Terrified new mum sitting in postnatal ward with baby in neonatal care.

[Charingcrossbun]

Just need a hug!
Warning though - scary birth story.
Had baby at 0624 this morning - after "good" birth in pool but baby's heart beat started to drop so they whipped me out and pushed him out in stirrups with a million midwives helping. Cord was 3 times around his neck and he was pale and floppy. Staff were awesome and are being really positive, he was with a Dr in minutes and then into specialised care - breathing on own,
heart beat good, sucking reflex, normal sleep waking brain activity - but I had a retained placenta
so have just come out of theatre (all removed and sorted) and have to wait until I can get in a wheelchair (spinal block) before I can see him again! DP has seen him obv and Drs have been giving me updates but that doesn't make this less scary!
Despite everything looking positive it was clear that baby was stressed during birth and swallowed Miconium as well as having less oxygen than is ideal - they describe him as grizzly- so they are going to cool him over the next 3 days to prevent brain damage....
I'm just siting her in a bed eating the lunch provided doing nothing...... Feels awful!

I hope they won't leave you hanging too long! The wheels work slowly sometimes and I am sure they are just making a million percent sure everything's ok and then waiting for someone to fill out all the forms in triplicate and for the right signatures before anything happens.

I'm sure you will be with him soon. How are you feeling?

Oh - my sympathies Charing Cross. My Ds was whisked into special care as soon as he was born 12 years ago. I had a very long labour and he ended up with breathing difficulties in an incubator. Tubes and wires everywhere. I lost a lot of blood and consequently passed out every time I went to stand up so couldn't walk the endless corridors between maternity and SCBU. There where no spare midwives etc so could only get to see him if my DH was around to push me in the wheelchair. After a blood transfusion 3 days later, I felt much better and could get there on my own. DS was discharged at a week.
Hope your DS is soon on the mend, and take car of yourself - that's really important.
Oh and congratulations!!

Thanks guys!
Nice name - I'm feeling ok pain wise but that's because I'm numb below the waist!

Congratulations on your son and sorry you are going through this worry.

If it helps, you can think about expressing some colustrum for him. This is very valuable and nutritious for him, even if you later intend to formula feed.

Ask the midwives or HCA for some small syringes. 1ml or 2.5ml.

www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/pdfs/BFNExpressing_and_Storing.pdf

This leaflet is all about expressing. Look at the second page, which shows the technique. When a few drops of milk come, just hoover them up with the syringe.

Forgot to say, don't worry too much about storing as they will take care of that in neonatal - just keep it with you for now or ask your DP to take it straight down to him.

Poor you. I remember it well. Congrats on your lovely new boy though.
Try to get the midwives to take a polaroid so that you can prop it up by your bedside and gaze. They did this for me and as well as bringing me some comfort it also apparently helps with production of colostrum. I spent a lot of time expressing and going up and down between the ward and NICU delivering milk and visiting DC. It helped pass the time and made me feel useful.

Take care and hope you have him beside you soon.

Here, have a hand to hold. Congratulations on your beautiful baby and I hope you both feel a lot better soon - I'm sure you will

Feeling for you! I don't know whether it helps, but many years ago, before all modern techniques eg cooling etc, I was born not breathing, floppy etc after an extremely long labour (2 1/2 days) and breech presentation. I didn't breathe for ages (45 minutes?) and they injected adrenaline straight into my heart to try and get me going. They thought I would be brain damaged and my Mum had to take me to special clinics etc. When I was about 18 months she stopped taking me because she decided there wasn't much wrong with me
Fast forward rather more years than I care to think about and I've managed to get good O and A levels and a degree in Physics and am fine (as far as I know :D )!
I know that hearing other people's stories doesn't always help but I wanted to tell you mine so that you can be reassured that your little boy may well be absolutely fine. Just because he had a difficult start doesn't necessarily mean he will continue to have difficulties! Try not to let your imagination run away with you and just take things a few moments at a time!

Congratulations and best wishes for a quick recovery for you and your little one!

Just wanted to say I went through very very similar too and today I had her 12 month check and she is thriving!

My only advice is too rely heavily on midwives and neonatal nurses- the doctors are amazing at what they do but can (in my experience) be a little less empathetic and lacking in bedside manner which may leave you feeling overwhelmed and confused. After the doctors give you a briefing ask one of the nurses to 'translate' to you in normal language. Sorry if that sounds silly, but they really really helped us get through an awful week, a lot of what the doctors say sounds a lot scarier than it actually is!

Most of all congratulations on the birth of your baby, rest up while you can and stay positive xx

Congratulations on the birth of your son. Wishing you both a speedy & easy recovery x

Feel for you as we had similar scary experience. Fwiw she is now a thriving 3yo. (I say that because helped me to come on here and read all the stories about how people got through it)

Educatingarti I had a similar start in life! Additionally I was all squashed up from forceps with some (temporary) nerve damage: my mum was convinced I would never be independent. "About 48 hours later you started making tiny frustrated fists and doing this tiny little angry cry wee-wee-wee and after that, apart from being small, you were perfectly normal".

