A reminder: The motivation behind this is to share my real, unfiltered experiences. After hours spent googling what pregnancy, labour and motherhood would be like to try and gain some insight to prepare, when I went through it I soon realised that it was NOTHING like the internet said it would be. If you have a question then I’d be happy to answer (within reason).
This blog is all about my postpartum recovery, an honest account of how it was for me. Remember that every pregnancy and delivery is different, just because this is what happened for me, doesn’t mean it would be the same for you.
Before I get into it, I will preface it by saying this might be the most vulnerable experience of my life. Sharing this part of my journey will be the hardest, not only because the timeline is less clear to recall, but also because of the emotion attached to the memories. As I’m already committed, I muttered a phrase my mum says often (“f*ck it”) and I’m jumping straight in where the last blog left off. If you want to read the earlier parts of the story, you can read about my pregnancy here, and labour and delivery here.
The Hospital
I was wheeled round to the recovery ward, baby in arms, beaming, still shaking slightly from the spinal block, with my catheter bag resting between my legs (oh the dignity of it!) I felt nauseaous, weak, relieved and an all consuming love that was almost alien. I still felt a little hazy, whether from the lack of sleep, lack of food, loss of blood, pain relief or a combintion I couldn’t be sure. But I was clear on one thing, when they gently prized my newborn from my arms and told me they were taking her for more tests, I wanted to once again bellow the words “GO WITH HER” to my (now) husband, who was still dithering between staying with me or following our child. In reality, I could barely squeak it from where I lay. The midwife coaxed him through the doors behind the trolley they wheeled our daughter out on as he chanced a worried look over his shoulder at me.
I have recently happened upon a full-face photo of me that was taken in the afternoon of our daughters day of birth, several hours after I had gone to the postnatal ward. I’m not going to share it but if that photo is an indication of how I looked nearly 10hrs after I gave birth then Harry’s look of concern was justified. I resembled the likeness of a barely-successful corpse resurrection.
I’m not sure how long I was in the recovery ward for, but it was long enough for several scenarios to unfold. I witnesed my midwife chastise the person who had bought me a single slice of cold toast, no butter and a lukewarm cup of tea (“you just gave birth, you deserve far better than that!”) She returned to me with 2 slices of hot toast, butter, jam, a sandwich and a hot cup of tea – all of which I devoured between waves of nausea. She then popped back out to find a sandwich and full-fat coke for Harry, which I found she had left the hospital to get because they don’t have unhealthy snacks in the vending machines. I also discovered her shift had ended a while ago but she wanted to see us through to the end so she could be certain we had a happy outcome. Little did I know that she would be the last proactive, friendly, staff member I’d come into contact with during my hospital stay. When my baby came back to me with Harry in tow there was a moment she started turning a funny colour and required our wonderful midwife to jump into action to stimulate her circulation system.
I had a couple of visits from the breastfeeding team who didn’t ask what my plans were before attempting to man-handle my body and get my baby to latch. Luckily for them I was planning to breastfeed, but the experience was intrusive and not particularly gently. Had I been more on the ball i’d have probably laid down a Mumma Wisbey-style hand slapping karate move to ward them off!
Lastly, I got a visit from my surgeon, who congratulated me and explained that, given the average size of my baby, average size of my physical frame and low risk nature of my pregnancy, there should have been no reason for my baby to get stuck in a 90 degree turn with her chin tucked to her chest. The only explanation, in her opinion, was that the size or shape of my pelvic outlet was not condusive to a successful vaginal birth. She went on to explain that this meant, if I were to have any future pregnancies, she “strongly advises against a vaginal birth after caesarean” (VBAC) because the risk of getting into the same, or a worse, situation as I had experienced was high, and a planned C-section is far easier and safer for me. She also apolgised for mentioning future pregnancy potential at a time I was probably not thinking about it at all, which I appreciated. This was gutting. I already felt robbed, let down by my body yet again, as I had been let down by it so many times before. With no plans for a second child, I decided this was an issue for Future Sam to deal with if I ever changed my mind.
