Early days writing

One of the special things after having a baby was sharing the news with friends and family.  We were inundated with messages and although most people said 'no need to reply' I still wanted to be in touch at some point but just struggled to find the time to write.  I ended up writing a long generic story of the early days to share with those that expressed an interest - usually recent mums.  I thought I would record the message here:

Just found some time to message so here are a few updates on life so far since delivery.
Labour itself was ok - at least I’m not thinking too detaily about it now! 36 hours since start of contractions but alright. She weighed 3.23kg when born at 8am on Friday.
I lost 1.5 litres of blood after birth. A really horrible time for John as I was fairly out of it but we were really impressed with care at the hospital. Baby was fine which was so wonderful and I was on observation ward till sat morning. My heart rate remained high but came down to an acceptable level. Moved to regular post-delivery room Saturday. Fainted once on Saturday (when I was about to change my first nappy 😉) and so had an iron iv infusion. Came home Sunday afternoon with antibiotics and blood thinning injections.
Baby girl has been really good, just kept an eye on a little jaundice but that is going with more regular feeding. My state and her sleepy jaundice made breast feeding tricky but we are trying and it’s improving. John and I were both wonderfully impressed with the staff and the care we were given, felt thoroughly well looked after and reassured.
So that’s the medical side... otherwise we are all happy and loving life with her. Totally in love and so excited to have her here. Loads to learn, but excited to be trying and getting used to being tired! 
Grandparents and lizzie (first visitors) stopped by on Monday and looked after us well. Had a gentle day at home Tuesday and Wednesday.
Well thats the detailed update. Sorry if you got more than you bargained for!!

Thank you for your messages, love and support; it means heaps. Have you enjoyed your easter weekend? Hope you’re well. Love from us 3, xxxx


Having sent that to lots of people, a GP friend then asked more questions so I wrote some further details which I shared with a few other medical friends:

Thanks I. for your super message and also the note about not needing to reply soon! It is funny isn’t it how such lovely messages and replying becomes like a chore on the to do list. Sorry that my replying time is at night when she is sleeping on me in the sofa. Although miraculously she did do two one hour stints in her cot today so I’m going to try her there again shortly when I hope she’s sound asleep!
I love that you asked all the medical questions. I will try my best to answer them. Yes I think they think fainting was low haemoglobin. It was 129 at last antenatal check, 100 when checked after blood loss on Friday and then they found out on Saturday after I fainted that it was 79. On Friday I’d made it to the chair at the end of the bed and felt dizzy so didn’t venture further. I also felt dizzy the one time I sat up on side of bed. Doctor asked if I had a sore throat and I said oh yes a bit but I actually think that was more the after effects of all the entonox - loved that stuff! Dr then came back and said he’d checked my white cells and they were a little high so that’s when started me on antibiotics as they were looking for ways to get my heart rate down - think it peaked at 140 and was usually 114. But only once while I was in hospital was my temp slightly raised so my non-medical opinion was that I probably didn’t have an infection at all but was very happy that dr was being cautious and giving me them. Oh a funny thing to me, on Friday night I woke and was leaning over comforting baby in cot and thought my hand was a little sore and looked at canula and realised there was now something attached to it (the antiobiotics) that hadn’t been there when I went to sleep and also now had a pulse monitor on my finger - made me think I must have been so tired not to wake to any of those goings on! They talked on Friday about possibility of iron or blood transfusion and were monitoring to see if needed. After faint on sat they decided on ferinject with the possibility of blood transfusion later. Not sure what caused them to stop there and discharge me in the end, guess because I was no longer symptomatic? I had had some iron tablets at hospital which there was talk of me carrying on at home but in the end no, think because I’d then had ferinject? I’m medicating myself having a green smoothie a day though now at home! Hope that makes some sense - I may well have got a lot confused!!

John broke up for easter on Thursday. He went in in the morning and I called him home at 10am so he almost made it to the end of term. Wonderfully he now has two weeks Easter holiday and then gets to take his two weeks paternity leave so we will have a month together trying to figure this baby thing out!

Right, time to see if baby fancies continuing to sleep in her cot!

Love and thanks again xxx