Yes, it was hugely emotional coming, leaving. I can remember just getting to the waiting room and just bursting into tears and then getting into the car and having to sort of [does short puffs out through mouth] we’ve made it, we’ve made it. I can’t believe we’ve done it. We’ve done it.

And you know, I came in September and all the leaves were on the trees and it was spring or early autumn, but it felt like spring and came home, and while we were in special care it was one of the really bad dumps of snow and I had to walk with my snow boots to sort of get to hospital and all the staff had been snowed in, and the season’s had changed and the Christmas lights were up and it was, you know, and I thought I’ve not driven a car, I haven’t eaten out, I haven’t you know, done anything normal for so long or been on my own which was really. And that was a long time before I was on my own. I think that was when I went to get my hair cut and I thought. I mean you’ve been in hospital and in a bizarre way that was a very lonely thing, even thought people are around you all the time. But, to physically not be encumbered in any way. It was a very, you know, you come home and things were actually in the right place and that’s not how I would have done it [laughs]. So I had to get a grip. But it was lovely you know, being in, and it was a really special Christmas. It was a very intimate Christmas but it was you know, you are a lot more grateful for what you’ve got [laughs].

Looking back, not great, physically still very weak, but I was just desperate to get home. I’d just had enough of being cooped up in a little room. They’d given me a, a side room in the hospital, and as much as that was great for visitors and being able to be private and that kind of thing, actually after six days of being cooped up in solitary confinement effectively, I was going stir crazy and I just wanted to get out.

But actually leaving hospital after six days was quite a scary thought as well. Just, it’s amazing, in having such a short period of time, you become almost institutionalised, your little bit, you know, its familiar, it’s easy, there’s people there who know what to do ifAnd you come home and you suddenly go, Oh no, I’m on my own with a baby [laughs]. Well not on my own, but you know, it’s, but yes, physically I was still pretty weak.

I remember the drive home was really uncomfortable and I don’t think my husband has ever driven as slowly as he did on the way home. Every little twist and turn in the road was like, Slow down, it hurts, slow down And we live on a steep hill. We had to make sure we parked the right way round, so I could actually get out of the car, because even lifting my legs up, over the ledge, to get out of the car, was really, really uncomfortable, and just shuffling down. Shuffling down the drive, and just everything was really slow and just, just really hard work. Just even little things was really hard work, but I was just glad to be in my own environment and just, just more comfortable, being where you can relax properly, and you can have people in whenever you want or need them here, and that kind of thing. So that was definitely better than being trapped in the hospital.

So I was given crutches. I was on a zimmer frame to start off with, to keep my balance andand then I had crutches to go home with. And that was a whole new challenge, because it was, it was relief to be around my children, but being around them and not being Mum, not really being Mum. That was hard, you know. The fact that everyone else was looking after him and that I wasn’t, because for me, it’s important to be Mum, it’s important to be that special person because Mum’s are special. No matter who they are, they’re special. And I wanted to be special. I was special to [son’s name] I wouldn’t, I was like there all the time doing everything for him. I was, you know, I wouldn’t say obsessed but I was really, I loved being a Mum and it was so hard not to be able to do that for [son’s name]. And that sort of made me go up and down quite a lot. I found it sort of hard to bond, not that I hated, I never hated him, not once. People ask me, I had a lot of people saying, Do you resent the baby No never. I’d do it all over again, if it meant I could have him, no questions asked. But it was the hard fact that I, mentally couldn’t do it. And physically couldn’t do it, and I was going through so much other stuff thatmy whole body and brain couldn’t make sense of, how was I going to be there for somebody else when my body couldn’t even make sense of it myself. But as I got better, I did, I made, like made much more effort and things like that, because I wanted to be that Mum so bad. And I have. You know, we are there now, you know, and it did take a long time, and it does take time. And in this sort of situation they don’t, it doesn’t just happen, you know, and that’s something I found really hard, because I just wanted it to be done, over and done with now.

And what were those weeks like for you? What were you like physically?

Very, very tired. Really, really tired. Tired and sore. Very constipated. Because of all the iron infusions that I’d had to get my haemoglobin levels back up. I was, I obviously had iron infusions in the hospital, you know, packs and packs of them and then I was on really heavy duty iron tablets. And that made me constipated. So that was really, really uncomfortable. I then found out that there’s this other stuff that you can take called Floradix which is an iron supplement, but it’s in a liquid formula so you don’t get the constipation. So I was a bit miffed that nobody had told me about that a few months earlier because it would have saved me a lot of discomfort [laughs].

