What They Don’t Tell You About The First Week After Birth

When I was pregnant with my first child I felt pretty confident about giving birth.

I did a prenatal course and it was great.I learned all about the different stages of labor, the different breathing techniques, the pros and cons of epidurals, when a C section might be needed, what contractions are like (basically when you have one you’ll know all about it so don’t worry), when to go to hospital, how many people would generally be in the room, how the baby comes out, what happens immediately after the baby comes out…the works. I was all prepared.

Then I read a book about baby routines so I could learn how often I should feed the baby, bath it, get it to nap, what to do if it had colic…I was all set.

But you know what no one mentioned? Not the pre natal course, not the baby book, not the lactation technician I went to to learn the basics of breastfeeding, not my consultant, not my mother, not my mother in law, not my sister in laws, not anyone in the whole world

…No one thought to mention how you feel in the 7–10 days after giving birth.

Sure, people mentioned post natal depression and how that can rear its ugly head in the months following birth. Baby blues got a brief mention…feeling teary in the immediate days after the baby was born…I think I heard someone maybe mention that when your milk comes in you can feel a bit wobbly but that was it.

Basically my frame of reference for mothers who had just given birth was Kate Middleton standing in a lovely frock in front of the hospital with her blow-dried hair for half an hour smiling for the cameras a mere 10 hours after pushing that little Prince out.

Well lets just say this: If I was the Princess and had to make a public appearance 10 hours after giving birth they would have had to wheel me out on a trolley, with a catheter on one side, a drip on the other side, unable to move because of the stitches and the massive internal bruising from the ventuse, crying and trembling, afraid of everything and everyone, unshowered and still with the odd blood smear on my hospital gown. And you know what? I didn’t have a traumatic birthing situation. It’s not that I was an emergency case or that there were complications. My situation was considered completely normal and all I could think for the next 10 days was why the fu*ck had nobody thought to mention this period of recovery??

Baby blues?! I cried like clockwork every day for 2 weeks at 6pm.

I cried because I missed my mother (even though she was there with me), because I was going to break the baby, because I could never sleep again because if I fell asleep then who would watch the baby?? (I honestly believed that). I cried to my sister on skype for 2 hours my first day out of hospital petrified because the baby’s temperature was .5 of a deg lower than it had been in the hospital and what if he died of hypothermia. It took her 2 hours to calm me down.

A bit wobbly when your milk comes in? I thought the world was going to end!

The world was basically a terrifying and ominous place waiting and ready to swallow up my precious baby and I was the only thing that lay between him and horror.

I lay in the hospital figuring out how to live the rest of my life without ever crossing the road because how could any sane person put a baby near traffic?? I cried with panic when the nurse gave him his first bath. What if she had a lapse in concentration? She might not realise that she was bathing the most precious thing that had ever entered this world..ever..she might not realise…the bath couldnt end fast enough for me. I shook with terror waiting at the hospital entrance for my husband to bring the car around because some drug addict was being admitted and I thought what if he breathes on my baby? What if anyone ever comes near him and touches him? I must be vigilant forever!! Then I cried the whole way home in the car wincing every time I saw a car come towards us.

I couldn’t sit down for 2 weeks. The stitches and the bruising in particular were so bad. The nurse told me in the recovery room I had to go to the toilet within 6 hours. I laughed and told her I wasn’t using that area for the next 6 years not to mind 6 hours. Then I cried. I had palsy of the bladder for 24 hours after giving birth, hence the catheter, and had to pee in a bed pan.When I got home I spent the first 10 days peeing in the shower as it was just too painful to sit on the toilet. Someone needs to tell people that!!!!! Someone needs to tell women that they might easily find themselves peeing in the shower for a week after giving birth and that its ok.

Who the fuck cares about a baby routine when you’re still peeing in the shower! C

Come on people. How could ye have omitted these finer details???!!!

Slowly towards the end of the two weeks I started to come out of the fog. The internal bruising abated. The stitches melted away. The feeding was going well and the milk was fully in. I realised that the baby hadn’t died even though I had fallen asleep and that maybe I could sleep again in the future. I went outside (only because my mother forced me…if she’d had a gun it would have been at gun point, I did everything to dodge it but she was adament). The first time I walked the 6 min lap around the park near my house I felt like I’d conquered the world.

We need to warn women about all this. If I ran a pre natal course it would go something like this:

Ladies, birth is a completely natural process and actually that baby is pretty much going to birth itself. It’s less you pushing it out and more the baby pushing you up and away while it makes its entrance into the world. You have no control over it. If anything does go wrong there are doctors there and they’ll help and anyway you wont be able to do much what with being completely incapacitated with the labour. So basically just keep a cool head, breath as much as you can, relax between contractions, and hope for the best.

NOW, on to the real stuff. That baby will come out and it wont be like on TV where its wrapped in a fluffy blanket and you hop in the shower and then come out and get on with mothering. You might need stitches and if they used a vaccum you will have serious bruising that will be worse than any labour.

Demand pain killers. Strong ones. And get a doughnut cushion thing to sit on.

Prepare to not shower for at least 24 hours. If you can’t stand to stand up to pee ask for a bed pan. You will experience bouts of fear and panic like never before.

Keep repeating that it’s only the hormones, you will survive this.

You will go through a very real and very vivid period of truly believing that you can never again take your eyes off this baby for fear something will happen him, that you wont be able to sleep, get in a car, drive, walk, be near people, take public transport, eat, and that no one will ever possibly be able to care for him because they simply couldn’t possibly understand how precious he is. That all the other parents you know who have children are clearly insane for ever letting their children out of their line of vision. You might even believe that the world has become such a scary place that you wonder if you’ll be able to even exist in it anymore.

This is all normal. And it will pass. I came out of that fog and I can now join the ranks of those women who casually say “Oh ya it’s desperate” when a first time mother shakily tells them that the first weeks were horrific in a way they never imagined. And now I’m also one of those really annoying people who can say “ya but the second time is a breeze so dont worry”. The second time I almost could have rivaled the Princess in terms of recovery. I showered within 24 hours AND I used a toilet. So there!

So ya…I just wanted to warn people. So at least when theyre crying with fear in the hospital they can hopefully see a sliver of light through the terror and think “I read about this, it’s normal, I’ll be ok”

Because you will be ok. You’ll be grand.