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I was having an elective Caesarian section because my baby was breech, so I’d had a few weeks to get used to the idea. I went in for my pre-op checks with the doctor on Sunday 19 October in the evening and was free to go home afterwards. I had to go back to the hospital for 7.30 the next morning and the section was scheduled for 8.30. It felt very odd to have such a definite date and time for her birth!
Took the anti-nausea and antacid tablets I had been given that night and Monday morning, then checked in at the hospital. Got given a gown and taken down to the labour ward. After seeing the anaesthetist, walked into the theatre and was introduced to everyone who would be attending the section – there seemed a lot of people and I didn’t take them all in. The anaesthetist was excellent – really reassuring, and talked me through what she was doing. She also managed to get the spinal block in first time which helped , then things started to feel really odd. I felt dizzy and sick and really out of it for most of the section, which was pretty horrible, to the extent that I didn’t really care when Rebecca was born – I was just thinking, 'get this over with and get me out of here'. Rebecca was given to her daddy to hold and she was amazingly alert right from the start – she spent the first hour of her life wide awake staring round her and looking at me and her daddy. She knew us right from the start – it was incredible – DH was sitting behind me leaning forward with her so she could see me and I could stroke her cheek, and he said that whenever he leaned back she would crane forward to see where I was. Bless her. She had an Apgar score of 8 at 1 minute then 10 at 5 and 10 minutes – she had blue hands and feet to start with, and seemed a bit shocked to be born so suddenly!
The section took longer than we had anticipated and was actually sorer than I had thought it would be – if it’s meant to be like someone doing washing up inside you, they were bloody rough about it!! At one stage I was looking at my blood pressure monitor and it said 78 over 33 and I remember thinking, ‘God, you see numbers like that in Holby City!!’ I had gas and air at one stage because it was so sore, but it made me feel really sick so that didn’t last long. After the section, the surgeon came in to the recovery room to see us and said that I had lost a lot of blood due to varicose veins in my uterus (oh, the glamour), and a C-section had been the only option for having Rebecca because the cord was wrapped three times round her neck (so they had to cut it before they delivered her) and she was breech because I have a heart-shaped uterus, so she couldn’t turn round. Bless her. He also said that I would probably have to have sections in future rather than trying VBAC – but that’s a long way down the road, let’s not even go there
After the op the midwife came with us to the recovery room and I got to hold Rebecca properly for the first time – I took off my hospital gown so we could have skin to skin contact, and Rebecca crawled over my body and latched on for her first feed, all by herself. That made me cry. The midwife then took her to weigh her, bath her and, because she was cold, put her under a heat lamp until her temperature had gone up. She loved that, and went straight to sleep! After that, I got to hold her again and we went up to the ward.
We stayed in hospital four days – by then, we’d established breast-feeding, I had more confidence with her, and I just wanted to go home with her. Everyone at the hospital was excellent, and we were looked after really well by all the nurses and midwives on the ward.
We’ve been home for a week now and everything is going really well. She’s feeding well, sleeping lots during the day, and is having more and more periods of being awake and alert which is lovely. She’s a gorgeous little girl, and DH and I just feel sooo lucky and happy to have her. I have spent quite a lot of the last week in floods of tears – veering between being deliriously happy to have her, and worrying about anything and everything that could happen to her, the huge responsibility of having her, am I going to be a good enough mummy for her – you know the kind of thing. Hormones...
Recovery from the section is going well too. Stitches came out 5 days after the section, the wound is healing well (apparently!! I can’t see it) and I can fit back into my pre-pregnancy trousers already – hurrah!! I have to take iron tablets for another month because of my blood loss during the section, but that’s it. I feel better and stronger every day, and am already doing most normal things - light housework, going up and down stairs, walking every day, etc., and I feel better for it.