Due May 2022 thread 5

[Kittycaz]

@midnight90 @MrsMay19 @JMill13 @YfenniChristie @EastMidsGem @morphe @Sarah239 @fejkalove @Mummyingetc @Orangesunshin @aNewYorkerInLondon @Bubbasmama2017 @GinnyBee @Lavendersblue42 @Honeymint @YummyMummyXoX @K834baby3

Hey all if I missed anyone please add. Noticed last board is almost full.

Congratulations, @Honeymint!!!

I hope you're feeling better soon. Enjoy your time with your little one! ❤️

@Honeymint congratulations! Hope the pain goes soon.

Hi everyone!

My little one finally arrived at 41+5 on 28th May and we've been adjusting since then!

I inhaled Clary Sage on a tissue in bed on Friday evening which I think may have worked as my waters broke at midnight on Saturday morning but with meconium, which left me anxious and we rushed in to hospital straight away to check
movements. From then on it felt quite tense and controlled/highly monitored. Wish I could have laboured a bit at home. They wanted to put me on oxytocin drip straight away but I started contracting naturally... was 3cm at 3am and 8-9cm at 9am with gas and air. I was happy with that progress, but then things stalled and I got very tired. They again wanted to put me on drip to get me to 10cm and I requested an epidural before that as felt I couldn't go on much longer and was nervous about possible assisted delivery/caesarean (rightly so in the end!)
So epidural (amazing thing) and drip went in at 5pm and by 7pm I was fully dilated. But 2 hours of pushing and didn't make much progress.
Then things got a little hairy. They attempted forceps to get her out unsuccessfully, apparently my pubic arch was quite narrow (they don't think she ever would have come, which may be true, but I wish I could have tried other positions).
We went to theatre in a rush, they attempted one more time unsuccessfully and so only option left was emergency c-section. I was so scared and my husband was too.
Unfortunately the anaesthetist was not happy the epidural was strong enough so I was out under general anaesthetic and my husband asked to leave. But she arrived safely and that's the main thing. Just sorry we missed it.

Had a whole saga at the hospital as they entered two different birth weights in different places of notes for her (typo), one which put us at 15% weight loss in three days, the other 5%. Had to fight to get them to accept it was an admin error (she was very clearly never 8lb3 and the lower birth weight was clearly the right one) as they didn't want to discharge us. In the end we were discharged the following morning.

The c-section recovery has been the hardest part for me! I think because the birth was quite traumatic, it's been hard not to feel a bit butchered and to associate the c-section pain with the birth trauma.

Breastfeeding is going ok-ish but we can only latch her with nipple shields so using them exclusively and fully reliant on them. She is doing well though and back to birth weight at day 9 :) working on weaning her off the shields 🤞

Hope everyone is doing ok xx

Congrats @Honeymint & @Sarah239

Sorry to hear it was all a bit crazy and traumatic for you both! Hope yous are recovering well mentally as well as physically and the new babies are doing well x

@Sarah239 congrats on the arrival
of your little one! Your experience sounds a bit similar to mine, I ended up having an emergency c-section under general anaesthetic - mine was due to an infection that I developed during labour. I was on a lot of different antibiotics to treat the infection and I think that combined with the general anaesthetic meant that my milk production was very low to begin with so I ended up having to combination feed with formula. Unfortunately it’s meant that my LO really struggled to latch on my nipple so I’ve been using nipple shields and also expressing but would really like to wean her off the shields! Hows it going with weaning your LO off? Any tips would be appreciated!

I'm also using shields due to pain and shape of my nipples. I don't hate them but they're a bit faffy especially when you're out the house trying to feed in a cafe etc.
The health visitor said just keep trying skin to skin and offer them nipple without the shield so I'll be doing that all weekend, sometimes she will do a short feed without but other times she totally refuses and gets in a state!

@Sarah239 congratulations :-)

Congrats to everyone whose baby arrived since I was last on, which is possibly around a month ago!

I ended up with a Velcro baby and have found it really exhausting as well as boring! He’ll be 5 weeks on Tuesday and every week is a bit easier than the week before. The sleep deprivation is real though 😴

How are you all getting on?

Congratulations to everyone. You can tell we're all in our baby bubbles as there are so fewer posts! My baby has a cold and he's been so snuffly it's awful ☹️. I'm hoping he comes out of the other side of it soon.

I have been expressing 4 times a day for about 40 minutes and feed him breast milk for every other feed. I am finding the expressing exhausting and difficult to fit in though. He just won't latch on well and I'm wondering if the nipple shields might help with that... I've ordered a set to try which are coming tomorrow. It would save me so much time to just feed him directly and would do wonders for my supply

@EastMidsGem I have found the nipple shields easy for latching her on but there are disadvantages ie. she won't latch without them now. And cleaning them/remembering to take them everywhere is a faff. The advantages are (for me) stress-free latching and no doubt easier than expressing (not that I have tried that yet!) Good luck and do what is right for you. If I was in your position I might try them but keep up with latching baby on without them too so they don't forget how to!

Sorry he has a cold, hope he recovers soon, my sister was round here all day Saturday with baby cuddles and then tested positive for covid the day after so I am just praying that little one doesn't get ill!!

@Sarah239 thank you for that. Yes I will still try without.

Oh no! I hope you both manage to stay negative. X

@Sarah239 hope you all stay negative!
Though if it helps when me, my OH and toddler had it the other week, the littlest had a bit of a stuffy nose for after I'd gotten my first negative result and she was back to normal within 2 days

@Sarah239 I'm in the same boat with the shields. I may have already stopped feeding if I hadn't been using them but they're getting on my nerves and just want to stop using them but baby girl has forgotten how to latch without.

