Hospital Stay

The rest of my hospital stay goes by so quickly.  I alternate between moments of extreme panic and serene calm.  I try and get rest when I can and listen to my instincts re looking after the Mushroom.  Thankfully there's no horrid nurses or Doctor's telling me that I'm doing this wrong or that wrong and the consensus seems to be go with your gut.  If Mushroom is crying and trying to shove his fist in his mouth, he's probably hungry (go figure) so try and feed him.  Still upset, wet nappy?  Still upset, cuddles and try feeding him again. It doesn't seem like rocket science to me.  It's not until late Wednesday afternoon that a midwife makes mention of waking him up to feed...  and I'm like what?  Apparently you should be waking your newborn every 3 to 4 hours to feed.  No-one  has told me this before so I start taking note of the time that he feeds and try to do that.  Reality is quickly sinking in.  Getting myself up so regularly is freakin hard.  My lower abdomen is really sore.  Like really.   I think about what my vjj would be hurting like if I'd managed to deliver naturally and this is a minor consolation.

Aside from the waking to feed thing, our Mushroom is doing really well.  Apparently.  I have no idea but everyone keeps telling me that he is.  I'm really worried about his skin as he was born with baby acne, and it looks worse and worse.  I'm thinking that there's no possible way a 2 day old baby can have acne but apparently it's the real deal!  A midwife sees my concern and gets the Doc to come check him out and make sure it's nothing more serious.  On advice from the Ped and a lovely midwife, I just have to squirt some boobie juice onto his face and rub it in, and that'll clear it right up.  Juffin has already googled and told me this information but it's always good to hear from the professionals as something about squirting milk from my breast directly onto my newborn son's face sounded akin to Juffin's idea of amusement.  "Look at Jess the human milk hose!"  Chump.  It already looks better by Wednesday evening.

As my time in hospital goes on, I start to feel much more confident.  Perhaps I can actually do this motherhood thing after all.  Mushroom seems to be relatively easy going for a baby.  Though have nothing to compare it to so who knows?  Basically he doesn't do too much crying or carrying on so that has to be a good thing!  We have the first bath time in hospital with Juffin at the helm.  Mushroom gets his ears tested, a big fat pass, he has some injections and barely crys, tough nut, and because things are going so well, I tentatively put forward to the staff that I might be ready to go home the next day.

Reasons for this include:  It's getting easier to get around... yes, it's true that the bed is electronically able to push me from laying to sitting, which is kind of cheating I guess, but you know what I mean.  I can stand up by myself and even go to the toilet... huzzah!  Mushroom and I seem to be getting the hang of the breastfeeding thing, though my milk is not in yet and, although mega awesomeness, I'm still all alone in my room, who know's how long that will last?!

To make matters worse, Juffin has been busy at home washing all the Mushroom's new outfits, moving our bedroom around to accommodate me and putting the car seat in the car.  I feel so helpless as every time he visits the hospital he has more to do and I wish that I could help.  The hardest part about this whole thing, aside from being cut open and all that jazz,  is not having Juffin there all the time and being away from him.  I just want to get home, get into a routine, have Juffin included.

On Thursday morning the Midwife on duty advises that they'll try and have me out of there that afternoon but there's a mass exodus so have to be patient.  I'm so ready and sure enough, by 5pm we're going home!!

Hearing test - passed with flying colours!  

Next time:  We're home, we're all alone... now what?!

The second best shower in the World

Our first night in hospital is relatively uneventful.  I'm so tired and out of it after the last 12 hours that I'm not sure I know what the hell is going on!  Someone wakes me every half hour to check my blood pressure, temperature and my wound and drain until about midnight then the checks become hourly.  This means that I don't get any uninterrupted sleep until.. hang on, oh shit.  That's right, I have a baby now so I will never get a night of uninterrupted sleep forever more (ok possibly a slight exaggeration but you get my drift!)

The mushroom is obviously as exhausted as I am because he hardly makes a move or a sound.  At one point he does wake up and gives something akin to a mewl and the nurse whacks him on my chest so he can have a little suckle and he promptly falls back to sleep!  My wound is now hurting like a bitch and I press my little pain relief button and wait for the good stuff to do it's job.  A midwife sees my discomfort and offers to take mushroom down to the desk for a few hours whilst I get some rest but I don't really want her to.  I point out to her that it's pointless because I'm being woken every bloody hour anyway and she advises that it's perfectly fine and that I really do need to get some rest.  I protest again but obviously I fall asleep or something because I don't remember anything after that!

