Hello all,
Looks like I've missed an eventful few days having fallen down the newborn rabbit hole. We made it home at the weekend but only after I'd stalked the paediatricians and nagged them to release us. It was good to get out of the hospital after five days. The baby is none the worse for his dramatic start in life, thank God, and has recovered really well. It turns out he inhaled meconium just before he was born (so thank God I had a c section) which in turn gave him septicaemia. The brain scans and lumber puncture all came back clear so we've been incredibly lucky. He was probably without oxygen for around 10 minutes so another five minutes delay would have been disastrous. Caesareans still suck though. It has been a bloody painful recovery so far.
Big congratulations to JKS and commiserations on the nasty tear. If it helps to hear, one of my girlfriends had a fourth degree for her first birth (gave birth on a birthing stool and her baby came out fast and with her hand up by her head). She was repaired by a colo-rectal surgeon in theatre and he did an amazing job as she ended up totally healed - zero continence issues at all (which she was terrified about) and her stitches were pretty straightforward. She slathered Zita West's 'Comfort Down Under' lotion on sanitary pads and put them in the fridge before wearing them, which I think really helped. She's since had her second baby with only a graze so the stitches held well, although I appreciate that another baby is probably low on your agenda right now! It might help to know that you can come out of a fourth degree nasty unscathed though.
Good luck to Frakk also - hopefully you've got your baby in your arms now.
We've had an eventful few days at this end. A gnarled right nipple from a s*dding nipple shield that rubbed the skin of my nipple off during a feed. Spent two days resting that nipple and just pumping milk via a breast pump, which was very time consuming. Now trying to even out my milk supply (my left breast has gone bionic!) and get back on track. This all happened on Sunday with no breastpump or means of acquiring one so I had a torturous 18 hours of hand expressing to ease off my massively engorged breast. Christ, it was a long day! Also managed to pull some muscles in my tummy getting out of bed - or at least they think that's what it is (either that or a small haematoma again). It has been excruciating though and made movement very slow and minimal, especially as I can't pick up the baby or get up from sitting without horrible pain. There's nothing I can do to remedy it (pulled muscle or haematoma) other than rest, which is obviously tricky. My baby is gorgeous though and a delight and although I have moments of looking around my bombsite house (breastpump, feeding pillows, littered muslins, fractious, tearful daughters struggling with the change and their clapped out, inactive mummy...) wondering why on earth I've voluntarily chucked such a hand grenade into our easy straightforward lives, he IS love and worth everything.
Off to do another feed...