Officially announcing the arrival of Madeline Claire Elizabeth, at 11.53am on Wednesday 23rd ? an elective section due to breech position. Only slight hitch was the spinal missing the first time and needing to be done again (ouch!) but otherwise everything went really smoothly. DH surprised me by standing up and peering over the drapes at the crucial moment (he?s normally really squeamish), and provided an excited commentary as she was born (?Ooh, I can see a leg!?). 5 minutes after the operation started, my extremely cross looking daughter was whisked past me onto the resuscitaire, dried off and checked over by the midwife, then brought back and put onto my chest, where she stayed for pretty much the rest of the day?
The recovery afterwards also went pretty smoothly ? I had all the tubes and dressings removed the morning after, and was helped out of bed to have a shower. By day 2 I was walking around fairly normally (albeit slowly), and just really needed help getting from lying down to standing. I count myself very lucky to have had really really good post-natal care ? I was well supplied with pain relief, the midwives were very good about checking Maddie?s latch-on with me as I was paranoid about getting it right, and even the food wasn?t too bad!
We came home on Saturday, and Maddie is doing great ? she has cute fluffy hair, dark blue eyes and a BIG appetite. Have been having engorgement and slightly sore nipples since my milk came in with a vengeance yesterday, but my community midwife gave me a few tips which seem to be helping.
Here's a picture - this is the first time I've tried to do a link so hope this works...
Madeline, 10 minutes old