OK, so you can hand express which is basically where you use your hand to express your milk off. Or you can a single pump which is using an electrical pump, or you can double pump so you can pump off both breasts at the same time.

OK

And the hospital where I gave birth they have a special pump that you can it’s got like a premmy setting. So, it’s like a fifteen minute cycle and it goes through the different sucks that they will do. So, the flutter sucks, the long drawing sucks, the pauses, things like that. So, you so I was that initially when you’re first starting, hand expressing is the best.

And then double pumping is amazing to then get your milk going. On this side I couldn’st get very much milk off, so especially on the pump, so I used to have a do a lot of hand expressing.

I think some people just think that hand expressing is just pointless but actually I think it’s one of the best things to really stimulate your milk. To get volume it’s better to double pump, do you get what I mean?

The other things that I did are looking at pictures of your baby.

Yeah

Things that smell of them, things like that. So, yeah so I did that until so he was about five days old and I before I delivered I met with the consultant, to his consultant, and I explained to her that I didn’st want him to have any formula because again, from my experiences and things like that, I know the benefits of breastfeeding and the disadvantages of formula feeding. So, I know it’s very expensive but I asked them if they needed to give him milk that he would have donor milk. She explained to me that until my milk had come in they weren’st going to give him any food. So, he would just have a glucose drip until that point. So, I on about so, it was quite disheartening because the first few months they give you give them they just put it in their mouth for mouth care, so just almost like just to wet their mouth really.

And then it wasn’st till about day three or four that he then started to having little volumes of my milk. And on day five I managed to have a breastfeed with him which is like amazing because at that point he was about 33 weeks.

So yeah, so they turned off the hormone drip, and I think it was at this point that my husband said like not that I remembered, but he said to me that he had said to the midwife, “Is it normal that there’s blood on the floor?” and she went, “Oh no, that’s normal.” He was like, “No, it’s all over the floor,” and she looked down and she could see all this blood. So, they pulled the emergency bell and the consultant came in, and again I still couldn’st stop myself from pushing, and they did a quick scan because they hadn’st heard his heartbeat for quite a while. They did find his heartbeat but it was only about 60 beats per minute which is very low. So they decided for delivery then and there and it looked like I was going for a section because 30 minutes prior I’d only been three centimetres. She did a quick examination and I was fully dilated. So, I had a very nasty episiotomy which I do remember her saying, ” These scissors are blunt, has anyone else got another pair?” and that to me just makes me cringe. And then I had a forceps delivery and he was born, and I don’st really remember anything about him being delivered; I don’st remember seeing him. It turns out that I had an abruption at the end so that’s why I was bleeding and everything, and that’s probably why it was so painful.

He needed CPAP.

And what’s that?

So, that’s like pressurised air. So, they didn’st intubate him which is putting a tube down his throat. They kept oxygen under his nose.

Yeah

Which basically is like pressurised air to keep his lungs open. And they give him a bit of oxygen with it, so they’re just assisting him with breathing, they’re not doing it for him.

Yeah

So, they’re doing a bit so he had to have that; he had to be in an incubator. And he had to have some like drips, like I can’t remember what it was called, but not food but as in like sugarylike a bit of like glucose and things yeah.

With it took probably about a week and I think more so because I was like, ‘Ooh what you doing now, what you doing now, what you doing now?’ thatthen they were like, “Well you could do this.” Because it was like changing a nappy. I watched them change so many nappies that I could have done.

And by the end, you know I was giving him because they thought he had MRSA which he later on turned out not to, he had to have this special wash every day, so I used to have to strip him off get him out of the incubator but I’d have to get him undressed in the incubator. Put him in, get him properly washed with this like thick like soap and then dry him out, put all his tubes back on and things like that. So, that made me feel more like in control and yeah. And they would often when they accepted handover though, they would say, “Oh well she’s a midwife so she knows what she’s doing,” so that was quite nice that they did let me kind of loose, but I don’st know that every mother gets to do that.

So I think that I delivered him at about twenty past eight in the evening and I couldn’st get to see him till about two in the morning I think it was. So, normally we would want mums to like express and everything like that, but for me I just, like I said, I was just so tired and out of it, I kind of I slept for a few hours; I then had a shower, got myself a bit sorted, and actually my husband and my mum went down to see my son at about ten o’clock, so a couple of hours afterwards. And then I went to see him at about two. It was just very weird because you’sve got this child that’s in a plastic box and you know them but you don’st know them – it’s a very strange feeling and I didn’st get to hold him until the Monday morning, and I didn’st even ask really; they just went, “Do you want to hold him today?” and I was a bit shocked and so it was, yeah Monday like 11 o’clock, and I remember being really hungry because I hadn’st had breakfast, and I’d missed lunch because I just I just want to hold him for hours, and I cried I just cried because that for me then was when I met him, and you know that was the realisation then that I’d had a baby. And unfortunately my husband had had to go back to work, he couldn’st because we were going to save his two weeks paternity for when I had come home with my son. So, that was really hard because I sat there and I cried and it was an emotional time, but I was on my own and so I couldn’st really share it with anyone, whereas I imagine that if you have your baby and you get given your baby you get to have that connection as like a family but we didn’st get that for, you know, until later on that night when my husband then got to have a hold. But yeah that was it was really hard yeah.