The next few days in hospital are a bit of a blur due to lack of sleep, so this next part won’t be in exact chronological order.
I finally managed to get someone to explain what, and why, I was being given so many different pills and injections. The blood thinning injections were due to a family history of blood clots, morphine for my pain levels, iron tablets because of the extreme blood loss I’d experienced, antibiotics for me and Primrose due to sepsis and a stool softener because you tend to be incredibly constipated after giving birth. I didn’t realise until I read my hospital notes at home that we had both been septic by the time she was born, nor was I fully aware of how much blood I had lost during the dramatic events of the birth. It explains why I looked the way I did in the ward. I was also told on day 2, when I requested more pain relief, that if I needed morphine then they couldn’t discharge me, so that was the end of my proper pain management because I did not want to stay longer than necessary. The ibuprofen I was offered didn’t take the edge of at all.
My spinal block took a while to wear off, longer than usual, close to 48 hours before I could wiggle my toes and lift my leg up in the air. This meant my stylish bag of urine stayed with me for the next couple of days and I wasn’t able to get up and out of my bed. It also meant I developed a urinary tract infection(UTI) so I would advise you keep a carton of preemptive cranberry juice at home, which is what sorted me right out because I recognised the symptoms quickly. If you notice any symptoms of a UTI and a cranberry juice flush doesn’t relieve them quickly, then please do speak to your GP.
Sleep on the ward was almost non-existant. I was fully prepared with my extra pillow, my eyemask and my lavender essential oil for relaxation but what I was not prepared for was the noise and constant interruptions. There was one new mum who snored loudly all night, when she wasn’t asleep she was talking loudly on speaker phone to friends and family, and in between those two events her baby screamed the loudest out of all 6 of us there. The nurses understandably don’t sync their baby-checks and their mum-checks because they’re two different departments, so the 4-6 hourly wake ups for meds, vital check and whatever else we needed, plus feedings, meant I was woken up roughly every 2 hours, for 4 days. The sleep deprivation was real.
Having a c-section means there can be weakening of the suckle reflex due to a lack of stimulation from a vaginal birth, different hormonal experiences, and a potentially delayed start to feeding. This isn’t a well known fact and women can feel blindsided when breastfeeding doesn’t happen as naturally as positioning baby and getting an automatic latch, like the internet will have you believe. Primrose had a lot of trouble latching, exacerbated by her tongue tie, so we used all 200 colostrum-filled syringes I had painstakingly collected over 3 weeks to keep her fed in the beginning. If you have collected colostrum then take ALL of it with you for your birth.
One unfortunate experience with a nurse in charge of Prim’s care meant we became weary of anyone who tried to help show us how to do anything. Harry was using the syringes of colostrum and his finger to help Primrose learn to suckle properly, the exact way he had been taught by another nurse. This new one said, “you just have to get the food into baby, here, like this.” Took her from Harry’s arms and then pumped 5 syringes down her throat in quick succession. It was shocking, we were left speechless, and I then made a hormonal-fueled decision not to let any other staff member pick her up in case they tried that again. It felt aggressive and unnecessary, a complete contrast to the last person who came and gave us advice.
Through the process of being “helped” to breastfeed, every member of staff that visited who was part of this department gave me different advice. On little sleep, lots of medication and a constantly high fight or flight response ticking over, this became very confusing. Many of these staff members were quick to grab at my body before they’d finished introducing themselves. It felt invasive and forceful at a time I was still feeling vulnerable. Eventually, due to the issues with latching, I was told my only option was to use the electric pump. I followed this advice against my better judgement, because at this point I still hadn’t started to produce milk. The result was that my body was caused so much damage by the pump that it set off a domino effect preventing me from being able to breastfeed directly until I had healed. It was two weeks before I could comfortably breastfeed without carefully using a manual pump or using shields and contributed to difficulty producing enough milk for Prim. Eventually I lost the supply at 10 weeks and transitioned to formula only. At first I was heartbroken by this, but 2 weeks of exclusive use of formula noticably evened out my mental health and I was able to make a large amount of forward progress in my recovery. My experience has really highlighted a need for more funding for quality staff training around breastfeeding support.
