Wordless Wednesday: Kangaroo Care

Today is Kangaroo Care Awareness Day.

To celebrate, here are some photos of my beautiful girl enjoying some kangaroo care...

Previous Wordless Wednesdays:

S at a year

What I Used to Look Like

I Love You...

Early Motherhood: NICU

This post follows on from my post about my first day of motherhood, here.

The next day, a Wednesday, continued much as the previous one had: I wandered about in a daze, NICU nurses came down every three hours to feed S for me, visitors came and went.

I eventually started using the pump, and hated it. It hurt and made a lot of noise, and it was really quite disheartening to sit there for twenty minutes and produce nothing. I started to think perhaps all the comments the ex had made were right, and I really just wasn't meant to be a mother - I'd already almost killed her while giving birth, hadn't I? He would encourage me to pump while he was there, and turn the dial up as far as it would go so that the pump was working really hard. It hurt so much I wanted to cry, and still nothing was coming out. I was failing at being a mother already.

Someone brought me some flowers, but the ex refused to go and find me a vase for them. He put them under my bed instead, and they just sat there and died. I didn't understand why I couldn't have flowers; the lady opposite me had a massive helium balloon with "It's a boy!" on it in big letters, and he was her fourth child. I felt like I wanted someone to make a fuss of me, but nobody did.

At some point on the second day, one of the NICU nurses made a comment that she thought S looked a little jaundiced, and would get it checked. To do this they make a little prick on the baby's heel, and then squeeze blood out of it into a little test tube. S had already had it done a couple of times by this stage, and I hated it. On the Thursday, mid-afternoon, a young female doctor came into my bay and told us that they had tested S's blood, and she was indeed jaundiced, and so would need to go under lights. She said she wasn't sure whether they could do that here on the ward, or if she would need to go up to NICU, but would speak to her consultant and find out. She came back five minutes later and told us that because S was already being tube-fed by NICU nurses, the consultant felt it would be better if she went up to NICU for treatment. I don't know what I expected to happen, but it was a shock to find that they wanted to take her right then. The nice lady who had helped me with the pump went and got a heated crib, and I had to get S dressed and put her in it. My bed was right at the far end of the ward, and as we followed her, the nurse and the doctor out of the ward I could feel everyone staring at us. I imagined they must think I'd done something wrong, made my child ill, and now she was being taken away. We walked up the corridor to the temporary NICU; they were in the process of having a fantastic new ward built, but in the meantime we had to go through an old ward, out the back and into another building. It was a long walk and I  felt sick for all of it. It sounds stupid now, but until we got to the door of NICU and saw the words "Neonatal Intensive Care Unit" it hadn't occurred to me what the letters stood for. When I saw the sign, all I could think was "my baby is in intensive care..." I started crying and couldn't stop. It got worse as we walked in, and I looked around me: all these tiny, poorly babies, all these monitors and wires.

The NICU staff were lovely. They took S's clothes off and put protective goggles over her eyes (this made me cry even more - the fact they were blindfolding my little girl) and turned the lights on. The consultant came in to explain what was going on, and how long he thought we'd need the lights for. There was one under her, and two above. It was very hot. He asked if we had any questions and I asked him, what do I do now? He told me to make use of the excellent babysitting services, and go out to dinner. I don't think he understood quite what I meant. As soon as the consultant had left, the ex left too. I walked out to the ward entrance with him, crying all the time. He told me to stop, that one of his other kids had been kept in hospital with jaundice,  it was nothing and everything would be fine. After he'd left I went back to NICU and sat in a chair next to S, watching her. They had put an apnoea monitor on her, and it beeped every time she breathed. Sometimes she wriggled though, and the monitor fell off and an alarm went. One of the nurses came in and asked if I was ok; I said I was fine. She told me to maybe go for a little walk and get some air. I got as far as the hospital cafe, and felt like I'd gone too far, been away for too long; what if something happened. I bought a drink from the machine and hurried back. 