I think from about, maybe about 28, 30 weeks that’s when I started to develop pre-eclampsia. I had an episode where I was doing a night shift and I felt really funny. So they took my blood pressure and it was very high, and this was at work. But they couldn’st find anything wrong and they weren’t that worried with my bloods and my urine and everything, so I literally just had a high blood pressure, so they sent me home. So I came home; I had a couple of weeks off.

So, I went off to Paris because my brother lives in Paris, and I spent a few days there. I felt awful the whole time I was there; just thought it was being pregnant. Felt really groggy, really just like really tired and weeing loads, drinking loads. And then when I came back, the day after I came back I hadn’st even unpacked because I felt so awful that I couldn’st.

It was the following day that I just had a routine consultant appointment.

So, I went and I saw my consultant. I actually my husband didn’st come with me that time because I didn’st think that anything was going to be untoward, but my mother-law came with me because I was going to have a scan. So, they did a little scan of him and it was then obviously that they did three lots of blood pressures and my blood pressure was very high.

I also at one point had to have a catheter much to my annoyance. Because I wasbasically as I got in there I was probably drinking about six litres a day and I was probably going to the toilet at least every hour.

I was weeing a heck of a lot. So, Iwe the registrar and I we know each other and we had a bit of a kind of, “Oh I don’st want it in.” “Well, you need to have it in.” Because I was on like the high dependency they needed to keep monitoring my fluid input and output. So I did have it in for one night but the next night I lost all kind of I think because I’d been awake, I had this headache, I had to hold on to this monitor, I had this horrible burning in my arm, and a catheter, again never realised the pain but that for me was so uncomfortable.

Every time you moved you felt like your whole bladder was just being tugged. So, they did take it out and I had to get up every hour and go for a wee, which I was very happy to do. And the other thing was they then reducedI was only allowed to have 80 mls of water an hour. So, for someone thatin pregnancy my craving was ice and water, so to only have 80 mls it doesn’st sound that bad, but when you’re drinking so much, like your whole mouth is like, you know and that wasn’st very pleasant.

And just give us an idea about how much 80 mls an hour is.

I think it was something like that in the cup.

Yeah

It was likeit was like a swill on the mouth. And some hours I would just be almost in tears because I just needed something to wet my mouth because I was just so dry yeah.

So, initially they just they checked my urine, they put a cannula in and took some bloods, and they do kind of blood pressures ten minutes apart; so you get three blood pressures, then they get you an average blood pressure over that time just so you’sve got an idea of whether it’s fluctuating or whether it’s true high blood pressure and it remains high. So, I think my average was 200 over a 120. So, they couldn’st give me labetalol which is the drug that they regularly use round here. To drop your blood pressure, because I was asthmatic.

And I have had a few asthma attacks, so I think if you’sve got minor asthma you can have Labetalol, but not how severe mine is. So they gave me Adalat retard so some nifedipine, and I had I think I had two or maybe three lots of dose, and in that time my blood pressure went higher.

So, it wasn’st actually doing anything. So, my mum lives in [city] about ten minutes away from the hospital, so I’d phoned once I’d got in there, but by the time that she arrived I was already up on labour ward because they just my blood pressure was just wasn’st going down how they thought it should be. And the next drug they had to give me was an IV drug that they have to monitor me on so yeah.

So, on the Friday morning I’d spent Thursday night there. The Friday morning they did a ward round, so my consultant came in especially and the consultant that was on, and they decided that they were going to section me on Friday morning.

That I was the top priority and I was going to be the first on the section list. And they were kind of talking about it amongst themselves, and they said, “How do you feel about that?” and I said, “I don’st want to have a section.” For me it was because I lived too far away.

And I knew that he was going to be in special care and I knew I wouldn’st be able to drive for six weeks, so how was that was all going through my mind how was I going to get in and out from hospital to see him. So, I begged and they agreed to induce me. So, the hospital that I work at we use a drug that you it stays in the cervix for 24 hours and after 24 hours they take it out and then they kind of reassess. So, I was given four hours with this drug on the Friday morning. So, they put it in for four hours, and then they had obviously gone out of the room and had a discussion, and they decided that at that point my blood pressure was under control, and that they would see what the 24 hours would do. So, I was really pleased about that.

And I’m really pleased with my decision because then on the Saturday they took it out, they managed to break my waters and within about four hours I’d had him.

So, I do believe that if I wasn’st a midwife and I didn’st know what I was talking about, that I would have had a section regardless, which I think is major surgery for, you know someone of my age that isn’st wasn’st it wasn’st necessary. I mean, if my blood pressure was amazingly dangerous at that point, and they were really worried about him, I would have done; I would have done anything. But in my mind, and through discussion with the midwife I felt like I was that was the right path to go down. But I had not been a midwife things could have been very different yeah.