Marsup(ial) has opened her pouch early

[marsup]

Leo Julien was born on 1.01 on Boxing Day. More details later.

Congratulations Darlin!!!!

Congrats Marsup and welcome Leo! Can't wait to hear the details. Good luck with everything - nothing happening here.

Ahh, congratulations!

Congratulation Marsup!!!

I promise I'll give more details soon but how on earth do you fit things in with 45-minute feeding sessions every 2 hours??? Thank god my mother has turned up (too late for the birth) to look after feeding me!

Well done!

Congratulations marsup.

Congratulations MArsup!

Message withdrawn

Congratulations marsup

Congratulations!!!

Cyber-congratulations to you, Leo and your dp

Congratulations marsup - lovely way to finish a year and start a new one.

Sorry it has taken me so long to give more details! situation pretty complicated here - there may be more queries coming on 'relationships' and 'breastfeeding' threads soon.

As some of you know I had a really long pre-labour with very strong contractions. They came every 8-10 minutes for two days, and were very painful when I tried to sleep but quite manageable when I was awake. I went to hospital during this period because of a very large quantity of bloody show, but they could find nothing wrong with me or baby so eventually sent me home. Waters broke in the early morning on Christmas day but it was only very suddenly at around 5 pm that my contractions accelerated from around 5-6 minutes to 2.5-2 minutes apart and we decided to go in to hospital again. This was complicated (we have no car; friends who had promised to drive us were either away or drunk on Christmas day; the taxis said it would be an hour before they could get there... so dp asked some neighbours we didn't even know very well!) so I was officially admitted at 7.50, 3-4 cm dilated. We were given a labouring pool and I used gas and air for the first stage (6 hours 25 minutes); for anyone who is wondering about gas and air, I'd say the main thing I learnt is that it doesn't really get rid of the pain but change your perception of it; and that if honeymoon suites were allowed to use labour pools and entonox dp and I would seriously consider repeating the experience minus the pain... It wasn't a delivery pool, so we came out just before the second stage which lasted 36 minutes. Leo was delivered onto my tummy with no tearing or stitches and opened one eye straight away to try to get a hold on the world. Once he was wrapped up a bit he then breastfed straight away. I was in bed in the ward at 4.30 a.m. and discharged myself that evening at 7 p.m. as everything was fine and he was feeding ok. The hospital was extremely reluctant to let me leave so soon but I couldn't see the point. Leo is certainly not having problems with breastfeeding, which was the reason cited for keeping us in a minimum of 24 hours more!

marsup - your experience of trying to get out of hospital is almost identical to mine - we will have to talk further....it still makes me angry 2 years later - even more annoying when the community midwives tell you that its up to you how long you stay, then the hospital spin some story about needing to keep you in 'because you are breastfeeing' !! (or maybe we just had the misfortune to cross paths with the same midwife from hell on the postnatal ward!)

Marsup - interesting you said you were in a labouring pool which is not used for delivery. Have you any idea why not? Was that just what you were told to get you out of it? Were you happy to come out?
I am only asking because I have been involved in writing guidelines for pool use and it some places, women are told they must come out for delivery basically because the midwives do not want them to deliver in the water.
What a shame you had a hassle getting out - depending where you deliver and how busy the unit is dicates how easy it is to get out.
@Women centred care@ is the buzz phrase - doesn't often seem to be the reality.

Elliott - quite possibly we did have the same midwife in charge on the ward, as I think we were in the same hospital. Helen W, youngish, dark hair? When we sat down to do the final briefing before she signed me out (or I signed myself out) she did admit that she was mainly concerned about legal responsibility and she wrote a lengthy statement in my notes saying I had been advised to stay in a further 24 hours at least, because of breastfeeding. What annoyed me most about her was that as Mears says it wasn't 'woman-centred' at all but legal-minded: at no point did she actually help me with breast-feeding, she just set it up as a kind of test that I had to pass before I could get her approval to go home. I was told to buzz for her when I was breastfeeding so she could see it - but when I did buzz a different midwife came and although she wrote in my notes 'bf well and positioning good' the head mw didn't actually see it herself. (Incidentally my own community midwife also calls my mat record a 'report card' and congratulates me on my good results...!). However the mw who accompanied us for the delivery was excellent and did help me b/f straight away.

About the pool mears - they just said that the pool wasn't the right type. Perhaps the room wasn't set up properly with all the emergency equipment? Anyway because I had been told in advance I hadn't imagined giving birth in the water and I'm not sure what I would have chosen. It felt appropriate to get out at that point because I stopped taking the gas and air and came back to reality to push properly (and swore quite a lot as far as I remember!).

No, not the same one. But for heaven's sake, its a bit insulting to the community midwives, who in my experience gave much better bf support than I got in hospital (absolutely zero). Maybe I'll finally get around to writing to the hospital about it....

Which hospital were you at marsup?

Becca, at the Newcastle RVI. The midwife who accomapnied me for the birth was great though. It's only a few who give me the impression they are there to give me marks rather than support. And to be fair I don't think it is their fault - I think the system pushes them that way, as they have to tick their little boxes and make sure all the right things have been done before they can hand each 'case' over to the next stage.

Congrats Marsup
Mears- oh so true !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

marsup - my sis gave birth at the rvi and really wanted a pool but they were all 'ot working for legal reasons'
hmmm
i was at another hospital
hope you and baby are well btw

not working even

Hi Marsup - just dropped in to say hi. I gave birth 3 days prior to you with my first. All this parenting and breast feeding lark is still freaking me out a bit. Howz it going for you?