The shift changed over at 8 and a lady called Leigh came in to say hello. She told me she would be looking after the babies in S's room overnight. One of the babies was almost ready to go home, and was having a trial night with his mother, so it was just S and one other, super-tiny baby in a massive incubator on the other side of the room. Because of the heat of the lights on her, S's temperature was getting dangerously high and it was worrying us. Leigh showed me how to sponge her down with tepid water to cool her off a little, and we put a fan next to her too. I felt better now that I had something to do. Later she asked me what I planned to do and I looked at her with a blank expression. I replied, "I don't know, stay here until they let me take her home?" She tutted at me and told me that would get me nowhere. She looked at the paperwork and said "right, we're tube feeding her every 3 hours, and you need to pump when she's fed, right? Well you'll get on better with the pumping if she's next to you, and we can try and get her to feed straight from you too... but you also need to rest." she pulled a hand towel out of the dispenser and wrote out what she called a "magic tissue" - she told me she did this for all the mums who were a bit bewildered. She told me to go back to the ward and get some sleep, and not to come back until the early morning feed. I folded my magic tissue, and put it in the back of my Kindle case, and wandered off to the ward. On my way there, the ex called to see how S was. I told him I had been sent back to the ward to sleep and he seemed cross - was I not staying with S in NICU? Who was going to look after her? I felt a bit put out at that, considering visiting in NICU is pretty much 24 hour access, and he had left as soon as we'd got there. I apologised to him though; I didn't want to upset him in case he stopped coming to visit us. I went back to the postnatal ward and walked the entire length of it alone, past all these happy families with their new babies, right to my bed at the end of the ward. I pulled the curtain closed around the bed, sat down and cried. How did they expect me to go to sleep on a ward full of babies, when mine wasn't here? After a couple of minutes one of the ward staff came to check on me. She said I'd missed dinner, but offered to get me some toast if I wanted. I said no thank you. She said if I wanted to put in my meal requests for the next day, I could go for the sandwich and fruit option and then it could just be left on my bed for me whenever I wanted to pop down. She also told me the times I needed to be on the ward to get my medication ( I was still taking antibiotics, codeine and ibuprofen for a chest infection and bruised ribs), but not to worry if I missed it; I could just come and knock at the nurses' station and someone would get it for me. The ward staff were so lovely to me, I felt so guilty having to get them to do extra trips to the medication room and things for me when they were clearly under-staffed and very busy.

On the Friday, S and B, who had been there when S was born, came to visit. While they were there, the ex made a comment to them that "every time I have a baby, I can't stop staring at them, I hold them all the time and they're the centre of my world... but then the next one comes along and I do the same with that one." My friends suggested to him that perhaps he should stop having babies, and concentrate on the children he already had. By this point though, another girl was already 2 months pregnant with his next child. S and B took my house keys from me, and went and unpacked my house. They put together furniture, put clothes in wardrobes, cleaned and tidied. They put a frieze up in S's bedroom to make it more like a bedroom, put the cot together, put her clothes into the chest of drawers, and baby toiletries lined up on top.  They wired in my cooker, took stacks and stacks of rubbish out for me, everything it would normally take you a few weeks to sort out when you moved house. When they'd finished, the ex had already left for the day (he didn't stay long - something about not liking to see S in NICU, and me so upset and drained, poor thing). I sneaked out into the car park and they drove me home to see their work. I cried when I saw my house, which had looked awful the last time I'd seen it. There was still a lot of work to do, but now it looked more like a home. S's room looked like a nursery. I had somewhere to bring her home to when they let us out, which I was sure would be any day now. I called the ex when I got back to the hospital and told him I'd been to see the flat. He told me I was stupid to have left the hospital; what if I'd haemmorhaged, and nobody knew where I was? My point that most women left hospital within 24 hours, and I was only still there because of S, fell on deaf ears. I was clearly an idiot. Oh well.

S spent two days in NICU. On the Saturday morning I went up to see her, and one of the lights had been taken away. The nurse told me that she had been getting too hot overnight again. They'd re-checked her blood again, and showed me where her levels were now on a graph where they'd been recording it. My poor little baby had no space left for more blood tests, both her heels were covered in little scars.  The graph looked good though; her levels had gone right down below the dangerous point. They said they were waiting for the consultant to come round to see whether we could go back to the ward. Eventually a doctor came round, and they said it was ok for S to come back to the ward with me, but that she would still be under NICU care. I didn't like the sound of that; it sounded like they could take her away again at any point. But for now, I was happy. We all paraded back down to the postnatal ward in a long line again, and back to our bay. I spent the afternoon with S down my top cuddling, determined that now my milk would come in, she would learn to feed, and we would get out of here!

The story continues here.

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Motherhood, Day 1.

My beautiful girl, less than 24 hours old.

This post follows on from my birth story, which can be found here and here...

