Labour Story, Part 3

My Handsome Jude-o aka Joodles Noodles Doodles

So, no more babies. Should I be more freaked out by this? I mean, I know how lucky I am, both in terms of the fact that I have two kids and in how much of a lucky escape we had in terms of the whole ruptured uterus scenario. But now I’m one of those women who can’t have any more kids. My body no longer is capable of performing the thing that it was designed to perform. I suppose if I only had one child, this would be really devastating news for me. But I’m not too bothered, if I’m honest. It just sometimes feels a bit surreal being really rather unaffected by circumstances which are, at face value, really quite enormous.  I know there are millions of sister-wives around the world who can't have babies... I feel a bit fraudlent claiming to join their ranks, especially as I type this with two babies safe under this roof, but my heart goes out to them with some slight sense of recognition anyway.

The day after Jude was born I was very tired and didn’t have a lot of energy. I felt like a ghost of myself – a tremendously elated ghost of myself. Very strange! I’d suffered quite a substantial blood loss during the Caesarean, according to my midwives. 2.5 litres, if you please.

Two point five?

SRSLY, people.

That’s like... one of those big bottles of Diet Coke plus a glass. Ouch!

Now THIS piece of information freaks me out a little. I’m funny about blood... I don’t like injections or withdrawals of any description, and I’ll never be a blood donator. This latter fact will make me sound a bit assholy in light of what I’m about to tell you, but something in my silly little head says that the stuff that’s inside my body is obviously there for a reason, and should remain in there because... like... I NEED IT, okay? But, the ghosty me was faltering, so the Doctor came to recommend that I should have a blood transfusion. “Well, of course you don’t have to have one, you are well within your rights to refuse, “ she began, “So you could try iron tablets for three weeks or you could have a transfusion and get the same results instantly.” I opted for the transfusion. The doctor recommended it as the best course of action, in light of the fact that in the weeks to come my body would not only be breastfeeding but also trying to mend a substantial C-section belly scar. So, here I am typing this with SOMEONE ELSE’S BLOOD SWIRLING AROUND INSIDE ME.

Peculiar, indeed. Someone, somewhere, lay on a sun lounger in one of those blood-donation sessions and gave some blood so I could have it dripped into my left arm over the course of an hour so I could have a bit of colour back in my cheeks and have a good shot at feeding my baby. Thanks, Anonymous Person-Less-Selfish-Than-Me. Really, totally mean that.

I was spoiled rotten by the night-time midwives during my convalescence; because I was Very Serious Terrible Delivery Girl, I had a lot of help (and consequently, a lot of sleep!) during those first few nights. Jude was quite mucousy, and I couldn’t close my eyes for fear of him choking and gagging on little globs of snot/throat-gunge, etc., during the night. Poor little bugger really suffered with it, but my tummy was really sore and I couldn’t get myself in an upright position quick enough to pick him up so he wouldn’t choke. So the midwives looked after him through the night for me. Oh, love the lovely midwives! Lovely Lynnette’s Ashington sister-midwives are a bunch worth their weight in gold. We were both discharged on the Friday afternoon (after a stern talking-to about CONTRACEPTION by a very matronly nurse... but that’s a separate blog entry in itself, watch this space).

A few days later, the Lovely Lynnette came to remove the staples in my belly and here I am 8 weeks post delivery and I feel a million bucks. Belly totally healed, everything back to normal. I am even in my pre-Jude jeans. Wha-hoo!

Lashings of apologies, dear Internet, for taking 8 weeks to finish my labour story, but it really has been a whirlwind “summer”. I say “summer” because it has been distinctly autumnal for the majority, but that’s the way things are on this side of The Pond. But I hope you have enjoyed reading How I Fell In Love Again in July of 2009, as I have enjoyed recalling and reliving it all to write it down.

So I guess this is officially the last pregnancy-related post I will write! What began as my online pregnancy journal has morphed into an official blog – you’ll notice I changed the URL – but I hope you will continue to visit my little corner of the web to read about how we are all doing here on Canterbury Avenue in the coming months. Thanks for reading.

xoxox