When I eventually had my catheter removed, the 10 metre walk to the toilet became my Everest. When you reach this point, I recommend requesting help from someone else and to take it slowly. I hadn’t been on my feet for 5 days, so I felt weak, a little dizzy and the pain in my abdomen from the incision prevented me from moving quickly. When I eventually reached the toilet and sat down it felt as though my pelvic floor was about to drop out of me. Incredibly strange sensation, but luckily everything stayed physically where it was supposed to. Have a trusty Tena Lady adult pull-up at the ready, because it’s about to be your go to product for the next 2 or more weeks! I’ve mentioned them in the previous blog, but I cannot emphasise their value enough compared to the weak efforts, and flawed design, of a maternity sanitary pad.
One other event which sticks in my mind is where I was so overcome with happy emotion that I had a little cry. I was alone, I’d been moved into a room full of empty beds, Harry had popped out and I was sat cuddling Primrose and taking a quiet moment of joy. She was perfect, I still couldn’t believe we had created her and I felt like I was bursting with love. Mid-weep, a nurse walked in, took one look at me and barked “Why are you crying?!” with not a trace of concern in her tone. I explained and she doubled down with, “Are you sure? Because I’ll need to report this, if not.” I reassured her that I felt perfectly fine, just overwhelmed with positivity, and she shuffled off, not without casting another bombastic side-eye glance at me before she left the room. Not quite the gentle approach one would need if they were experiencing a period of low mood and it wouldn’t have inspired me to confide in her had I been feeling upset.
My training as an osteopath means it was drilled into me that, above all, patient communication is the most important part of any interaction. It is also my responsibility to separate work from personal life, so if I’ve had a bad morning morning, I must prevent it from spilling into the services I provide my patients. My experiences in hospital were far from my training, although they are anecdotal, so it is impossible for me to know how common theses scenarios are in the wider population. However, it provided me with a front row seat of what happens when NHS cuts, lack of staffing provision and general disillusion with healthcare as a profession mix with a minority of people who lack patient communication skills or love for their job. It can create the perfect storm in a teacup for poor patient experiences.
Back At Home
The journey to home from hospital was an emotional one. I cried because I was feeling everything at once, I wasn’t sure how to process the events of the past 6 days, I was overcome by a feeling of physical violation and being in the front seat of the car, with no direct line of sight to my newborn felt too far away. The anxiety levels were high, my mind and body were in an unidentifiable (to me) extreme state of fight or flight and my abdominal pain was off the charts.
How I felt was the biggest hurdle I had to overcome but nothing had prepared me for this. It felt like I was inhabiting another persons body, this one felt weak, sad, worn out, broken and in the early weeks I didn’t think it would ever feel like mine again. I also didn’t recognise the mix of rage, anxiety, fear and love in such huge and unquantifiable measures. Everything was a threat, I felt watched and invisible at the same time, I was ready to fight in a split second, and the pure, unbridled rage that seethed through me was alien to me. It’s hard to accurately describe the physical and emotional burden I was experiencing because I cannot recall it. I know I felt that way so I can label it, but unlike the distant memory of pain from my once severely sprained ankle age 21, or the anger at my parents I felt when they grounded me for an entire 3 weeks for missing curfew again at 15, I just can’t bring those postpartum emotions into my present memory. Almost as if I’m retelling a story someone else told me. I didn’t recognise my body or my brain as belonging to me.
Physical recovery was slow. At the 6 week GP check to give me the all clear, I had just started to leave the house with help. I could only just lift my newborn for long enough to get her to the change table, and I still squeaked when I coughed or got off the sofa. I started taking daily short walks and soon built up my stamina, never straying far from the flat in case I needed to go home. It took me 4 months to start doing gentle breathing and postnatal-safe exercises because up until 3 months I had still been using a postnatal abdominal binder to help provide enough core strength to get up and down from a chair in public without drawing attention. At nearly 8 months postpartum I felt able but apprehensive about rejoining the gym, following a specific 8 week postnatal programme so I could reduce injury risk. My fitness did change dramatically with consistency, and as I recognised my strength returning I felt more like myself.