I woke up on the ward in the morning with people bustling around me... my baby was still asleep. Someone brought me some toast for breakfast.  A lovely lady came to see me with an electric pump, and showed me how to use it. She said every time they fed my baby through the tube, I should use the pump. Even if nothing came out, it was important to do it every feed, to ensure my milk came in and had a good supply. She showed me an article in a magazine with different positions to hold a baby in for breastfeeding.

Someone came to feed S, but they didn't get on very well with the tube so a nurse from NICU came down. Someone told me I was lucky that NICU were allowing me to keep S on the ward with me. I didn't understand what they meant, but found out later that because S had been premature, and needed feeding via tube every 3 hours, she was under NICU's care rather than regular post-natal care. They could have had her on NICU from day one, if they had wanted to. I'm so glad they didn't, as I'm not sure I would have coped with that at all.

On that first day, a nurse called Kit came down from NICU to feed S. She told me I should take S's too-big clothes off her, and put her under my shirt against my naked chest. I was terrified; surely she would be too cold if I did that? Kit said, no, in NICU they had all mothers do this; it's called Kangaroo care, and it's encouraged for bonding. I took my bra off, and lay S on my chest. Suddenly I felt a lot more calm. I stayed sitting like this on my bed, until Kit came back 3 hours later for the next feed. We were going to try and have S against my breast while the formula was fed through the tube, to get her used to the idea of where a full tummy came from - but at that point the ex turned up with his 6 children. I could hear them coming down the ward, him hissing at them under his breath to behave themselves.  Kit said we could just tube feed her this time, and worry about the breastfeeding next time. She let the younger children help her, holding the tube and the syringe for the milk, and then she left.They had been shopping in TK Maxx and I was handed a huge bag of clothes: some oversized t shirts for me, and lots of baby clothes that were all way too big for my tiny little baby. His eldest son had carried my backpack in too - it contained my laptop and my OU coursebook. I cannot remember whether I asked for this, or if it was just decided unilaterally that I should study whilst in hospital so as not to fall behind. The children took turns in holding S and having their photo taken. One of them perched on the end of my bed, and accidentally rustled a plastic bag that was laying there. He was immediately told off, and made to move. He sat on the floor against the wall, his head in his hands, and cried. Once all the children had taken a turn holding S, and had their photo taken with me with S, the ex held her for a little while. And then they all left again, just as my mother turned up.

She sat next to my bed and I told her briefly about my labour. I said that I couldn't understand how anyone ever went through it without another birthing partner, as my sister in law had been an absolute godsend. Her response was, "I went through it on my own; your dad only came to one of my births!" She asked me if I thought I would have another baby, and I said I couldn't imagine doing that again. She told me it was easier with bigger babies. I don't remember what else she said; she didn't stay long.

S had done a poo in her nappy but I was scared to change it so I went and got the nice lady who had shown me how to use the pump. She came and helped me change the nappy, but just as we were finishing the ex's mother turned up, with her partner and mother. I'd never met the ex's grandmother before. I'd only met his mother and her partner a couple of times. But they wanted to inspect the latest addition to their family - and that's what it was really, an inspection. They gave me presents - more babygros that wouldn't fit. While they were there, my sister arrived with her boyfriend and my brother and sister in law. I was so glad to see them, and relieved I didn't have to survive the ex's family visiting on my own. Nobody had warned me they would be coming or asked if I minded. I guess they don't when you have a new baby; it's a free for all isn't it. We all sat in the visiting area and S was passed around while people oooh-ed and aaaaah-ed over her skin, her eyes, her hair. The ex's mother started talking about piercing her ears. She was less than 24 hours old and I wanted to scream at her she was not touching my baby's ears. They made a big deal of counting up how many great-grandchildren the older lady had now. Then they left, finally. That was the only time S's great-grandmother has set eyes on her, and the only time her grandmother held her. My family stayed a little longer and took turns holding S, which was nice. It was good to be around familiar people with whom I felt comfortable after such a hectic 24 hours full of strangers.

That first day, I was too scared and self-conscious to try and use the breast pump, so it just sat there in the corner beside my bed. The NICU nurses came down and fed S formula through her feeding tube every 3 hours. I was in a daze and felt very lonely. There were visiting hours twice a day, but partners were allowed on the ward all day until about 9pm. All the other mothers were on their beds with their partners, surrounded by flowers and balloons, but in our bay it was just me and S. I pulled the curtain around us and sat and watched my little girl. When I went to sleep, I moved right down the bed so that I was next to the crib and could see her.

The next part of the story is here.

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