I was just very tired. I had lots of visitors from friends and relatives. It was hard because I wasn’t able to look after my son. I mean I understand from you know, when you have a Caesarean it’s very difficult to do various things, but I knew a couple of friends from my NCT group who had had caesareans but they were still able to do a lot more than I was and they recovered physically a lot quicker. So I found that very frustrating, not being able to. I could feed [son], you know, I used to lie back and they used to put him on my chest and I used to give him a bottle, but I couldn’t pick him up. You know, I couldn’t bath him. I couldn’t do any of the night time feeds. It was quite frustrating yes.

But the most painful thing was when they took the internal catheter out. We went back in, I think two days after I was, two days after I went home, just as a day patient. And they don’t give you any anaesthetic for it, and then basicallybecause it goes into your stomach and into your bladder, like when you’ve got a normal one. Well they had that just to test, so they can whether you’ve got blood coming out or it’s healing properly, whatever. But there’s no way of getting it out other than just pulling it out. And, and the scar, it is healed up by then. And so you’ve got this quite big balloon that’s got to come up through a hole that’s sealed up.

And I said, Oh is it going to hurt And she said, Oh it’ll be uncomfortable And my husband very helpfully said, Oh well they say that, that’s a euphemism for yes it’s going to hurt And I was like, Oh, great And that was, when she pulled that out that was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. You know, they ask you for the scale of pain, it’s a nought to ten and I think labouring. I’m all right with labouring actually. I’d say that was about a six, you know, even when it gets bad it’s not that bad. But this, it felt, I imagine it’s what it would feel like to be stabbed. And that was awful and I just thoughtAnd I had that moment of I can’t believe you’ve just done that. It was extraordinarily painful, and actually the most painful things about the recovery, were not the big surgical stuff, it was all of the places where the lines had been in. They were really painful. They were all bruised. It was all up my arms, and the one in my neck and stuff and those were really painful and really awkward, because every time, you know, you catch them on things and stuff like that. So yes, that was the worse, and coming home with a catheter, two catheters, in effect, was horrible. Because I wasn’t given any real advice on what to do and my husband was having to empty out, in fact he was having to empty out in hospital.

And so that sort of, it’s a real lack of pride. You know, you feel, I can’t believe my husband’s having to do this for me, and you just think, oh God. On top of everything else this is just the final sort of embarrassment really. That’s quite bad, and you know, you’re walking around and you’ve got it strapped to your leg and stuff. You’re not really given any advice on what you should be doing with it, or how it should be, or

And what sort of state were you in physically when you got home?

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t straighten myself up. It was an effort to go upstairs to the toilet. I couldn’t cook. I couldn’t hold the babies. My son was only four and then obviously the middle one now, he was only eleven month old. He wasn’t walking. I couldn’t pick him up and it was like that for at least a week. I was basically just stuck on the couch.

Okay and did you recover physically quite quickly?

No, because I was going to the hospital twice a day to see the baby and spending a lot of hours there.

And that delayed your recovery do you think?

Yes. Because I was driving and I shouldn’t have been driving a few days after a section. I know I shouldn’t but no one said, you know, to the hospital it’s like £7 and doing that twice a day, I’ve not got that kind of money so, get to the hospital that many times a day. At the time me partner was facing immigration problems. He was just took into a immigration removal centre. So I was here with two kids, one in hospital, still ill myself and my partner was in London I don’t even know how I got through it at the time. Obviously I was trying to do my shopping. My Mum was brilliant, but she had a job as well. She would lose her job. So I was trying to get everything back to normal for the kids because their Dad had just been took away. So I was trying to do the shopping and I know, physically, I know they told me don’t lift anything, don’t, this was like two weeks after, don’t lift anything. You can’t drive. But I did I was driving to the hospital twice a day. Trying to do my weekly shopping. My Mum I’ll do it on Saturday. I was thinking well no, I need this now. The kids needI can’t wait until Saturday. And I did just take a lot, a lot on.

And did that hurt your scar at all?

Yes. I was walking with my back in archedI couldn’t straighten myself up. But I just thought, you know, they’re my kids, its, I have to, I have to do it.

