Hello all. Mad few days at work so coming on here and reflecting about life after birth is really therapeutic.
Although it's obviously not working that well for Gibbering! When do you get rid of your wires, GG? Will you get some feedback quickly? I have occasional palpitations and racing heart and I imagine having a prolonged attack must be very unpleasant, particularly if nothing you do will slow it down.
For all those thinking about roping in extra pairs of hands I think PlayFTSE and Filly are definitely onto something. It may not kill you to have to go it alone, but it certainly puts a lot of extra strain on! Particularly if things don't go totally to plan - I learnt my lesson with DS1, when stress (he had to go back to NICU because we failed to establish feeding), isolation and exhaustion left me begging the health visitor to send me back to hospital. Luckily my family has enough resources to chip in and help me hire a mother's help for 3 months and it just gave me enough precious space to pull out of the PND.
To answer CSWS/MonkeyMargot's questions about different types of support available, my experience there is a degree of overlap. The principal difference is whether their focus is on mother or baby/other children: so for example a nanny will probably be most help with the older children - many will not be that experienced with tiny newborns, although it's always worth asking. A maternity nurse is specifically trained and experienced with newborns - a sort of highly targeted nanny, if you will. Useful for advice for new mums, giving you a break (even at night! Many maternity nurses stay over and help out on the night shift), perhaps helping you get baby in a routine if you're that way inclined.
Focussing more on you, a doula 'mothers the mother.' Making sure you don't have to worry about anything except the baby by doing housework, cooking, perhaps minding older children, general advice, breastfeeding support, bringing you tea and cake etc etc. A mother's help is similar, but perhaps tends to focus more on housework and childcare and less on advice and moral support.
On cost front I tend to think of a sliding scale which goes Maternity Nurse-Nanny-Doula- Mother's help but obviously there's a lot of overlap depending on competence and experience.
This time around I've saved some money specifically to have the luxury of keeping my nanny on for two days a week and I might see if I can persuade DH to take a regular day off each week for the first 6 weeks . I'll try the 'lots of long weekends' argument - it can't fail .