Hello everybody,
I am new to Mumsnet, but I will probably not be hidden for much longer.
After six years, I have decided to reach out to other mums to see if I am alone in this experience. Be prepared; you're in for a ride.
Short story long: In 2018, I was pregnant with my child, and at the end of the pregnancy, I was diagnosed with polyhydramnios and was advised that it was safer to be induced before my due date. Mainly because I ate my body weight in food whilst pregnant and became the size of an elephant, and the fluid was starting to affect the baby's heart rate.
On a wet, miserable October Monday, I was brought in to be induced. After two pessaries, a hormone drip, a maximum of four hours of sleep, and a total of 84 hours of induction, I gave birth to my beautiful boy at 2 a.m. on the Friday morning. I suffered a third-degree tear, and I also haemorrhaged 1.2L of blood. My placenta decided it liked my body better than a bodily fluids bin and attached itself to my womb a bit too much.
I was taken in to theatre to be what I can only explain as being fist** by a surgeon to remove it. Legs wide open, and not for the reasons I would have liked, even though that's how I suppose we all got into this situation.
Whilst I was on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, upset and traumatised by the whole situation, I overheard the surgeons say, "I can't get my hand in to stitch as the swelling is so excessive." Now you can imagine the thoughts running across my mind, but I decided that I was maybe thinking too much into it and that swelling is "normal."
All stitched up and back to my room, a few hours later, I mentioned to my husband I felt something was in between my legs because I couldn't close them. My husband made a little joke that it wasn't the first time I couldn't close them and then lifted the blanket up to give me a reassuring check. I was half expecting him to say there is a nipple guard caught between my flaps or maybe it's a big, soggy pad that's rolled up.
Ladies and Theys, if only I had captured my husband's face in that moment. The look of horror that I have only ever witnessed in movies. He asked if maybe he should go grab a midwife to check things over, but I insisted on not bothering them and told him to "man up" and take a photo. To be honest, at this point, I didn't think there was anything that could top the whole experience so far, but boy, was I SWOLLENLY surprised.
He handed me the phone, and I tried to process what I was looking at. At first, I wasn't sure whether maybe they had decided to do gender reassignment surgery on me or if I was the star of a porn movie that specialised in suction.
My labia looked like they had visited the local beautician to get 10ml of filler ready for Ibiza with the gals. I couldn't quite figure out the anatomy. I was even more concerned whether my clitoris had fallen off completely.
I was mortified, worried, upset, but slightly impressed with how feisty she was.
After six days in hospital, multiple doctors from different departments examining me as they had seen "nothing like it in the 20 years they've been in healthcare," I was seen by dermatology. They advised it was probably an allergic reaction and I needed steroids. Twenty-four hours of steroids and she was looking like a cockerel's wattles—not ideal, but we can't be greedy.
I have showed the image to numerous people over the years. It's normally on a night out and shared amongst friends at how bad it was. It's become a running joke between us all, and everyone is quite sick of the sight of it. I kind of wish I had some of that filler back in currently, as I have to tuck the excess back into my knickers regularly.
But I was told by some friends yesterday to get this on Mumsnet and see if anyone else has had a similar experience. Believe it or not, I actually work within Gynaecology now, and a consultant I work with told me that it wasn't an allergic reaction and was indeed related to the excessive fluid and a long induction in a seated position, which makes a lot of sense.
I would love to share the image with you all, as you can see I am a bit of a joker. Too much of an open book to be worried about what people think. Social anxiety hates to see me coming. More so, though, I feel it's very comforting to share my experiences and be so open with other women because a lot of us deal with loads of issues postpartum, and I feel there is no shame.
We all have saggy bits here or there, stitches, holes, marks, or lumps that we don't need to be embarrassed about. I hope you all laugh at this, but if you can take anything away from this experience, it's that no matter how you brought your precious ones into this world—whether it was natural, emergency, or whatever—you all did an amazing job. It's not easy, and it's damn well hard on our bodies. Give yourself grace and never forget to thank your body. Don't be ashamed, ladies, especially when there are people like me walking about with saggy flaps!
Love yous and leave yas 🥰
If anyone wishes to see the image which is slightly explicit. I don't mind sharing it in the comments!