At 1:30 am, I was taken down into surgery, where I was given a spinal block. The moment I laid down, I fell asleep. While I was sleeping, they successfully put me back together. They never told me how many stitches there were though. Maybe I didn’t want to know. I was also given two blood transfusions in recovery as I lost 1.8L of blood. I also needed another transfusion two days later due to my levels decreasing while we were still in the hospital.
At about 3:30 am, I was reunited with Nick and Mia in the ward. We had a 5-minute changeover; then Nick was told to leave. This broke my heart but knew he wouldn’t be too long between visits.
That morning, the nurses were terrific and helped me so much with Mia as I was unable to get her due to the block.
A doctor came to explain how the surgery went. She told me that I was given a catheter. I looked under the blanket, and there wasn’t one there. So I was quickly given one.
We ended up staying in the hospital for four nights. Usually, it’s only a night, but this was so I could be monitored. On day two, a doctor asked if I was able to go to the toilet. Due to my tearing, they had been giving me laxatives to help soften my stools. I let her know that I was doing a least eight a day, which was so inconvenient because it was a lot of effort to do. She looked surprised and went to try and determine why. A nurse then came in with my pain medication. She left, and I took my tablets. She then came racing back in and asked if I had already taken them. I told her I had. She then explained there had been a mix-up. When I arrived at the hospital, they started a chart, and then when I went down to surgery, they started another chart. So they realised that they had been giving me double dosages of pain medication, as well as laxatives. I was then told I couldn’t take anything more until the next day. This was roughly 12 hours without pain medication. That was the longest night to date.
We were ready to go home by day 4.
I want to share, though, that my night nurse was incredible. Her name is Mikaela. She was an actual angel. I don’t think I could have gotten through the nights without her.
So this was our birth story. Apart from all the horror, the moment I saw Nick hold Mia, it’s like nothing in the world even mattered. Even still now, with my recovery. I’m just over the moon she is here, and she is healthy. We just love her so very much. We are so lucky.
Labour definitely was not straight forward as we hoped, but she is here healthy, and that’s all that matters.