Due February 2025 - Thread 5: IT'S TIME

[UrbanSquirrel]

Creating this as a space to continue the Feb 2025 chat - quite frankly it's all starting to feel very, very real right now!

Hey @elb1504 we've been using a dummy and works wonders, but Yuna's not in the mood for it and spits it up. However, our doggy she loved Yuna's dummy so much so, she ate half of it making us going to emergency vet to get everything out. 🤯🤦‍♀️ We say we have to watch out for two babies. Furry baby and human one. Hahahaha

I tried to find infacol and I couldn't find it. What's gripe? Is it a brand for colics treatment? In Spanish gripe means flu... I feel quite confuse atm. Hahahaha thanks for the suggestion, honestly. ❤️❤️❤️

My baby has ridges on her skull, too - midwives said it's overlapping fontanelles and nothing to worry about. They'll sort themselves out soon.

@ridl14 Congratulations! 🥳🎉 I hope you heal up quickly. I was overly optimistic about my episiotomy - apparently you are not really supposed to walk quite so early with it. I felt a little low about the pain and recovery time today. ☹️ Have been advised to spend lots of time on the sofa/airing out the stitches. 🤞 for both of us.

Congratulations @ridl14

Well I am having the week from hell. Due on Sunday, a rash that is itchy as hell has flared up all over my body, I have the worst sore throat and chesty cough I have every experienced which is causing me to swallow a lot which is making my trapped burps worse so I can't lie down or sleep.
And now to top it off I've just been sick.

This baby cannot come soon enough. Pretty easy pregnancy so far compared to this.

Hope everyone else due or had babies is having a better week xx

@QuantumPanic @ridl14 i also felt very optimistic about my episiotomy and have ended up on antibiotics because my wound broke down! I also took it waaaay too far in the first few days (I was at a gymnastics class with DD1, with DD2 in the carrier, at three days old!). I’m now 19 days deep and it looks and feels a LOT better, I’d say two weeks was a major turning point, and also using spritz for bits on it! My midwife told me to spray that on my pads because the wound rubbing against the dry pad might irritate it, but it’s hard to air it out when you’re bleeding constantly! Hope you’re both okay x

Congratulations @ridl14 !
It seems that wounds in general, whether from episiotomy or c-section are a lot more fragile than we all initially thought :(.

My c-section wound has been doing better since I went back to hospital, however I’ve had a big day out with the LO yesterday to see the midwife and to register him at the GP (didn’t realise you can now do it online!) and it started bleeding again and hurting loads :(.

My partner let me sleep for 8 hours last night to rest, however I woke up in cold sweats and so I assume perhaps it’s now infected.

I started taking the antibiotics they prescribed hoping for the best. I don’t think the blood thinner injections I’m taking are helping the healing process. It’s all a bit much if I’m honest!

I cried this morning because of the pain and feeling useless, I’m staying in bed mostly whilst my partner does everything around the house. He’s amazing but I feel so bad for this, feel like a bad mum. At the same time I know I have to rest to get this stupid wound healed up so I can fully do everything without help, especially when my partner goes back to work.

The baby is so perfect though, got weighed yesterday and only lost 2% of his body weight so midwife was really pleased. We’ve had a few incidents of him spitting up milk but midwife said we should try paced feeding. we have and it’s improved so I do recommend looking it up if you’re a mum of a little gannet who likes to drink fast and worry you 🤣🤣🤣.

Not sure of the point of this post other than solidarity, 7 days passed due date now and going out of my mind 🫣🤪 desperately trying to avoid another induction. Anyone else in same boat!? X

@WildeWalker also in the same boat, 6 days overdue 🫠 feel like im going MAD, very uncomfortable and also bored. Major solidarity with you!!

Just looking for some advice - I've felt a bit weird all day, thought it was just a bad nights sleep as cant breathe through my nose anymore so sleep apnea. Felt quite dizzy, shakey and very breathless this afternoon and its not subsiding with rest. Should I be worried? Baby seems to be moving fine. I just hate going to see the triage unit only to have to go home again, especially at 40 weeks (we live in London so I have to get on the tube to get to the hospital, unless its an emergency obvs).

Have low iron but ive been taking supplements.

@retrievermum @ridl14 @ThisLimeDeer As awful as it sounds, I'm glad to hear your stories. Misery loves company. 🥲 @retrievermum I can't believe you tried a gym class!!! I am both in awe and slightly alarmed. Crossing my fingers that two weeks is a turning point for me, also.

Unrelated to stitches/wounds - we had our first really terrible night last night, where she just would not go down. Spent most of the night feeding/changing/shushing/holding. Both absolutely shattered this morning.

@Totters123 SO tough isn’t it!? Really didn’t expect to still be pregnant being my second. I’ve had three sweeps now and nothing… I’ve opted for balloon induction on Sunday, if nothing happens before then, praying it does! How are you doing today?

@WildeWalker Im the same! Im actually more overdue than I was with my first 😅 been swimming, walking, raspberry tea-ing, colostrum harvesting, clary sage - nothing moving!

Trying spicey dinner tonight just in case theres any validity to that one. I have a c-section booked for Sunday as well (I dont want to be induced) just keeping all my fingers and toes crossed that it doesnt get moved. Hope youre doing okay! How are you feeling?

Solidarity to all the new mums on here as well, the trenches are real but they are temporary, you will get through it.

How is everyone getting on with their post baby bleeding? Mine seems to be barely anything for days, and then a day of a blood bath, and then back to barely anything again!
It does seem to correlate with when I’ve been particularly active, but very annoying!

@retrievermum it’s only been a week for me but sometimes I have almost no bleeding now and sometimes just a massive blob (sorry TMI) will come out with no warning. Last night I thought I was safe and so I walked out of the bathroom without my pad… stained the carpet 😭🤣

@ThisLimeDeer no such thing as TMI here 😂 I optimistically downgraded from mega maternity pads to the slightly more low key maternity pads and ruined the only pair of jeans I have that fit!