The next morning I awake to a very sore abdomen.  The best way I can describe it is like hitting the sit-ups/crunches way too hard the day before and feeling the after effects.  It's not painful like a searing pain but more a very persistent ache.  It sucks.  I still resemble a bit of an octopus with tubes sticking out all over and am wondering when they'll be removed when my favourite midwife Helen enters (she was at my birth) and promptly advises that they've come to release me and put me in the shower, hooray!!  Release me from the tubes that is, not the hospital... so not ready for that!!

Firstly, with the assistance of another wonderful midwife, (they're all wonderful at this point because they give me pain relief and help me have a shower!) they remove my epidural which looks like a weird piece of fishing line, bizarro! Then they remove the catheter... sting, and finally the cannula which has been annoying me since the night before.

Next step is to get me up and into the shower.  I'm freaking out.  Juffin helps get my toiletries out for the girls to wash me and we take some very wobbly steps to the bathroom where they strip me off and sit me in a chair.  My drain is still in as they want the Doctor to review me before it comes out and I catch a regrettable look in the mirror on the way in and nearly recoil in horror!  Good God!  I'm hideous!  I thank goodness that I packed my wonderful strawberry body wash and body lotion as there's nothing better than smelling like a strawberry.  I feebly try to wash myself with the assistance of wonderful nursey and then ask her desperately to wash my hair as I can't reach the shampoo.  She obliges willingly.  The experience is amazeballs.  I feel 5000 times better than I did 5 minutes ago.  I'm a human being again, despite smelling like a giant strawberry,  and whilst I feel like I've been thumped in the guts a gazillion times with a sledgehammer that shower was a very close second to the best shower I've ever had*.

Getting dressed is pretty funny.  Helen is trying to dry me and put my knickers on which is pretty hard when you can barely stand up.  We manage to find a maternity singlet, a skirt and a cardi to put on that all matches and get back into bed.  I'm exhausted by the whole experience and it's taken 10 whole minutes.  Helen and other wonderful midwife point out that I now have to take myself off to the toilet again which could prove challenging, so don't wait until you're busting!  Noted.  I can also now pick up the Mushroom and cuddle him whenever I want.  Hooray!

Me & the Mushroom :-)  

Next time:  Breast is best and getting to know each other!

*I have to disclose that the best shower I've ever had did not involve kinky sexpo business.  The Juffin and I  were camping in NZ for a week during summer one year and we were at Spirit's Bay for four days with no hot water. We had cold showers of course but cold showers in NZ are different to cold showers in Australia.  The cold water coming out of the tap in NZ is actually frigid ice cold, like refrigerated water cold.  So rather than become stinky beasts, we would wait until the middle of the day, then run around screaming and goose pimply in that needly freezing water for as long as it took to pass over your body with the soap once then rinse off... so like 2 seconds.  Yes, I'm well aware that there are camping showers that you can hang from a tree and have a hot shower but we were travelling el cheapo povo style and did not have the equipment.  Hell, our gas stove even packed it in on the second day.  We were ROUGHING it! As we were staying in National Parks etc all the showers were like this so on day 4 or 5 we spied a caravan park in the middle of this awesome forest.  We decided to check on their campsite prices and made the decision to pull in.  That night I had the best shower of my life.  Blissfully hot water, billowing clouds of steam, my hair finally got washed and didn't look like a hedgehog had died atop my skull.  I was in there for close to 20 minutes.  It was the best.  The worst part of the whole experience was that we only had one toiletry bag so one of us had to wait whilst the other one had their shower... actually I think we just cracked the soap bar in half as we were both too mean to wait for each other!

Pincushion

Juffin, Mushroom and I are wheeled onto the ward at around 7pm.  Well the Mushroom and I are wheeled.  Juffin is quite capable of walking.  There is another woman in my room but she is on the way out.  Not like actually on the way out, as in dying, but on the way out as in exiting the hospital.  I digress.  We are wheeled into the room and the midwife draws the curtains for us.  It's then that I notice I have various tubes coming out of my body at different points.

I have all the routine stuff going on; my epidural is still in, the catheter that you have to have when you have an epidural, a cannula feeding me God knows what and, as an added bonus, a lovely drain as I was bleeding quite a lot so they've left that in my 'wound' as it shall henceforth be known as.  I have bags of undisclosed liquids hanging all around me.  At the risk of sounding like a teen, it's pretty gross.  To make matters worse, shit is starting to hurt.  Like a lot.  I have a button that I can push that will release more drugs but I don't wanna dose myself up, pass out and miss cuddles with Max.

