Woody's Birth - Part 5 - The Long and Winding Road

It's been a month since Woody was born. It's been a long, hard month. I'm still struggling with lots of things, mainly my lady parts being ruined and an infection somewhere inside which would probably explain some of the pain I've been experiencing in my uterus. Antibiotics are thankfully making that feel a bit better.

I have nerve damage in my arm, causing my left thumb to really fucking hurt at certain times. My right thigh is completely dead and incredibly painful. My taste buds are still a bit weird and my beloved iced water still tastes like horrible cheap mineral water. My tummy is still sore and sometimes I'm in agony with it. My foo is completely, utterly ruined.

But on the plus side my bruises have gone. I've stopped bleeding. My tummy scar has healed really well. I've lost a lot of weight. I'm not in general pain anymore. I'm not having the hot and cold rushes I was having. Most importantly I'm not waking up at 11:52 every night in a cold, sweaty panic.

I've made a list of things still bothering me, which sounds defeatist perhaps, but it means I can tick them off when they no longer bother me, and I can see that list getting smaller. I'm incredibly hard on myself sometimes because I expected everything to go according to plan and to be totally me again by now. As it turned out, it all went kinda wrong and I'm stuck in this awful place where I feel like I will never be myself again.

It's going to be a long journey back to me, but I'm already on that journey and I will get there. 

Last time I wrote fully I was going into theatre. I've started a follow up post 3 times now and each time I've just rambled. It's not relevant. It's not particularly interesting. 

The main points of my post-surgery hospital stay are thus;

I was in HDU from Wednesday morning, about an hour after I came round, to Thursday morning. They had ice in HDU and it was the most amazing, giant, heart shaped ice. They had soluble paracetamol too. And my lovely day nurse gave me a bed bath on the Thursday morning, which whilst kinda weird, felt SO good having just felt disgusting since Tuesday.

I hated most of my stay in Maternity HDU. Apologies for anyone reading this who that might offend. The truth is that it was the other ladies in that bay who made it unbearable, constantly ringing their buzzers for no reason other than that their babies wouldn't settle. One of them was quite ill, she would make all sorts of pained noises, but every time her phone rang (really fucking loudly, and with the most obnoxious ringtone), she sounded just fine, laughing and chatting away. Annoying much?! The midwife up there was lovely though.

My first shower was painful but relieving, and memorable only for the look on Andy's face when I opened my eyes whilst washing my hair with one hand owing to the giant cannula still in my right hand. I still can't imagine how it all must have felt for him. 

I was finally discharged from Maternity HDU on Friday at 2pm; it was 9pm before I was finally down on the postnatal ward, where my first words were, "Put me in that bed by the window!" The response was that it wasn't made up. "Well make it UP then!!" I later apologised to the midwife, she was utterly lovely, we had a bit of a laugh during both the nights I was on the ward.

I had been finally reunited with a poorly Woody on Thursday once I was back in Maternity HDU which was just amazing. My gorgeous boy had been through so much, I was shocked to see a cannula in his tiny hand. He was having antibiotics twice a day right through to the week. The birth had been a massive shock for him and births like that can apparently have a negative affect on bubs. He had a lumbar puncture but I still don't quite recall the significance of that. I was still a bit out of it and mostly left Andy in charge of Woody, which sounds awful, but I'm just not sure I could've taken it all in, I didn't understand what the Drs were telling me.

After two days on the postnatal ward and many trips back and forth to Neonatal for Woody, we were finally ready to go home. Looking back now, nearly 4 weeks after discharge I'm not sure how much I've progressed although I'm sure that I have. Progress just feels slow which is frustrating but I've just got to shut up and get on with it really.

A midwife visited me on the Sunday morning before discharge. I had only met her once, she had shown us round the Labour Ward and we'd had a chat at the end of the tour. When she visited me on the postnatal ward we had a really good discussion about what had happened and how I was keen to move forward, to help the team learn and to talk about my experiences with students if it would help them. She knew of my desire to one day move into midwifery and before she left she welled up a bit, she said she'd told herself not to get emotional, but she said she wanted to come and tell me she thought I'd be a really good midwife one day. 

I hope so.