Surreal moments after just having a baby

[TheOddity]

It can't just be me who had this please say it isn't as I already think I'm a bit nuts.

The next evening after I gave birth, I distinctly remember going to Asda to buy some medication for all my sore parts. I insisted on driving there alone while DH stayed with baby as I basically wanted to escape the baby hell hole for half an hour.

The whole Asda experience was as close as I've ever been to a 'trip'. I remember thinking how no one realised I'd given birth less than 24 hours before. Everyone was still just living their lives, being normal, coping. I felt so weird, I can't describe, it was like a psychedelic dream.

Did anyone else have this surreal feeling? Strange stuff you did immediately post birth?

We got home with dd, sat on the sofa, looked at one another and suddenly realised that we had a baby to take care of. This little bundle of pink was strapped in her car seat staring into space. We worried all night how we would know if she was ill etc.

DD was born by cesarean, they were playing Shakespeares Sister and just as she emerged it cut into 'you better hope and pray, that you wake some day, back in your own world' it seemed such an inappropriate introduction to the world. I was so hung up on it I kept asking if she was OK as I couldn't hear her crying, she was screaming so loud my DP's could hear her in the next room.

I suffered very bad sleep deprivation with DS. I was so anxious I would only sleep while DH was there. I woke from one nap thinking I'd dreamed about the doctor visiting. Turned out she actually had been round and we'd had a fairly in depth conversation-including me giving her my date of birth-while I was pretty much unconscious!

These are so Comforting to hear!

YY to worrying about falling down the stairs, I was also convinced I was going to bash my newborns head into a doorway, like we could no longer fit through a doorway

I had a concoction of drugs during and after cs with dc1. That night, 12 hrs post birth, I kept hallucinating that my baby was actually my nephew and I kept calling her his name. I was so utterly confused as to who this baby was and who it belonged to.

Haha MrsC that's hilarious!

This thread has reminded me of something - when I was home from hospital I was having a bath and was looking down at my wobbly belly and suddenly thought it looked exactly like my baby - I felt quite panicky because I knew my baby was asleep in his cot in the nxt room, but I was looking down at my tummy and seeing him .

It happened a few times after that when I was in the bath. I never told anybody as I realise it sounds nuts...

Just after giving birth to DS2, the midwife had left us alone and DH had gone off to make some phone calls. I decided to go for a shower but became convinced someone would steal DS, and if I took him in to the bathroom with me I'd be seen as crazy and have him taken off me by SS. So I decided the best option would be to use his cot thing to block the door to stop any would-be baby thieves and I would leave the bathroom door open so I could see him.

I got in the shower, dripping blood everywhere then realised I didn't have a towel so had to get out dripping water and way too much blood everywhere just as the MW knocked on the door. As I moved DS she came in the room to be confronted by my naked, wet and bloody body casually saying "I used him to block the door, you know just in case"

She slowly led me back to the bed with a worried look on her face. Luckily I was fine again after a breast feed. Very weird though.

I remember the final excruciating push and a sudden lessening of pressure, followed by a strange feeling that something was gently kicking me in the arse. I wondered what it could be for a few seconds before light dawned

I also sat and watched the central section of curtains around my hospital bed waft around in a completely still, non-windy room at midnight. The edges weren't fluttering at all, which is how I knew I was hallucinating. It was quite pleasant really.

I thought my breast pump was saying 'little brat little brat little brat little brat' over and over to me as I sat there vainly trying to actually lactate.

I thought that DS2 was an actual honest-to-god demon from hell for a minute at around 3am during the first week - the waving arms and black eyes.....

I often woke up panicing that I'd fallen asleep on DS1 and smothered him. Never had that dream with DS2, oddly.

Labour and the early days are fucking weird.

Feeling an intense tickling sensation on my back the third day after DD was born - spent a couple of hours trying to figure out what it was, discovered my back was wet - squinted at the ceiling convinced there was a leak.

Turned out my milk had come in with a vengeance - why that didn't occur to me sooner heaven knows!

Also took DD shopping a couple of weeks after birth, looked down and was convinced her foot had actual bent backwards and upside down and almost passed out in the supermarket. Took a deep breath, gave it a prod - her sock had come adrift.

With DC3 I had a lovely peaceful water birth, then after the placenta came out I had a pretty big PPH. I passed out and came to being hauled out of the water onto the bed and covered up, oxygen on etc. I was lying on my back and went to place my hand on my massive pregnant belly, for it to fall down and slap my relatively flat stomach. I could feel my ribs and panicked then as to where the baby was. Once DH brought her over I snapped out of it and started apologising for all the fuss.

DC1 involved a shot of meptid and I spent the next hour going to 10cms in a half asleep spaced out funk. I kept rousing myself to inject random none spence into the conversation between DH and the midwife.

DC2 was a breeze though and I remained sane throughout!

For the first 24 hours of my DD's life she was surrounded by sparkles that only I could see. Lots of glittery confetti. It was quite lovely. Even though I didn't and don't believe, I took it to mean she was a gift from heaven.

I had morphine and G&A for the birth.

I was so tired I could see pulsating diamond patterns on the hospital sheets, and the marbled-like pattern on the floor became an intricate landscape with pagodas and farm fields being ploughed by oxen.

I had never felt so sleep deprived (& this was only the first night I think!) and at one point, I thought I felt something in my mind, looking without feeling through my eyes, and slipping away again, although now I am better acquainted with the effect of low amounts of sleep, I must say that I sometimes feel as if my brain is sliding to one side, when tired, so it's likely related to that.