Currently trying not feel like a failure (again).

Health visitor came today for the first time in two weeks to weigh DS. He's gaining weight and outgrown some of his clothes, but it's not enough - he's gone from the 2nd centile to below it 😩 We have to reintroduce his evening formula feed, and I've been told to start expressing 2-3 times a day and give that to him. She's coming back next week to weigh him.

I thought we were doing so well. I know I'm being dramatic, but I'm so upset.

@YfenniChristie please don't feel like a failure. Our LO also isn't gaining enough and it's awkward because the health visitor can't weigh him due to treatment he's having for his feet (he has a new set of plasters cast on his legs every week). The health visitor really didn't seem to understand why she couldn't weigh him.

I don't think you're being dramatic though, I feel the same way but then they are gaining weight which is very important. I'm sure they will get back on track and hopefully things will settle down with being monitored so we can properly settle into what our LO's want.

My LO would not settle last night with the heat. He was up every half hour to hour. I'm really hoping he settles tonight as I'm exhausted.

@YfenniChristie sorry to hear that, expressing is tough! Hopefully it's a short term solution

Is anyone else really struggling? I really dislike being a mum 😩 I'm just so tired all the time and my baby will not be put down, just isn't how I thought it would be

@MissM94 I'm not disliking it exactly but I am grieving my old life a bit! The freedom to do whatever is what I miss (and the good night's sleep!). Mine is the same with not being put down but I am told this gets better. Think of baby animals in a zoo - like monkeys - they are always on mummy! So I try and remind myself that she just wants to be cuddled whenever I feel frustrated. It's natural. Once they become older and more independent they tolerate being put down more.

Try and remember that everything is a phase - how it is at the moment won't be forever... they will eventually sleep through the night, and they will be put down, and they will become more interactive. At the moment we have it really hard and we aren't getting much reward/feedback either! If these feelings persist for you though, talk to someone. It's understandable how you are feeling xx

@Sarah239 it's just absolutely relentless & I can't stand not having any independence, I'm going to speak to my health visitor on Monday

@MissM94 I’m not enjoying this newborn phase for sure! I find this so boring, just eat, poop, sleep, repeat. My sleep is broken into 2h chunks, I barely leave the house because he’s still feeding long and often and I don’t want to get stuck sitting in a changing room somewhere for 45 minutes, not to mention he cries a lot of the time he’s awake and I don’t want to go around with a screaming baby. I want to punch everyone who says “enjoy it while it lasts, they grow up so quickly” 😩 yeah I can’t bloody wait! I just want him to reach a point where he can be content in the pram instead of carried everywhere, napping in his bassinet instead of on me, and sitting in his bouncer instead of being rocked and bounced by me. And interacting more.

@EastMidsGem Nipple shields worked really well for me. I had a similar problem with latching but she latched to the shields and then within about a week of using them she managed to latch onto me. The nipple shields were such a faff but I'm really grateful for how much they helped! Xx

@GinnyBee @MissM94 @Sarah239 Thanks for your honesty, ladies!!! I keep laughing at myself because I was so impatient for her to arrive and kept praying for her to arrive quickly so that I could share cuddles with her and now she's at a phase where she wants to be held all the time I shouldn't really complain as I'm getting lots of cuddles, just like I asked for! I've definitely found it a challenge when I've been struggling to find moments where I have two hands free! I now wake up at 5.30am every morning to have a shower, eat my breakfast, get dressed etc whilst my DH looks after her as that's my only chance before he gets in the shower at 6.30am and then he's working all day. Thankfully, he's working from home and is able to make our lunch and hold her whilst I eat my lunch, which I am incredibly thankful for! I've recently started using a sling most of the time so that I can have my hands free to get stuff done and go out for walks whilst she sleeps in the sling. I often call friends / family to catch up / vent whilst out for a walk and really enjoy having this time to talk. I've got the ergobaby with the newborn insert and she seems very happy in there and will often sleep for up to 3 hours in there before waking up for milk. I was planning to put her in the cot like I did with DS but if she falls asleep and then I put her in the cot she cries. She was better with the Moses basket but she's very long so has already outgrown it. I've tried repeatedly putting her back in the cot when she falls asleep but she will wake up again every time several times. I tried this for hours at night before ending up exhausted and deciding to co-sleep instead. I followed the advice for safer co-sleeping so I've taken away the duvet and pillows and DH is on an airbed whilst DD and I sleep in our bed and that's definitely helped me to get more sleep! Hopefully I'll be able to get her to sleep in the cot when she's a bit older. I had my 6 week check yesterday (a week late) and when the Dr was talking to me about contraception I was thinking how the heck will I ever find time to need it when DD is always close to me, even in our bed?! I've been told several times that it starts to get a bit easier when they are around 3 months so I hope that's true for DD. I'm now realising how easy my DS was. Xx

Hands up I'm also finding it really tough going! Been crying on and off some days all day, worried how long this phase will go on for, I love her so much but it's really tough with my older daughter also wanting my time and the house is a state which my partner seems totally oblivious of unless I ask him to do something!

Re: ergo baby carriers I've got the Omni 360 but can't seem to get the shoulder straps to sit right so I seem to be using my neck muscles a lot and by the end of the day my neck and back are killing me! Any tips?

@Bubbasmama2017 Do you think your partner would help out more if you let him know how you're feeling and give him specific tasks to do everyday to make your life a bit easier? I really hope things improve soon! Xx