jemjabella

Adventures in Hospital Land

AKA what a bloody ridiculous week and a half.

First off, my Internet dies and nobody seems to know who's at fault. BT says it's not them (phone line/exchange) and Plus.Net say it's not them and everything is fine at their end. We change cables, test alternate router, etc. End up having to make several calls to Plus.Net who elevate the call and eventually find the problem.

Just as that's mid-way, I start getting abdominal pains... and how am I supposed to diagnose myself with Dr Google without the interwebs? Anyway, cue call to Mum and have her advise me to go to A&E. They tell me I have gallbladder colic, fill me full of paracetamol (they wanted to use pethidine but I refused because I'm breastfeeding) and send me home.

Cue two days of gradually increasing pain, doctors appointments, pee and blood tests before I head back to A&E and get admitted - this was last Thursday (Feb 25th). They're telling me they think I have gallstones floating about somewhere inside and that's causing the problems. Not an issue in itself, but because I'm breastfeeding, they suddenly have lots of problems with finding a solution.

Now, bear in mind that we have big campaigns in the UK to encourage mums to breastfeed. Every NHS maternity ward/baby clinic is plastered in posters lecturing on the goodness of boobie juice, telling us we're doing best by our babes etc... and yet a hospital, full of well-educated medical sorts, can't seem to find their arses when it comes to treating a breastfeeding mum. I was told, point blank by some jobsworth bitch who obviously didn't think I should have taken Isabel with me to A&E, that hospitals were dirty places, the medication too strong and that Izz would have to go on to formula.

I don't particularly enjoy breastfeeding — it's a means to an end — but I cried. How dare this woman, who didn't know me, start making demands of my baby and our feeding. She wasn't the last person though... all of the doctors/surgeons start lecturing me about how Izz would need to go on formula.

I had to fight to be treated with breastfeeding-friendly antibiotics. I had to fight to keep my baby on the ward with me. I had to fight to breastfeed her on demand, whilst nurses and doctors were prodding me every 5 minutes with needles, blood pressure checks, temperature checks, etc.

After x-rays and scans, piss tests, blood tests etc they came to the conclusion that I had a gallstone blocking the bile duct. It was causing the liver to dump bilirubin out into the urine and through my skin, turning me yellow. They wanted to remove the gallbladder and were pushing me to put Izz on formula so that I could have the operation because they insisted that I'd not be able to feed for 48 hours post-op (yet, caesarean mothers can feed straight away?) It was total bollocks.

In they end, they shipped me off to another hospital to have an endoscopy. After fighting with yet another childness staff nurse about how I should be feeding my child ("you must express now") because she assumed the drugs would not be breastfeeding friendly (we had to hand her printed research, which she refused to give back; she ended up calling the pharmacy to confirm we were right) I had 2 gallstones removed. I soon returned to normal colour and, yesterday, I was able to come home.

Throughout this I've had nothing but sarcasm, bullshit and pessimism from a stream of predominantly male doctors/surgeons. I spent 4-5 days worrying about my daughter's digestion, diet etc before we finally got in touch with the hospital maternity department and had our argument and theories backed up by one of the lactation consultants who came to my ward and kicked arse. I am so angry about my experience with a so-called pro-breastfeeding NHS that would have caused any less than stubborn mother to cave and fill her child full of shit.

And on that note... it's time to change her nappy.

Betraying Myself

I've had something to blog about several days in a row since new year, and each time I've decided against publishing because at the back of my head is a little voice telling me "some readers won't like that". And so I delete my entry and go back to hiding in a private blog.

I made a promise to several readers back when I announced my pregnancy that I wouldn't turn this into a "mommy" blog and so I haven't, but in keeping my promise I have violated the very reason for my blogging in the first place! I cultivated a reputation based on the fact that I am not afraid to speak my mind, and yet what is deleting entries if not scared to admit that, actually, I want to blog about being a mummy?

As I said at the beginning of the year, I have changed. If that makes me a hypocrite, or betrays a silly promise then so be it... better that than betraying myself.

Happy Sappy Birthday to Me!

Just wanted to thank everyone who e-mailed, texted, tweeted and facebooked me birthday messages, as well as those who left messages on Snark with cute cake piccies in.

My mum bought me a giant french fancy cake with over 3600 calories in, and Karl bought me a lovely bunch of flowers. Lovely jubbly!

A New Decade

It would be superfluous to call the last decade "life-changing", given that I was 13 at the beginning of it. Nonetheless, there is no other way to describe it. I lost my brother and my Nan within 2 weeks of each other, met Karl, left school, gained a niece and nephew, completed college, got my first job, found a better job doing what I'd wanted to do for years and of course, had a baby. Life, death, milestones, personal achievement... it's all in there.

I could try and make a guess as to what the next decade will hold, but I've not got a clue what the next year is going to mean for me so would probably find myself laughing at my own ideas in as little as 6 months.

It's no understatement to say that I've had to quickly re-evaluate my thoughts, opinions, feelings, priorities — my entire life, even — in the past 6 and a half weeks. I've known for a long time that I'd be a good mother, but I had no clue exactly how strong my maternal instinct would be, and the massive impact that would have in going forward. I can't really articulate what this means for my future, but suffice to say that the next 10 years will definitely be an adventure into the unknown.

And to think that this time last year, my biggest goal was to break 1,000 feed subscribers! How unimportant that seems now...

Baby Isabel is Home

Isabel was born at 10:32 on November 14th weighing 7lbs 11oz. We came home last night, and she's settling in nicely.

Anyway, I just wanted to write a quick post to say thank you for the massive response to her arrival. The cards, e-mails, facebook messages, tweets... it's overwhelming! I'm still going through things in between feeds, cuddles and snoozing so please don't think I'm ignoring you if I don't get back to you all straight away. Love to you all, you guys rock :)