After the birth I didn't have any time to update this blog. In fact I'd completely forgotten about it in the past few months, and just found it again in my bookmarks.
It's so weird reading back through everything that happened, and it reminded me how tough it all was.
I went into hospital on Tuesday 14th June. My waters broke on the 15th at 6am. Lilly wasn't born until the 17th at 9am.
The reason it took so long, was that another hospital close by had no staff on their maternity ward, so all of the labouring mums were sent to the hospital I was in.
All of the women in active labour were seen to first. Other than the fact my waters had gone, I was never really in any need to get up to the ward to start.
PLUS, as I was being induced, I'd need a nurse with me full time, and they just didn't have the staff.
Eventually I was taken up to a room and hooked up to the machine which would administer the drugs to start my contractions. I tried to give birth naturally, but she just wouldn't come out. The drugs they gave me to induce me only half worked. I got the contractions, but my cervix only ever opened up to 4cm. I was on the drip for 12 hours when they checked, and said that it wasn't happening, and that my cervix was actually hardening and closing, and that I'd need a C-Section.
At that point, I really didn't care.
I hadn't really slept since I went into hospital on the 14th, and I was beyond exhausted.
Lilly was born on the 17th June 2011, weighing 10lb 5oz.
She had suspected meningitis. They think this was because my waters had been broken for so long. As soon as she was born, they started to treat her as if she did have it. She was put on a 10 day course of antibiotics. This meant we had to stay in for this whole time, and that she had to have a tiny intravenous drip in the back of her hand. She also had to have lots of blood tests and was generally poked and prodded constantly. She was full of bruises and little holes.
I had a temperature and felt like shit too.
Everything was a bit of a blur. I don't remember things right.
At one point Lilly turned grey when my sister in law was holding her. I was petrified.
Those 2 weeks in hospital were the hardest times ever.
I was more tired than I've ever been in my life and at one point I was told that Lilly would have to have a sample of fluid taken from her spine (like an epidural) to test to see if she had a fever in her brain. Midwives were constantly waking her (and me) as soon as I'd got her to sleep, to check her temperature.
The 1st night I was on a ward with about 9 other mums and their newborns.
I was told a doctor would come at 10pm to take a sample of blood from Lilly's heel. He turned up at 2am (when all the other mums had just settled their babies) and stabbed and squeezed at Lilly's heel until she screamed and screamed. I cried too and we woke all of the other mums and babies up.
I wanted desperately to feed her and comfort her, but I couldn't get her to latch so I had to express colostrum into a syringe.
I sat up til around 4.30am trying, trying.
There was a woman who snored the whole night and this one baby who just wouldn't stop screaming and crying. It was just tearing through me. I had a terrible vision of throwing it out of the window.
I was a wreck. I broke down and the midwives moved me to a private room.
I cried every day. I missed Mark and the dogs. I was so scared that I wasn't doing it right. I wasn't being what Lilly needed me to be. I was sore and hot. I had trouble moving much. I was so lonely. Lilly was very drowsy from the start and wouldn't feed properly. I had a really hard time breastfeeding her, and ended up having to top up with formula. She had to be fed every 3 hours.
Nothing went how I wanted it to. I felt like I was in jail.
I wouldn't have made it with my sanity in tact without Mark.
He was amazing, (and still is.)
He set alarms for me so I knew when I had to do things. He dealt with the grown up stuff, like talking to the Doctors and Nurses. He went with Lilly to have her tiny intravenous drip changed when it came loose because I couldn't deal with seeing even more holes being put in her. He decided when people could visit, and told people no, when I wouldn't have been able to. He brought me food and made sure I was drinking enough. He just generally looked after me.
I am so lucky.
So 14 months on, I'm more in love with my family than ever. We have an intelligent, beautiful, firey little red head, and the memories are softening a little. I'm getting a bit broody, when after all of that I decided I just couldn't go through it all again.
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