To feel completely lost without DD?

[Sannebanana]

I think I just need someone to tell me to pull myself together a bit, please feel free to do so.

I had my DD in the early hours of yesterday morning. She was full term, but she weighs 3.7lbs, the same as most 32 week preemie babies. :( So she's in neonatal for the moment, I don't know when I'm going to get to bring her home. No one's said it quite this bluntly, but I know part of the reason DD is so tiny is because of my atrocious eating habits mid pregnancy. I honestly did try to get myself together and I did towards the end, but it was obviously too late by then. The good news is that there's nothing else wrong, DD's just too tiny to be let out of hospital.

I was discharged yesterday, so this is night 2 of trying to pull myself together. I just feel completely lost, but then I know that's stupid because I knew to expect this, it's not like it came out of the blue. I know it could have been a lot worse and at least I'm not far from the hospital, I can be there to see DD again first thing tomorrow morning. But I can't get on with anything else, I can't bring myself to phone friends etc because I know I'm just going to cry, I can't even walk past her room without bursting into tears. I had someone say to me that at least I won't have to cope with a newborn at home, I can have DD when she's a bit older and sleeping better, etc. Maybe they're right, but I want the difficult bit! I don't want DD to feel like I've abandoned her, which I know is completely pathetic and she's not even going to remember any of this when she's older. I know people who've had it much worse than this with their new babies and they haven't fallen apart, I can't understand why I have. I'm normally so good at keeping it together!

So please go ahead and tell me I'm being completely unreasonable, I think that's what I need. But gently if possible!

Thanks Smackapacca, going to try and get some sleep now but I might start a thread in chat tomorrow :) Thank you so much everyone for your kind messages.

As for DD... hmm, she's small, wriggly, and she does a lot of sleeping :o As her mummy I think she's the most beautiful little thing in the world, though I'm well aware I'm biased! Apparently if she has a good night tonight we can have first cuddles tomorrow :)

Oh first cuddle. How lovely. Will be thinking of you x

I was thinking of you on the other thread. Congratulations and great name!
First cuddle how lovely...
Try to sleep as much as you can you need to take care of yourself.

Hi Sanne,

As someone else eloquently put fuck your mil, don't tell her till you are strong enough to deal with them all.

Anouk is a lovely name for a baby, I love it from chocolat, I hope you're feeling stronger today. I know I found it a great help knowing that I was doing as much as I could for my dd, the nicu team will help you to do as much of the cares as possible for anouk and expressing for her is really good.

My dn was an iugr baby and was born at 28wks weighing 2lbs. He's a lively soon to be 6 now, there's no clue why he just was. My sis found kangaroo care helped her too. We. Both took photos of our children every day to help us see how far they had come.

I bet your first cuddle today will be the most amazing one ever

sweetheart, even crackheads manage to have 10lb babies, so I am sure that her size aint nowt to do with your eating (unless you ate cement)

It must be so hard to have a tiny baby in neonatal, and you have post birth hormones and baby blues

you have NOT abandoned her, we are actually very very lucky to live in a country where neonatal care is so advanced and available

Best of luck, be kind to yourself and hope she gets big and strong super fast XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

OP i had awful sickness and nausea during both pregnancies and sometimes survived on wotsits and ginger beer for days no its wasnt ideal babaies take from you reserves , anyway , there isnt much a mum can do if she cant eat anything or keep anything down , It really cant be helped , how is your baby today ?

Op, firstly congratulations on your baby :) secondly, please don't be so hard on yourself. Nothing you have done will have made your daughter small so beating yourself up about it is not going to help her or you.

Whilst I was pregnant I was very sick and could go for days without being able to keep food down. I was scared this would harm my baby but my doctor said not to worry as babies are parasites and will take all the nutrients they need. You would be harmed by not eating before your baby would. And do you know what? He was right :) when my baby was born he weighed over 8lb.

Sometimes babies are just small, maybe down to genetics, maybe down to the placenta not working correctly, but I am willing to bet that nothing you did in pregnancy will have caused this.

Please don't be so hard on yourself. You are bound to be feeling terrible at the moment as you're not with your little baby and your hormones will be all over the place after giving birth.

Try and concentrate on your little girl and all the happy times that you are going to share together in the future :)

Hope you've had some lovely cuddles today

Please don't blame yourself! Sme people eat hardly a bite due to hyperemesis, and dont have tiny babies. I am sure she is just beautiful, and I hope you have had your first snuggles.

Give her time and she'll grow into the most charming girl you could hope to meet.

I remember your other posts, and am sorry life is still tough for you.

OP please don't blame yourself, and I hope you get lovely cuddles soon. :)

I don't understand why people are saying 'fuck the MIL', unless there is some back story that isn't apparent on this thread?

OP - my friends second baby was full term but tiny (3lbs) too. It turned out that the placenta malfunctioned and had somehow converted sugars to some kind of hormone which friend absorbed, not the baby. Hence her bump was a normal size but when the baby was born he was really light. She said all through her labour something felt different and the midwives face was a picture when her DS plopped out onto bed looking like,as she put it, a miniscule alien.

I have 3x 40 week HG pregnancies where I ended up a stone under my booking weight at term and the babies were all normal weight. I just felt too ill to eat and I was mortified, constantly worrying the babies would be damaged.

Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. Enjoy this time and your daughter even though it might be different to how you imagined it, it will pass by very quickly.

Oh goodness, I have seen some of your threads!

Congratulations on your DD!

Just think, she is ok. She has come through the birth, she is doing ok, sooner than you think she will be home with you. And you are totally VITAL even if she is at the moment dependent on SCBU care. First thing tomorrow, talk to the hospital about pumping. That will give you a huge and utterly amazingly beneficial role to play here. If you can pump colostrum and milk you will be giving her the best possible start - something no SCBU unit can replicate. In addition, once it's safe to start having cuddles - have as many as possible. That too - being close, against your heartbeat, the only sound she knows and recognises 'of old' - is going to calm and comfort her. Two amazing roles that only you, her mother, can provide.

Please don't blame yourself. Lots of posters on here highlighting how you can eat like a bird/be underweight and have whopper babies, also the reverse. Generally there doesn't seem to be such a direct link between your eating habits and the baby's weight - it's more complex than that. Please, as others have suggested, speak to the hospital for reassurance. The last thing Anouk needs is for you to feel down and despairing - she will be looking to you for strength and love :)

Finally, for the same reason, don't feel you should tell your MIL/H/ anyone you don't feel like telling. Your mental health is vitally important right now, your little girl is depending on it. Don't feel for an instant that either of their 'rights' or feelings are more important than that. Don't feel you have to do anything which will make you stressed or anxious. They aren't important right now.

Best of luck to you and your lovely little girl!!

Thank you so much for all your support :) I'm going to start a thread in chat as I now know IANBU.

I did get lots of cuddles today :) I did google kangaroo care last night, had a go at that today and I do feel a bit better. DD has lost some weight since birth but apparently that's normal, so I'm trying not to worry!

Alibaba- MIL's been a bit of a nightmare since H and I seperated, in short she goes from wanting nothing to do with DD to completely overbearing a few minutes later

I did get a text from MIL today, but I'll put that on the thread in chat as I think this is going a bit off the point!

One of my DT's was a shade under 4lb when he was born - his brother was 7lb he was teeny - it wont be long before you can bring baby home she is being VERY WELL looked after. You need to make sure your looking after yourself so that you can care for her when she does come home ;)

The DT's are now 3 and my teeny one is now a good inch and a half taller than his 'big' brother :) she wont rember a wobbery start ;)

yes loosing birth weight is normal for all babies will look out for your chat thread ,