I think it's around 6.30pm or so as it's dark outside but we're still allowed visitors on the ward.  Enter my Mum, sister, niece and bff.  I realise then that I must look like a damn horror show.  I have been up for over 24 hrs, hair sticking out all over the place, eyes glued together, puffy skin and general disgustingness.  Poor Max is probably thinking 'what the hell did I do to receive a mother who looks like that?' My family and friends are so excited though and if they're horrified by my appearance, it's not mentioned out loud!  My niece is pointing at things and asking what's this, what's that, whilst my sister tries not to freak out if she touches anything.  Max is given lots of cuddles by his new Auntie and Grandmother and Juffin gets to dress him for the first time.  Thank God my friend gave me some 0000 grosuits because I only bought 000 ones!  They kept telling me that I was having a big baby, I think I said that already, but obviously they confused belly fat with actual baby cos this little guy is not 10 pounds!!!  As Juffin is trying to dress our tiny son, my lovely little niece, Miss R, is on hand to advise him on how to do it.  Cute alert!  My visitors don't stay long, only half hour or so, which I'm grateful for, and further concretes the fact that I look like hell and they're all thinking holy shit Jess, get some sleep gf! What a bunch of stars!

Night is marching on and visiting hours are nearly over, when the woman in the bed next to me vacates.  I'm now flying solo in room 9/10 Maternity Ward.  I can't help but cross my fingers that it'll stay like that, at least for tonight anyway.  This is the part of the hospital stay that I've been dreading, as I've heard through quite a few people that it's shit, quite frankly.  I haven't seen any evidence of crapness yet, aside from the being sent home for the second time at Birth Suite but let's just try and put that behind us.  Everyone so far has been extremely lovely. The ward staff are on hand to check me every half hour, they take my blood pressure, temperature, check all my various tubes and coo over the mushroom.  Apparently he's gorgeous and I advise them that I'm really not that stupid to think that they don't say that to all the new Mum's!

It's past 8 o'clock and my Juffin has to go home.  I'm getting really nervous as I can't even move properly to attend to Max if he needs me and I'm a bit lonely and scared.  I've never been in hospital before, let alone had an operation, so the hormones start going wild.  I'm a little teary as he cuddles me goodbye and I don't think he wants to go either.  We toss up hiding him under the other bed but as my obs are being done every half hour we're not sure that we'll get away with it... a midwife comes and checks on me again and says gently to Juffin that visiting hours are over.... it's time to go.  My poor man also looks like death warmed up and could do with a shower and a good night's sleep, though, because he's wonderful and perfect, he assures me that this will be impossible without me by his side.  What a lovely, lovely man.  I watch him go and then I stare at my son in the tiny crib next to me and think holy fuck, I'm now a mother.  This is actually happening!

Mushroom looking at me from his hospital crib!  

Next time:  Tube removal and the best shower in the world!

Recovery

So there we are.  A litre of blood and one 3.37kg baby lighter... and they told me I was having a giant baby!  Lies!! Juffin is trying to send out a gazillion text messages to our family and friends, whilst I lay there, zombiefied by the past 12 hours, trying to make sense of what just happened.

A midwife appears and pulls my gown down to reveal my ginormous cans.  Yes.  Ginormous.  I'll tell you about the joys I had shopping for maternity bras in another post...   she whacks my son on my chest and I just gaze down at his tiny little head which is slightly cone shaped due to being stuck in my damn pelvis for nigh on 6 hours.   He's so small!!  I can't figure out who he looks like cos to me he's like a tiny old man.  All red and wrinkly with perfect little hands and perfect little feet.  Juffin and I are smitten immediately.  I stare and stare, too scared to touch the little man.  I then notice that we are surrounded by people.

In recovery we are only protected by hanging curtains and nurses, Doctor's, midwives, are coming and going.  I can't be that out of it because after the 16th person pops their head into our little alcove I'm getting a bit embarrassed as that's another stranger who's seen my boobs today.  I know that they're all medical people and they don't give a shit but honestly...  To make matters worse, a midwife is pumping away at the breastaculars with one hand, and trying to move Max's little mouth over to them so he can get some good stuff.

At this point a normal person would be thinking: What happened to your dignity?  Where has that gone?  Oh, that's right, you have none, it left the building nigh on 8 hours ago.  Not only have you been wheeled through the hospital at 8.30am on a Monday morning screaming blue bloody murder in the throes of labour, shown your vagina to who know's how many people, and then been exposed, literally, from the waist down to a room full of strangers you now have a strange lady pumping on your boobs... wow.  That shit certainly wouldn't fly in the Mad Cow.

Having a baby is probably the most vulnerable state I will find myself in.  Ever.  In all honesty, after what I've been through I'm not sure that I care all that much.... and obviously that whole gushy tripe about it all being worth it is totally frickin true... sigh! I have no idea what I'm doing, if I'm doing it correctly or what to do with that tiny little person laying on my chest.  I'm going to give it my best shot though.

Mushroom aka Maximillian - One hour old

Next time:  You've had a major operation, sitting up is hard, and breastfeeding is also damn hard!