I had an odd "vision" at home when I was trying to sleep, of a cartoon of an old lady stranded on a rock in the sea, shaking her umbrella in rage. I think she'd been dropped off there by a bus. I might have thought about it as "wrong stop" or "angry gran" - yes I think that was it. I thought it was hilarious and posted about it on here. Some kind people even replied. Heh.

I felt institutionalised after only 3 nights in hospital, & taking the baby out once I was back home seemed sooo difficult.

I was on painkillers ( c section) and remember looking at the half moon and thinking "that looks like half a paracetamol".

I gave birth in the Royal London Hospital before the shiny new buildings, the proper old Victorian one. I had vivid flashbacks to the Elephant Man film (set and filmed there) whilst high on gas and air, and apparently had several incomprehensible conversations with DH and midwives about it.

Oooh sparkles! How lovely.

God, it wasn't just me?! It must be related to sleep deprivation: I had 5 days of labour before an emergency section. DS didn't take well to breast feeding so we were in hospital (in a private room, thank goodness) for over a week, feeding every 3 hours then pumping, then grabbing an hour's kip before it all started again.

I thought the breast pump was talking to me. I heard my mum chatting to me. Like a previous poster, the season had changed while I was in hospital and I emerged to a world that looked wrong. The house smelled wrong. I thought I was losing my marbles. I'm so glad for this thread. I never really told anyone what was going on because I was a bit frightened of it.

I'm fine now!

I remember being very concerned about whether the apples (wtf) were red apples or green apples as I was giving birth to DC1 on pethidine. I may have cried, "I am the Apple Queeeennnnn - I can do anythiiiing!"

Which was infinitely preferable to the swearing during the birth of DC2. I have never before or since used the word 'cunting', but I did then. Several times and very loudly

Cows I'm crying with laughter over the idea of you using your baby to block the door

Mine wasn't really a surreal moment, more of a hormonal one, but I remember that ds fed and slept straight after birth. When we were moved to the ward a couple of hours later the bright lights woke home up and he started crying. I burst into tears and when the midwife asked what was wrong, I said that I didn't want him ever to be sad.

She looked at me like this and said, 'you do realise that babies cry quite a lot, don't you?'

Endo...
Yes. The floppy sock. More than once.

Yy to leaving baby behind. I lived in tennement flats in Edinburgh. It was the first time I'd gone shopping with pram and new daughter. Came home and Dh asked where pram was? To my horror I realised I'd left her in her pram outside the bakers' on Gorgi Rd. Cue 2 worried new parents driving down to bakers. She was there totally oblivious.

DD1 was a week prem (36+1) and I had to BF her starting the routine every 2 hours for 3 days and nights. So basically painfully-feed for an hour it involved trying to express a single ml of colostrum and then BF a child who has a humongous lip tie, diagnosed weeks later then have an hour off.

On the third day I was surviving on carbs (DH brought me everythig Green and Blacks made, which at the time included these choc-chewy cereal and fruit bars) and no sleep. I remember lying on the bed, half asleep but not out and the midwife coming to take my obs.

After I woke up (alarm set to the next feed torture feeding time) I asked the midwife if I had woken and had my obs taken as it was a bit sketchy. The MW told me that I had not. I had remain in a state of peaceful repose, and without changing my expression had very firmly told her to 'Fuck off'. She was laughing as she told me so I think it was OK.

I basically felt like a zombie for about 5 years. DD1 was hard work (I had HG in the final months of my pregnancy), by the time she slept through I had DD2 who didn't ever sleep through until she was 2.5. I can't remember much about DD2 being an infant. I guess I wasn't laying down memory properly.

The idea of doing a spin class a couple of days after giving birth is making me feel a bit peculiar.

I remember the first time I went somewhere without my baby (not at all soon after he was born!) and feeling an immense sensation of freedom. While at the same time feeling a bit like something was missing, like I'd gone out without my knickers on.

I also really really wanted to talk about my birth experience all the time. I had to come up with a stock response to questions about how things had gone, for fear of going "I HAD AN EPISIOTOMY" all loud and mad without thinking.

My dd was born at 7pm ish and taken into special care at about 1am due to breathing problems. The midwives were minding her for a while before she went so I could sleep as I was in a side room and after having an epidural couldn't get out of the bed. I went up visit her and on arriving at what I thought was her incubator was horrified to see how unwell she looked as she had in fact changed colour, I got such a shock and thought she looked close to death due to her grey pallor. It turned out this baby did not belong to me at all and actually was the baby of a nice African couple which explained the colour change!!

Thank God it's not just me why can't

11 years later and I can still feel the room spinning when I looked down and noticed it

The moment after dd was born, I asked if she was a boy or girl (we hadn't found out). "See for yourself" the midwife said, showing the relevant bits. I honestly couldn't figure it out, not because of any odd swelling, just because I could not compute what I was seeing into a sex. Took me at least 20 seconds to say to my poor husband, waiting for my response, "it's a girl, I think?"

Two very distinct memories. Recurring dreams and hallucinations in first week of having to identify my daughter in a huge hall of 100s of babies in cots who all looked the same. The relief I felt when it dawned I would recognise by her dimples in her ears was enormous. And the utter exhaustion and vulnerability I felt when I saw a heavily pregnant woman in mothercare on day 5 and the feeling that despite loving my daughter enormously, it was so much less surreal when she was on the inside.