Baby in NICU after c-section… struggling mentally

[Scottishmum95]

Hi all

I just need to vent. I just had my beautiful baby boy on 15th April 2023 via EMCS after 4 days of being an inpatient in a mat unit - my body seemed to HATE all forms of induction. Pessary - I over contracted and me and baby almost ended up in surgery that night. Cooks balloon - got me to 3cm but my waters broke & we’re full of meconium due to distress caused to baby by the pessary. Oxytocin drip - this fucking hurt & caused several extreme Brady’s to my baby boy. After 3 attempts kn the drip and me contracting for 3 full days, it was time to go to surgery.

I went to theatre, all OK, baby boy came out very blue and he was struggling to breathe. He and dad were whisked away by NICU team to assess the issue - to cut a very long story short, my baby is now in NICU as he can’t lie on his back. He’s only 2 days old and he’s had CT scans, throat endoscopy, x-ray and also an ultrasound. My surgery was OK and I’m recovering not to bad but my boy will stay at the hospital while I go home.

Me and my husband are living our literal nightmare out and I can’t help but feel so shit. I know he’s in the safest of hands & we have 24/7 access to him on the NICU ward but it doesn’t make this any easier. They’re going to continue tests. we’re first time parents and honestly this has put me off ever having another. The antenatal care was amazing but I got completely ridiculed by a consultant when I asked for a section due to my bodies reaction to the pessary & she dissuaded me from having one. Only to approve one 2 days later after multiple stressful situ’s on me and my son while he was inside me.

I am severely depressed right now. I can’t believe I’m leaving & going home with an empty car seat. Our baby should be home with us. And to top it all off, I haven’t had the emotional or mental capacity to even attempt expressing or BF’ing and I’m surrounded by the BF brigade judging me. I got the tiniest amount of colostrum for my son but I have been trying. I know it’s only been 2 days but I can’t even do skin to skin with my baby due to him being in an incubator. He’s on formula and he’s being fed while I try to recover mentally, emotionally and physically after possibly one of thee hardest weeks of my life.

I’m devastated. So is my husband. Officially put off birthing a human ever again. Thanks out dated maternity services in the UK.

Im lucky the time they have wardround im at the hospital. Since hes been on the NIPPV vent hes been settled and theres no real changes. His blood gases have been good but my anxiety gets the better of me. The first time they lowered his vent to NIPPV his heart beat started dropping and i walked in when there was panic not knowing what was happening. I feel like my DP is either mentally stronger than me or has created a mental block if that makes sense.

My heart melted when you said hes now smiling. What is it like having him home. Im scared that when he does come home how do i protect him, i know it sounds stupid but i did my best to protect him whilst inside me and with his organs being premature they are so vulnerable. Did you let family visit him? X

DP and I definitely handled it differently and found different things easier or harder. I certainly felt a lot of guilt (not that there was anything I had done!) which DP tried to understand but couldn't really. It's awful when the machines show there's something wrong.

It's amazing having him home. We spent 3 months on the neonatal unit and it's amazing how much I just don't think about it. Life is now a lot more of the challenges I expected - sleep deprivation, sibling jealousy, constantly losing muslins. DS2 has something called chronic lung disease, which sounds much much scarier than it is. It means while he's little (until around 3) his lungs aren't that strong and he's much more vulnerable to chest infections that can turn into bronchitis and hospital admissions. We've mainly handled this by ensuring everyone we know knows about this and knows that we are being hypervigilant about what he's exposed to. We did have family visit but we are lucky that they're not like the horror stories you see on Mumsnet! MIL postponed her visit as she had a slight cold, and no one objected to washing their hands every time they came over. We were supposed to be doing a park meet up this weekend with a friend but they've let us know one of their children is snotty so we're not going. DP took a month of shared parental leave and handled all nursery pick ups and drop offs then, now that I'm doing it I have DS2 in the sling so the other children can look at him but I feel he's a little more protected from their germs! I do outside groups like pramactive rather than anything inside like baby sensory. It's a balancing act between continuing to live our lives and acknowledging that he is more vulnerable than a "normal" newborn. I think some are more cautious than us and some less. I'm definitely more anxious about him generally than I was with DS1, and I joke that every time a medical professional comes to see him they leave happy with him and concerned about me! I have found the NHS surprisingly fantastic on the mental health side of things and I'm getting a lot of support. It felt in early days that it was utterly pointless talking about things as it didn't change the horrific reality we were in, but somehow it did help.