It was about twelve week later, before I thought yes, I’m OK. I was still getting cramps in my stomach and the scar was still quite open type of thing. But I remember the day after I had the section, about the tea time, it must have been about 18 hours later, I remember them saying, Right you need to get up now. And go and get in the shower, and you need to take that off And I thought, can no one take it off. And she said, No you need to do it yourself And I thought, I was, I just had things with blood then, that was it I couldn’t. I thought what if I open it and it opens it up or something. And I was in the shower for about an hour, and no one came to check on me to see if I was all right. I was absolutely petrified in the shower and thinking. I was trying to talk myself round to doing it, and in the end, I had to phone my partner and I said, You need to come down now I said, they’re make me take this thing off I was in the shower. And he had to come in, and he had to take it off. And I mean that was degrading for me. Because kind of I’d just had a baby, and I was, still if you’ve just had a baby you don’t want a man looking at your belly and all you’re bits, and I was just, I’m not that kind of girl. I’m quite, I like to get myself, I look after myself and I was thinking he’s going to see my jelly belly and it was, I was thinking oh God. And then I’ve got to let him rip that open and see that awful scar, right across me belly. But I thought they’re not going to do it, the nurses, its either him or me and I can’t do it. Because if, I mean I remember looking to the side and saying how bad is it? How bad is it? I was, and he was going, it’s not too bad And I couldn’t look at it. I never looked at it for about two weeks. I couldn’t even look at me stomach. I used to have to like put my arm across me stomach just to pull my knickers on because I did not want to see that on my stomach. It really scared me.

They ended up having to operate again on the 31st not knowing what they’d find. I had a general surgeon and a gynae surgeon in there, because they were worried that it may have got to my other organs. So theythey went in and removed my left ovary and part of my right and basically gave me a bit of a clean in there to make sure there was no infection. No other infection present. And when they finished the operation and stuff, luckily they went in the same scar, you know, thankfullyBecause that sounds really daft, but as a young girl, like for me, like I’ve got to live with this for the rest of my life anyway. So to have a scar that goes across my stomach and I can hide is nice for me rather than, you know, that sort of having a scar going up my stomach for me. It may sound shallow but it’s another thing I have to live with. And you know, it’s all hard to accept as it is, rather than having, hating your body.

I feel, like I say, scarred by all the physical things that have happened to me, and like whilst I feel, you know, that I went, as soon as I could, I started exercising and losing weight, and you know, and I know I’ve done really well, to get where I am, was, and again all that effort went in, because I thought we’re going to have another pregnancy in the future that I want to be in the best shape that I can be to cope with it, just in terms, of just the stress and then obviously the physical strain. If, if it might not make any difference whatsoever, but if I feel physically stronger, it might just help.

And so although I’ve done really well, underneath all that, I’m hugely scarred and whilst that doesn’t matter to people who think, I, you know, was sort of mad for complaining about my, my stomach, my scarring, you know, amongst everything else, and actually it isn’t the most important thing in the world. It does affect how you feel about yourself. So it has probably been a bit of an obsession, but then that, that was probably whilst I didn’t go back to work, and Mike was off working and things, that was the thing that was my focus for the whole of this last year, is you know, eating right, exercising right, and that was kind of my life until I’ve gone back to work.

When you say scarred, you don’t mean just physically scarred do you? Or do you mean just physical scars? You worry about at all?

Physical scars that are just associated with huge like memory, like emotional scarring as well I suppose. But yes, definitely physical scars from just having a caesarean, to having like a massive baby, to carrying like a really big baby.

You had run before that?

I ran before, but I just ran say a couple of circles in our local park. Just to you know, keep fit. But this time I ran in order. So I started 10k runs and then I went to half marathon and then I did quite a few marathons and it was extremely therapeutic. I mean running for me, is my way of being connected to my body and feeling alive. Being out in nature. it’s, other than painting and reading probably the most important thing I do, and probably my biggest passion.

And that’s really developed since this experience.

Yes, yes, yes. I’ve been doing it all through, yes.

And what about… I mean you went back into hospital because you were ill and then you discharged yourself. Did you have any follow up after?

Yes. I did and I remember to one follow up I came, three best girlfriends came from abroad, from my home country to support me through that period. Difficult period of December, January and my sister came again. So with one of them whose a fashion photographer I went on a shopping spree and we picked some really nice Islington shops, very expensive and I remember, I just thought treat yourself and I did. And, you know, that the gynaecologist surgeon who saved my life, saw me all through those weeks you know, being extremely inflated and you know, not looking aesthetically pleasing, and then I walked in my, in these new best clothes kind of thing, and by then I’d also lost weight, my tummy went down. I looked closer to normality and he was shocked. He said, I wouldn’t recognise you And he went, What did you do to yourself And then he something to [husband], Now I understand why you were so by her bedside. So concerned about losing her Something like that you know. But that’s what I remember from my follow up [laughs]. That he came and saw me in a different light and it was very important for me to be back on my feet and to, to, to, what I remember from these weeks after, you know, December, January is that I couldn’t read a book. I couldn’t lift a book physically. My sister-law sent me this really hard covered, beautiful book and I couldn’t read it, and I couldn’t concentrate on TV. I never watch TV, but we made me, especially for me some kind of subscriptions to some channel, cinema, as if I couldn’t watch anything.