Convulsions, hospital food and Nana knickers.

I’ve been super slack with the blog lately. At the beginning all I wanted to do was share my new experiences and shout them out to anyone who would listen.  But lately I started to lose my mojo for writing and as I lay in my bed in the wee early hours of the morning, trying to get back to sleep after dummy-ing baby bird back to sleep for the fiftieth freakin time, I found myself asking myself why I was writing the blog at all? And after pondering this for a bit, my answer was, ‘I write them for Luca’.  I write them because I want to create something special for our baby girl to look back on when she’s all grown up. I want her to know what we went through. What she was like to bring home, how we as parents coped and how we all grew together as a little family.

I remember myself as an 80’s kid, spending many Saturday mornings sifting through our family photo albums. Rummaging through the cupboards, spreading the albums all over the lounge room floor, admiring myself as a baby, reading the little quotes and dates my mother had written under each photo. I always asked my mum to tell me the story about how I was born. I used to love those albums and I appreciated my mum for putting them together. I want Luca to have the same, only now in this day and age the family photo album is a bit different. She’ll have a novel of her life to read (this blog) and an Instagram account to admire herself as a baby. So thats why I write them.

That being said, lets talk about the hospital experience. Everyones is different.

Baby bird was pulled, tugged and ripped out of my womb and placed on my chest, and in a groggy, thick cloud of drugs I held her closely as my body uncontrollably convulsed. (side effect of epidurals) Her little head bounced on my chest, my jaw chattered as I tried to caress my newborn with a shaking hand. Nausea and light headedness flooded my body.

I welcomed her to the world and held her for 5 minutes, new and fresh as she suckled from me but the world around me started caving in. I couldn’t breathe and I felt like I was going to vomit and pass out at the same time. This was not how I wanted to hold my newborn for the first time. The convulsions came hard and fast as my entire body vibrated on the surgeon’s table.”I’m going to be sick” I heard myself say. “Can you take her off me”. I can’t believe I actually said that. They’re definitely not the words I had imagined myself saying in that moment. Lachlan gently took Luca from my chest and was gone. I lay there watching my body move from being tugged at on the other side of the curtain. ‘Just breathe” I told myself. Yuk! It was an unsettling feeling but this is how most c-sections are. The sick nauseous feeling, the convulsing, and the drugs taking over your mind and body.

Finally they wheeled me out on the bed and as we turned the corner I saw the most beautiful sight I’d ever witnessed. Lachlan sitting on a chair, shirt off, holding our baby girl against his bare chest. He looked up at me and I swear in that moment all his guards were down and I was staring straight into his soul. He was so vulnerable and in love with the baby girl in his arms. The relief that swept across his face was visible, knowing that I was ok and we were all going to be alright. He gently placed Luca back on my chest and we both just stared and smiled like idiots for what seemed like forever.

After forever ended, I was wheeled into a room where I would spend the next 3 nights. I hadn’t planned to be staying at hospital. I was expecting the in-and-out, calm, water birth. I expected to be home the same day I gave birth. I hadn’t wanted to stay in the hospital but I was glad that I did, for a few reasons. Obviously the first is that I had just been slashed open in surgery and needed monitoring and drugs. Secondly, I could press a button and midwives would come to my call and give me whatever I was asking for. Thirdly, I needed help breast feeding. Baby bird couldn’t strongly latch onto my silly little nipples so after much controversy and a small shit fight with the lactation consultants, I ended up using a nipple shield. (Ooooahhh. Shock, horror!) Fourth, I love getting food that’s wrapped in stupid little containers and plastic – cereals, two fruits, triangle cut sandwiches, custards, jelly. I love plane food and hospital food is similar. And Lastly, I didn’t have to get out of bed much. And when I did it was to go to the bathroom. And holy moly catching the first glimpse of myself in the mirror was a bit of a shock. Seeing my ‘bits’ for the first time in a while was scary. After all the poking, pushing and prodding down there, it was looking as battered as a 19 year old leaving a rave at 6am!

In the middle of the night as I held Luca so tenderly, she poohed on me. 3 times! Thick and black like tar. It just kept coming. So much so, that by the third pooh, I just dusted it off and lay in it. I never would of thought I would do that. Ew! But I did and I didn’t care. She could’ve pooh over me all night and I wouldn’t have cared. She was amazing.

I knew Luca was going to be a good baby from the time we spent in hospital because I had to share a room with another lady which was testing. Well she was more like a girl. She was young and well, lets see, how do I explain her with out insulting her… She lived in Corio. A young, new mumma from Corio. I spent my entire stay listening to her and her visitors. Very entertaining. She lived with her boyfriend’s mum and she kept telling her boyfriend he had to get rid of the dogs before she brought her baby home. Poor dogs! Her boobs didn’t make any milk and her baby screamed and shrieked the entire stay as he was starving. She left him screaming in his cot too. My heart bled for that little baby. The midwives took him away from her at night because he just screamed and screamed and screamed from starvation. He ended up having to be formula fed to keep him satisfied. I didn’t even know that some of us couldn’t make milk. I thought breastfeeding was guaranteed. But no.

Baby Luca slept through the screaming the entire time. Our shared room was like a yin/yang room. At night my side was quiet and calm with soft, relaxing, seaside music playing, and at day clean, tidy, flower strewn and sun-lit. No crying baby just little murmurs. Bless.

The other side was the opposite. 

Fluorescent lights beaming down on her and her baby the entire time. Loud visitors and arguments with her boyfriend. She was actually really rude to the midwives too. I didn’t like her but felt sorry for her that she couldn’t breast feed. She did give Lach and I plenty of laughs though the curtain though. We’d sit there trying to not laugh out loud at some of their uncouth banter.

Over all, I had a pretty good experience in hospital.  Partly because I was so high on Endone and partly because I have a lazy personality and I like staying in bed and having people bring me things. I literally sat in bed for 3 days staring at my toes at the end of the sheets, then staring to my left at Luca sleeping soundly in her basinet, then back at my toes, back at the basinet, toes, basinet, toes, basinet. I was completely amazed at myself for what I had made and still in disbelief.

The midwives at Geelong hospital were all super lovely to me, gushing at Luca every time they came in my room, checking my boobs were making milk, joking and laughing at me for all the stupid things the Endone was making me say and do. And of course they loved Lach too. A handsome new Dad playing the roll like a boss. How attractive.

Its not all roses for everyone though. One of my close mates who recently gave birth had a not so good experience there. Everybody is different.

I had asked Lach to bring me some big knickers that wouldn’t irritate and rub against my scar. You know, like nana knickers. I woke up from a nap with Lach standing at the end of the bed all serious looking. “I bought you some pads, some strawberries, bananas and these… as he held up the biggest, sloppiest, rank, nana knickers I’d ever seen. That was it. I lost it. My stitches nearly popped. I thought they were the most hilarious things I’d seen. I never imagined myself wearing those. I was in so much pain from laughing. Turns out they are the most comfortable knickers I’ve ever worn. Size 18 white nana knickers. In fact I still sometimes wear them now, 7 months on. They’re THAT comfy… and I have 3 pairs.

On the last day, I became overwhelmed. A bit flustered. A single tear. A slight rage. Only for a moment though. Maybe it was those baby blues I’d been warned about, maybe it was the breast feeding and the so many (conflicting) opinions from the midwives, maybe it was from the physicians rough handling my tiny Lucas hips or maybe it was being told that our perfect baby girl had displaced hips.

We knew it was coming. We were dreading hearing it.

“She has severe hip dysplasia like her father. She’s going to need to wear a brace. For 3 months. “.