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?

I blame the drugs and lack of sleep...
With DD1 I'd not been sleeping well for over a week - by the time I'd given birth I'd not slept a minute in 36 hrs. I was anxious anyway - health problems - made worse by them not believing my hind waters had gone . I had gas and air and 2 pethidine injections...the whole labour seemed surreal - like a vivid nightmare...(I checked my notes afterwards cos I thought I might have imagined some things). First 16 hrs of labour were on the ward - already in and no room in the labour suites - things I thought I'd imagined were being in the lift finally on my way to the labour suite, desperate to push and being told really forcefully to stop and wait. (Then labour did stop for hours and hours...) ...and DD being distressed so they wanted to monitor her but couldn't get the patches to stick to her head (found out later she had lots of hair). When she finally arrived and I was back on the ward she still hadn't fed - so they kept waking me up to get her to feed - I remember lying my on my side 3/4 asleep and one of them holding my boob in DD's mouth ...
Once one of them woke me up I was hallucinating... I could see the elephants - pointed to them and said something about it will be alright when the elephants come to the watering hole to drink ...thought I'd told a really funny joke and and burst out laughing. The look the mw gave me....
But then that made me really worry - I have a history of depression and had been told they would monitor me for PND and gave me stuff to read - descriptions of the signs - including the severe form of PND where you hallucinate etc. I was convinced that that mw thought I had that and tried to behave really normally ...but actually was probably behaving even more weirdly...
The next day after I'd managed to finally have a few hours sleep and the drugs had worn off were much better....

The floppy sock reminds me of once I was co sleeping and when I woke up (I am extremely short sighted - i later took to sleeping with my glasses on to save 0.2 seconds when doing night feeds ) to my disbelief and horror, thought DD's eye socket had caved in and melted. I was looking at her ear.

The relief!

I've also just remembered that I got fairly hysterically upset on DD's first night as she just wouldn't stop hiccuping.

I called the midwife (was cathetered after long labour & emcs) and she looked at me like and said, 'yes, babies do that you know'.

I remember waking up during the night after I had the twins and saying to DH there was a Gnu at the door. All through my labour that bloody thing had been in and around the room saying "I'm a Gnu and I'm coming the noo" (I'm Scottish and that's how it spoke). In my defence I had pethidine, gas and air and an epidural.

unlucky cross posted with you but your experience sounds very like mine. I wonder if it was the pethidine and Gas and air?

I was released from a very busy maternity unit, sleep deprived, 3 nights after an emcs. I was furious with my DH as he'd lost my twin baby girl while I was feeding DS. I hadn't had twins DS was my first and only baby.

A couple of nights later DH woke and was horrified to see DS's crib empty. Thinking I was asleep he "woke me up" by smacking me on my (recently cut open) belly and shouted "He's climbed out of his crib! Where is he? " That would be asleep on my chest.

I also got angry with DH for staring at me while I was asleep. Turned out it wasn't my DH it was a pack of nappies being lit up by a night light.

After coming home from hospital with DS1 I was convinced the cats were under our bed waiting for us to fall asleep and get into DS's carrycot. I could 'hear' them smacking their lips together; this, despite DH actually showing me the cats asleep in the kitchen and the door shut so they couldn't get out!!

Crazy. It must be the sleep deprivation I think.

Shiraz- my DD whacked my DGD s head on the doorframe twice. I got quite irrationally cross with her. It wasn't like she did it on purpose and she was really upset but I still told her off !

I had it way worse with DD1 than DD2. I never co slept with DD1 but would regularly wake up thinking I'd fallen asleep feeding and she was wrapped it the covers - a common one it seems. I even went so far as to devise a 'system' to check - I always buttoned my top button of my nightie even if I was too exhausted to do the rest and that meant I'd put her back in her basket after a feed. Why I couldn't either look at the baby lying in the Moses basket next to me or look at the monitor with the ticking pendulum showing a baby in the basket was clearly beyond my logical reasoning! The night sweats I swear made it 100 X worse.

I could side lie feed with DD2 so regularly fell asleep with her at the breast in bed but I never had the panicky feeling. Very odd.

Some of these stories are bat shit crazy and hilarious! Totally understand where they all come from. There isn't a single one that sounds unbelievable even though many sound incredible.

Crying at Eddie Izzard, happy birthday and the gnu.

I had the hearing a baby crying thing for a long time after DD. There is a cat meowing during the opening credit music of Coronation Street and for about a year and a half I would mute the TV when I heard that and go into meercat mode. The bloody programme is on three times a week, you'd think I'd have sussed it, but no

After DS I kept forgetting he was a boy and every time I woke up I'd be disorientated and have to remind myself, he's a boy, he's a boy. Even though I knew from 12 weeks into my pregnancy that he was a boy (harmony test).

It was when they gave me DD1 and I thought 'that baby is not mine'. It feel so odd to suddenly have an actual baby. I didn't even want to hold her, I made DH have her.

When I woke up from my EMCS, I had no idea what was going on. There was this tiny (Not so much, 9lb) thing dressed in pink next to me. It didnt quite click that she was my baby.

I was released from hospital on my birthday, she having been born 3 days before. Me and the ex went to McDonalds on the way home. It was bizarre because suddenly we have an extra person to look after. It took a while for it to sink in that I was suddenly a mum.