The mental recovery took much longer. I had planned to write this series of blogs last year but every time I sat down to write I couldn’t bring myself to recall the events that I went through. No description I can give will fully demonstrate what it felt like at the time. I cried a lot in the first few weeks. I was in a lot of pain, the physical weakness meant I felt useless, any movement was difficult so every task was a challenge, I wasn’t able to participate in Prim’s first bath because I couldn’t get on the floor, I couldn’t pick her up while standing for nearly 6 weeks, and I was mourning the birth experience I didn’t get, nor will I ever get. I felt an overwhelming sense of failure. I was also crying at happy things, too: the cute outfits, the smiles, the funny noises, the adorable sleepy baby in my arms and the fact she spit up on every Manchester United football top Harry owns. A true Spurs fan in the making! I did seek counselling via the NHS self referral and had an appointment booked fairly quickly because postnatal cases are flagged as priority. I didn’t personally find any value in my 6 sessions and declined to continue past that point. The 3 therapists I spoke with were lovely, but the lack of consistency in my therapist and style of therapy I was offered didn’t feel heavy duty enough for what I was going through. It would have been perfect for generalise anxiety and depression, but I didn’t feel like any of them truly understood where my mind was at and I wasn’t very good at explaining myself. I would still always advise you contact them as a first line of therapy if you feel you need it though, never stay silent for fear of not being heard, it can just take a couple of attempts to find the right therapy for you.
Let me address the rage. It needs it’s own paragraph because this was a whole new beast for me. I have struggled with depression and anxiety before, so I knew I wasn’t depressed. I was sad I missed, and was still missing, so many experiences due to my physical limitations. I also knew that my emotions were swinging from one extreme to the other, but I was able to feel joy as well as sadness and I could always talk my way out of the sadness. I couldn’t control the rage. Postpartum rage is not considered a separate diagnosis, it falls under the umbrella of postpartum depression (PPD) and I didn’t want to speak to the doctor about it because I knew I would refuse medication. I don’t advise this to others, it is just my choice not to take antidepressants due to previous negative experiences. I also know that I could help myself if only I could figure out what helped to ride the angry wave back to my usual self. The only thing I wasn’t angry with was my newborn. Holding her was the best medicine, watching her sleep was tonic, feeding her felt like a blanket of safety. It was everything else, fuelled by the anger I still held for my own body “letting me down”. I used positive affirmations and exercise (and a very patient husband) to get me through the episodes of anger. In the tornado of really mean things I was saying to myself, I started to pull affirmations out of the storm that I could say to myself, out loud, in the mirror, every single day:
“I am a resilient person”
“My body is very strong”
“I am healing well and can see improvements every day”
You get the idea. I chose things that I half believed already so I wasn’t trying to convince myself of their authenticity, otherwise I’d have given up quickly. It did help, and I went from mumbling them at my reflection to stating them with purpose each day.
Walking every day, eventually starting the couch to 5k very slowly, and joining the Spider Runners group also gave me the mental boost I needed to keep me more emotionally balanced. Leaning on a large group of people on the internet who collectively make up the largest, most positive, inclusive sporting space I’ve ever been a part of was a real buzz. My first Spider Runners event was very exciting, getting to meet all the people who had nothing but encouraging words for me over the few weeks since I’d joined was like meeting royalty!
I can’t forget to mention the support I recieved from my husband, my parents, Harry’s parents and my friends, they were all fantastic. We had people bringing us homecooked meals, sweet treats, caffiene. Some came to hold my daughter so I could sleep, eat, or shower, others came to clean up. Harry’s mum came every day for a week to do my blood thinning injections, my mum came rushing up the road when we couldn’t get her to settle at night and were too sleep deprived to figure out what was wrong (spoiler: it was always wind). It was a team effort and I cannot thank every person who supported us during that crazy time, especially the ones who still do.
Wisbey Osteopathy 