The Grand Arrival

So, my little angel was born at 35 weeks and 3 days. She gave me one unholy fright! My waters broke (well, burst would be a more accurate term) in my mum's house after dinner one Sunday afternoon. Thankfully, my sister and her children were also there, and so even though it was hectic, she managed to instruct my partner over the phone to pack my hospital bag and meet us there in double quick time.

Anyway, 30 or so hours later, my lovely bundle arrived to great excitement. She was simply perfect.

By the way, there are many 'essentials' for a hospital bag, but if you end up in hospital as long as I was, two must haves are deoderant and a razor... and I say that as I somehow went without them for over a week.

That aside, my little baby girl developed jaundice by day 3. This is quite normal for newborns, but when a baby is premature their little liver is too immature to breakdown the biliruben, and so it is very important to treat it in the hospital. She spent day 3 to day 8 in an incubator under the bililights. Oh this was such a slow process, as her biliruben levels kept going up and down and spiking higher each time they went up.

As a mother, all you can do is sit there and wait, and feed her as much as possible as the fluid also helps to flush out the poison. Its a tough start for any new mum, and when your baby isn't by your side, you imagine they must be frightened and lonely without you. They also have to get bloods taken every few hours, so their little hands get very bruised and they don't like it.

So we eventually got home from the hospital and I eventually got some sleep. After 10 days of near total sleep deprivation - from trying to feed a lethargic jaundiced baby and expressing breastmilk between feeds - I was ready to collapse. In fact I nearly did. Doctor used the words 'post traumatic stress', and of course the dreaded PND also invaded my life.

Trouble was, my partner had used up all his holidays and had returned to work by the time I came home from hospital. The in-laws sent round a few dinners and that was box ticked it seemed. I'm grateful for the small amount of support we received, but it wasn't ideal.

All in all, the shock eventually wears off. The one thing that is very hard to let go of is the notion that we can control what happens. None of this is in our control. Once we can accept that, we eventually learn to go with the flow.