I hallucinated that DS was plotting to kill me when he was days old
Luckily I recognised how batshit it all was and told the midwife who bundled me off to the doctor immediately.

Also used to wake and jump up and search the bed sheets for DS when I had never coslept with him.

another emcs one here, seems quite common among people who had one to feel very spaced out!

i had nearly a week long labour / induction ending in emcs...i guess i didn't really sleep for a good 5 days before DS came out.

several days after birth our heating went in the middle of winter, FFS. I had to brave it to Sainsbury's across the road as exDP was poorly (yes, worse than me after EMCS!?) and try to obtain a portable heater. Did they have one? Of course not. Ran into colleague and had a really odd conversation I didn't want to have as nothing felt real. The last thing I wanted. Could not work out (like others) why life was going on as normal for everyone else when I felt like the carpet had been pulled from under my feet. And we didn't have any heating and I had a newborn at home.

Cue tearful phone conversations to parents and wondering if the world would end etc etc.

It was the start of a very long PND that fluctuated and eventually normalised a bit two years later when DS started finally sleeping through the night (there were other personal factors and situations involved in the PND, not just the lack of sleep, but I had a hard time of it). All very odd.

Fortunately now am much more settled and feel like me again, 3 years later.

EMCS seems to be a common factor in women having these odd experiences, having read this thread.

Did exactly the same thing. Went to Sainsburys on way home from hospital. Wondered why I was getting odd looks. Only when I got home did I realise I was wearing slippers, hospital tags abs pretty much had one tit out...

Did pretty much same thing on way home with dd2! Was very surreal.

With my oldest son I remember calling my Mom and telling her to set another place at the table (he was born in the early hours of a Sunday when we were supposed to be going for lunch) because the baby would need to eat too. I just recall her sounding really confused about why I was calling her at 6am and saying that rather telling her that her grandson had arrived.

I went to the bank with my dad just after having my daughter. I don't know what was so urgent now, but I also had that weird feeling too that nobody knew what had just happened to me. People were banging off me and I was just so different then the mollycoddling I had been getting in the hospital just hours before.

Dh often woke up panicking looking for the baby in the night, pulling off bed covers etc. One night I just shouted "will you stop, she is in the cot!!!!" And he says "where is the other one?" We only had one baby...

Its definitely tiredness.

We had never co slept either.

Great thread, I had forgotten all this stuff.
I also thought ds head looked too big one night, I was so exhausted I must have been hallucinating from tiredness.

Also, I had read somewhere that babies can see angels, and was sometimes afraid to look in case I would see them reflected in the babies eyes. This sounds insane I know, but when my sister had her baby a few months later, I went to visit her and she admitted the same thing. I thought she was gone mad! We both must have read the same book around that time that put the idea into our heads. Nuts!

I had pethidine and G & A and had a massive hallucination shortly after ds1 was born. Then for weeks after I'd wake up convinced he had fallen down the side of the bed or gone missing. I also dreamed about waking up, feeding, then realising I was asleep, then waking up and feeding, then realising I was asleep ... then waking up for real and not knowing which way my arse was up.

Trying to put knickers on post birth and telling my DH I felt like I'd just spend a week in Ibiza off my tits. That moment when you've spent 3 days clubbing and you sit down and think - that was fucking mental.

Also going out of the room to make a coffee or something and forgetting you have a baby in the next room.

I had something strange happen during labour and I had pethadine and Gas and air, I swear to god the cleaner was in y room while giving birth asking if I wanted to keep my dress. There was also the woman who I told I was really scared and she told me to hold her hand and squeeze,I told her I was going to die she said she wouldn't let me, but then my husband was there. The midwife, my husband and friend swear no one else was in the room at all but I know I would know them again if I seen them. The midwife said the hospital wouldn't let cleaners in when people were giving birth.

4 days after giving birth I said to my dh, when the baby is here shall go swimming and he said the baby is there in the cot. I was so upset I forgot.

8 weeks later swimming is the last thing I wantvto do.

Amazing thread! I felt so different, the world was surreal as I walked out of the hospital. It felt like a different planet. I stayed in my recovery room for 2 nights but it felt like I'd been there weeks.. Also going to the loo after c-section, the nurse knelt down and started cleaning the blood off the inside of my legs while I'm weeing.. Belly spilling over, bits hanging out.. So intimate.. I said sorry for some reason and she said "no please don't worry, you are great" and said she loved me! This was abroad so maybe a little lost in translation! But that was very surreal (and strangely comforting when I was feeling fragile)

i'm wondering if people found feeling this spaced out and odd more strongly with their first DC than subsequent DCs?

azimazi I certainly did but I had gas and air and pethidine with my first delivery, with my second there wasn't time for any pain relief.

With my first I was so sleep deprived breastfeeding, at 2am I believed I was hallucinating, hearing a conversation, laughing and a loud bang in the night from next door neighbours house (old lady lives alone).
I went outside in my pyjamas to knock on her door, because I thought if she is not talking, I need to be admitted to psychiatry for baby's safety. Had decided I would present myself immediately to A&E (had googled postpartum psychosis).
Luckily when I got to the door I could see she was watching TV.

Also with my fourth I did a tesco shop the next day and remember everything looked surreal, bright and a bit sparkly, I would look at people as if they should know who I was (they didn't). Not sure what I put in the trolley!