Well, 'perfectly normal' to my DM!

Thank you! Taking a photo is a good idea - I'll hopefully be able to go down in an hour and do that. I asked
About breast feeding and they said as he is on a drip and antibiotics he can't yet but I can store it for him so will look to work that out too... Feel more positive having things to do.
DP and I have also made the decision to turn our phones off until tomorrow and so not worry about informing anyone (I am meant to be induced tomorrow so family will be expecting a call then). I'm really worried about him too -
He was amazing all
Through birth and of
Course far more aware of everything than me. At the time I couldn't believe he didn't check to see if it was a boy or girl but I now realise he was watching the midwife give resus breaths - very very scary.

My DS was not breathing when he was born, and didn't for 10 minutes. He was transferred to another hospital and cooled for 3 days too. It was a long 3 days, but he is now 3 years old and totally fine. Babies are amazing.

Good idea to give yourselves a bit of time. Make sure you look after each other and I hope the next few days go well.

Oh, and I bet your boy is beautiful, congratulations

I'm sorry that you're going through this. Something similar happened to us; I had the giant of nicu - overdue, large and on oxygen to dry out his wet lungs. He's almost six months now, and currently shouting at me/sucking my knee.

Do ask for help with expressing if you can. It will give you something useful to do (I spent a lot of time trying to squeeze out minuscule amounts of colostrum). Also take some time out to rest. It feels counter-intuitive, but while your baby is receiving such good care, you have chance to rest a little. The demands on you will be different, but no less exhausting.

It is all scary, but you're both being well cared for. I hope the next few days go well, and please come back if you need a hand hold in the night - I'll more than likely be up feeding... Look after yourself x

Congratulations Charing, I hope you get some cuddles soon.

Thinking of you

Coming from the angle of a truly disastrous birth which I'm not going into here, I can reassure you that the long term outcome looks very good for your baby. The things you are saying, breathing for himself, cooling and so on have excellent outcomes normally. Although it's terrifying to see a baby resuscitated please be reassured that newborns are designed to be resilient to some lack of oxygen at birth and it is mostly severe and sustained hypoxia which causes damage.

I've researched this at length and I am sure that within a week you will all be home safe and sound with a healthy newborn.

Thank you all. Have been to see my little man and everyone is saying positive things. They have stopped cooling him now because all his tests have been so positive.
Have expressed some colostrum for him (although he is still being tube fed at moment). Interesting DP having been heroic yesterday with considerable blood and gore found he was unable to watch me express as it was "all too much". Arn't men weird?

They have also moved me to an antenatal wars which is very kind so I'm not surround by babies and have even indulged in a wee bit of smug pride that labour is behind me!

Great news. I hope he continues to get strong and you'll soon be on your way. Hope you are feeling as well as you can, and getting plenty of rest and food. Hopefully you'll soon be able to give that colostrum - I think we were allowed to pop that in the tube on day 2.

Do also get some help with breastfeeding when you and him are ready (if you want to do that), it was a little bit tougher for us to start at day five, but it's entirely possible with some support.

Charingcrossbun I hope you and your little man feel better soon. When my DS was being tube fed, they showed me how to do it. With DD, who was my first born I was quite poorly myself, so they did it all for me. With both they used to feed them what I expressed via a tube, with formula top ups. They gave me an electric pump and lots of bottles, and would wake me up every 3 hours so I could express for them.

It is one of the most frightening things watching your little baby in SCBU. With DS I knew he was going to get better when he started to pull out his feeding tube, the monkey. I think that was the first time I laughed since he was born when he started doing that.

Glad to hear it's all so positive charingcrossbun and nice to hear you've a bit of space from the postnatal ward full of babies. I was in a shared ward of 4, and 3 of us had babies downstairs so made it a bit easier to be apart from DC.
If the midwives can show you how to tube feed him your expressed milk then IMO that's a good thing too. It gave me back a feeling of being slightly in control of the situation and less like everyone else was delivering the care IYSWIM.
All sounds very positive though and hopefully not long before you have him all to yourself.

Thank you mintchoc!! And everyone your advice was really helpful. A scary few days where Mumsnet live and the wonderful staff here have been awesome!
He is doing really well still and is now breast feeding on demand!! - which is no mean feat when you're not in a ward with them. Makes me feel very important being summoned to walk the corridors to go feed my son!

So glad to hear things are improving. It must be such a relief to be able to feed him and cuddle him.
You may find that your hormones turn you into a quivering jelly any day now. Just remember this happens to many mums and it isn't your situation causing it.

Hope your son goes from strength to strength and you are able to go home together soon.