@retrievermum Similarly unpredictable here. Most of the time barely anything, and then occasionally a little surge.

I think my stitches have totally come apart now, though. Going to have a little frustrated cry and then call the midwife.

@retrievermum I'm 3 weeks on and most of the time the bleeding is really light/non existent but as you've said odd occasion I get a bit of a gush! Also tends to correlate with when I'm quite active.

@QuantumPanic it’s so hard, but try not to panic!

This happened to me too! A basic run down of what happened is that it felt okay at the start and then day 4 I noticed it was MUCH more painful, I felt sick when I was weeing because it was stinging so badly and I could barely sit down without wanting to cry! Day 5 I showed the midwife who said it “didn’t look right”, and did a swab just in case of infection. That came back as having bacteria but no infection, but they said I could have antibiotics if I wanted. I declined initially (but then took myself to the pregnancy assessment unit the next day to get a second opinion on it all!), but when it still didn’t look any better on day 10, I showed another midwife who said I needed to get to the GP and get antibiotics because “clearly something was going on” because it wasn’t healing. She told me to request metronidazole, and I got a weeks worth of tablets. The difference was almost immediate! I finished the course a couple of days ago and honestly I feel like a new person!

The midwife at the assessment unit explained that it’s really common for this to happen, antibiotics usually do help healing as it usually happens because there’s something going on internally with the stitches etc and that if the wound is gaping externally, it means that instead of healing from the outside in, I’ll heal from the inside out, which is a bit more uncomfortable and can take a bit longer, but it should heal absolutely fine!

I took photos every day (my camera roll is hilarious!) and day 10 was a train crash, but by day 12 it looked soooo much better! Now (day 20) it looks almost fully healed and I just have a little pink line where they cut me! I presume there’s still some internal stitches (mine fell out rather than dissolving, not sure if that’s relevant!) but it’s SO much better!

Take paracetamol and ibuprofen if it’s sore, but I’d definitely recommend antibiotics if they’re offered (they did give my baby diarrhoea, but didn’t impact me at all!)

I've got antibiotics for my wound too and after taking them for a couple of days it feels so much better so I'd urge anyone to get checked out.

Thanks so much @retrievermum, your post is so reassuring. 💕 I'm hopeful that I might see equally rapid improvement.

I have an appointment at the hospital tomorrow morning, so will see what they say. My midwife checked the wound on D5 and said it looked good, but now on D7 it looks totally different - I've also been taking photos and it has really gaped apart. ☹️

Did they re-stitch you, or just give you antibiotics? The whole thing is so frustrating - I've been sitting on the sofa all week and I'm not looking forward to another few weeks of immobility. I have to keep reminding myself that in the grand scheme of things this is a super minor issue. 😞

Sorry to hear you've also been suffering @elb1504. 💕 I will definitely take whatever they give me!

Any other poor ppl hallucinating from sleep deprivation on here? Day 8 postpartum and I have been sleeping 2-3 hours every night. We have first been cluster feeding until day 4 that the milk came in. Then now he sleeps about an hour in between feeds usually. If we are lucky 2 hours and if are are unlucky doesn’t settle at all.
I’m so tired in addition to hormonal. Had a good cry earlier about all the things I’m missing about my previous life. They seem so distant right now. It feels like I’ll never be able to enjoy my garden again or watch a series in peace or wash my hair for that matter. So tired.

@QuantumPanic no they didn’t restitch (and they did give an explanation as to why but I clearly wasn’t paying much attention as I can’t remember it! I think I must have deemed it acceptable though 😂); the GP didn’t even ask to see my wound, she just took my word for it when I said the midwife had suggested it, so I think they must be fairly used to just prescribing it if a midwife has advised.

I felt the exact same, I was gutted because I was so pleased to have had my VBAC and then I was worried that recovery was going to be worse than my c section recovery (which was really quite good!) but honestly after a couple of days of antibiotics I felt a million times better. It’s not easy, but I suppose nobody ever told us it would be!

You’re doing amazingly; you grew and pushed out a whole person and now you’re trying to look after them while your body heals AND you heal mentally from all of it, be kind to yourself 💕

@Kumquat89 the lack of sleep in these early days really is so hard. All I can do is promise that it's not like this forever. My 1st started sleeping longer stretches around 6 weeks old but I know they're all different. You will get time for yourself again one day soon, you won't feel like this forever, sending love xx

Mini Jaybeez was born yesterday via elective section. While I was sad not to get my VBAC, I was happy with the decision to have a planned section ahead of 41 weeks and feel that it was the right decision. I will say, I didn't find the planned section to be massively different to my emergency section last time - I can't say I found it particularly healing or anything like that.

What has been really positive this time round though has been how I've felt afterwards. Because I didn't have days of being worn down on a ward waiting for a space so my waters could be broken, hadn't laboured to 9cm overnight, and hadn't developed an infection, I'm really just enjoying the time soaking up my new baby which I didn't get with my first ❤️

Congrats @jaybeez - glad you are getting to soak up the cuddles.

Sorry that some others have been finding the last few days hard, be it with wounds and stitches or sleep deprivation etc. It feels like it can be a magical time but also a majorly challenging one for many.

I am lucky to be doing quite well with a content, sleepy baby at the moment but it is only day 4!

I was coming on with a standard baby poo question though. Baby appears to be feeding well, albeit haven’t had a weigh in yet to know how this translates. We have finished with meconium poo, but now seem to be getting almost liquid mint green poo in most nappies. Is this normal / anyone else had similar? Websites aren’t proving helpful. We are breastfeeding at the moment if that helps!