I didn't eat till my visitors complained. Midwives refused to help because I was bf. There was only 1 midwife for 8 women and she was hardly on the ward. An alarm kept going off on the bed opposite and the midwife kept coming on to shout at the poor women who were on that bed even though they were not pressing the alarm and that still wasn't fixed when I left. To top I all off the mum next to me had visitors (pre covid) every hour from start to finish and kept pushing their chairs in to my bay as there was so many of them and she made her husband hide so he could stay longer so he was there till 11pm! When I was leaving in was told dd had step B and 2 days after I was home I was called to urgently come to my Dr surgery as I also had step B and strep A and I needed immediate antibiotics by that time I was very ill. Sorry that was a long rant. If I ever have another baby I hope I will have the strength to speak up but please keep insisting on help if you feel you are not being listened to. All the best Op, hope things get better for you soon!

Sending warm hugs and future sleep tokens your way

I remember when I had my first, I'd been in slow labour all night (got to the hospital at midnight) and didn't have DD until 2pm. I was very badly torn and in a lot of pain. Luckily DD wasn't too high maintenance but I was still knackered and not quite with it after all the shenanigans that had ensued. DH left me that evening to go and get himself a celebratory curry only realised he'd lost his wallet. I was on the ward and fast asleep and he rang the ward (I didn't have my mobile with me) to get them to ask me if I'd seen his wallet! Obviously he didn't know I was asleep but the nurses did and they CAME AND WOKE ME UP!!!! I was absolutely fuming. First sleep I'd had in almost 48 hours and they woke me up!! He eventually found his wallet in the footwell of the car and rang to let me know - and they came and bloody woke me up again to tell me!!!! OMG, I was absolutely seething and I think they eventually realised that I was going to completely lose it if they didn't scarper. So utterly clueless.

Oh you poor love. Congratulations, and commiserations!

The baby blues might be hitting as well, whinge away! And look forward to being waited on at home...

I had a long and traumatic labour with DD1 back in 1995 which included episiotomy, tearing and lots of stitches, plus an unsettled DD.

She was delivered at 10.40pm and after DH had gone home she grizzled all night on the post natal ward trying to feed. Eventually a lovely midwife did take her from me and fed her a bottle of formula (I did want to formula feed, but had been pressured to try breastfeeding against my better judgement). So I got a little bit of sleep although it was nowhere near enough.

DH came back to visit the next morning well rested and breezily asked me if I had slept well. I almost wanted to lamp him one.

I agree, it is shit, and I didn’t even give birth during a pandemic. Many of us have been there. Having a baby is bloody hard, not always the totally joyful experience we are conditioned to believe it will be. For me it was a very hard time even though my DDs are my life and much adored.

Congratulations on your baby. I hope you get DH waiting on you properly when you get home.

@Paranoidmarvin

I remember cryin when my husband went home. I begged him to come back. And I wanted everyone to come and see the baby so I could sleep for a while , while someone else looked after my the baby.

But. I gave birth on Xmas eve. And on Xmas day everyone was off having a Christmas. I asked to go home on Xmas day. They let me. But no one came to see or help me as they were all off having their Xmas dinners together. Never felt so lonely.

Sorry to read your family were less than helpful. I remember crying when my dh went home after I'd had our babies. It was especially worse when baby blues kicked in after 2 days, along with the milk. I was crying at nothing, but the midwives were great and just chatted to me through it.

I do remember with ds, my second. He was born very quickly and with just gas and air. I had to have stitches and the last one was in an area that wasn't numb. That hurt. Ds felt like he was feeding forever on the first night, and I remember just sitting in a chair, at about 4 in the morning, in tears as I was so tired. I think the midwife came and took him away for a few hours, just so I could get some sleep.

I remember giving DP the Paddington Bear stare when he moaned about being all alone on New year's Eve with just a takeaway for company.

We had this buffet thing with quiche on that somehow managed to taste of vomit and barely any staff in to help me out with my now very leaky arse and lady garden whilst poor old dp got a bed to himself, silence to sleep in and a fat takeaway for himself yet moaned about it like the fucking little princeling he is.

This may well have been almost 22 years ago but believe me it's still brought up as an ending to an argument

I’m glad to read this thread but obviously sorry for the people going through it. I spent 5 days in hospital before the emcs on a morphine pump but couldn’t sleep through itching (reaction to the Morphine) had a ga with the csection and the surgeon forgot to give me pain relief before waking me because I had a morphine pump no thought to the fact I couldn’t actually press it because I was asleep my ds was 7 weeks early in nicu on a vent with a bleed on his brain and sepsis the second they moved me from hdu to the maternity ward About 2 days after birth I asked to be discharged as I only lived 10 mins walk from the hospital and I knew I’d never recover and get my strength back in that hell hole ive always felt bad but glad to hear other women felt the same all I ever hear is people refused to leave there baby’s where as I actively chose to all worked out ok and ds is 6 now. Good luck op hope your home safe soon and congratulations

Thank you everyone. Your stories and commiserations have really helped and I feel much less alone in this now! So sorry for those people who've had really tough times of it- some of those stories are horrendous- and I think the comparison with post surgery is an interesting one. I'll try and respond more individually later but DS has finally dropped off and I don't think anyone is coming to see him in the next hour or so (I swear, every time he has slept so far, someone has come in to stick a thermometer under his armpit and woken him within half an hour!) So I'm going to try and get some sleep. Wish me luck! Hopefully I'll be looking at discharge from hospital this time tomorrow.

Sleep well.

Unless the obs are time vital ask the staff if they can wait until he has woken

I know exactly what you mean. Huge sympathy and I hope you get home soon.

I remember after my 28 hour labour my DP telling me that he was off home. The midwives had told him to go so that at least one of us had some sleep and so he would be safe to drive us home the following day. No one discussed it with me. I've never felt so abandoned in my life! And it turned out I had to stay in another night anyway, so the reason was irrelevant! I made him stay the second night. By that point I'd been awake for 3 days straight and was hallucinating!

Also next time I'll make sure I have some decent food squirreled away. It was horrendous

My lovely mother came to stay to help me with my first baby. She had been a nanny. She had no idea about looking after a very new baby because when I was born the babies stayed in the nursery and were brought to the mothers for feeding and taken away again. New mothers in those days stayed in for a week and got a rest. (Although my mother recounted the time that she overheard the matron thinking the babies had got mixed up because she didn't think my thin mother could have given birth to the sumo baby that I was. The strong resemblance to my mother showed up much later)