Those first few days

Anyone who tells you that a c section is a piece of cake is lying and I will never understand why anyone would choose to have one. Its major abdominal surgery and it takes a while to recover. Because I had to have a blood transfusion I was very weak and in a lot of pain for a few days after the op. All in all I was in hospital for 5 days. The first night was horrible. I was away from my little girl in a high dependency unit and my body was still in shock. I was shaking for the entire night and got very little sleep. The next morning a nurse came to bathe me - there is no dignity after a major op! - and Rahul wheeled me up to see Amelie in the SCBU (Special Baby Unit). It was wonderful and horrible to see her in the incubator. Wonderful because it was the first time I had really seen her up close and horrible because she was hooked up to loads of tubes and was so tiny (1.098kgs). She was also very hairy - she still had all the down that was keeping her warm in my womb! To not be able to cuddle her and say hello was very hard and I knew from that point that breast feeding was going to be very hard. I couldn't bond with my baby and my milk would probably be slow in coming. It was. I managed to express all of my colostrum and some milk for around 2 weeks and then it dried up. I have to say I felt like a very bad mother and it took me a long time to get over the fact that Amelie would not be breast fed. Once again my baby girl was not getting the start in life that I had hoped for.

Because she was so small she had to be transferred to the Lister hospital in Stevenage which had a Level 3 (the highest level) SCBU. I was very weak that day and the specialist team who would be transporting her wheeled her down to see me on the maternity ward (I was moved out of high dependency). The incubator was very high tech but I was assured that she was fine and that all the wires etc. were just a precautionary measure. Nevertheless I was terrified for her. What made it worse was the fact that I couldn't travel with her. In fact I wasn't moved to the Lister until the following day (my first - and last I hope - trip in an ambulance). It was really hard knowing that she was in another hospital several miles away. The only way I got through the rest of the day and some of the following was to tell myself that she was in excellent hands and that I had to concentrate on getting stronger.