More Firsts

First toy: A cat – what else – as though she didn’t have enough of the real thing to cope with!

First mark: the one from the forceps which miraculously disappeared in days.  Lily is very pleased about that.

First bottle feed: ‘Aw that’s good stuff man!  Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.’

First swing: ‘it’s great Mum but I think maybe you need to practice positioning a bit more?’

First bath: ‘…… em …. and who exactly told you this was a good idea?’

First night in the cot: ‘Yep this’ll do’.

First meeting with Granda: ‘hmmm this guy needs a lot of smiles – I’d better get cracking’

First absence from Mum: 2 weeks old!  Here they are glad to be together again.

Yep poor wee soul had to put up with Granny for a few nights while Nikki’s nether regions were giving her gyp resulting in being whisked into hospital overnight to get a clearout.  The joys.

Long term readers of this diary may remember the awful problems Nikki had with her bowels years ago which pretty much got sorted to a degree when she was 13.  They’ve never been brilliant though but there again her diet’s never been brilliant either so she doesn’t get much sympathy from me I’m afraid.

First poo after labour was absolutely fine, second one was really painful but this third one refused to budge.  Of course she was on iron tablets by then which would have made everything worse and by the weekend it was becoming acutely uncomfortable to say the least so on Monday she tried a laxative.  Nothing.  Tuesday it was the turn of a suppository.  Nothing.  By this time she’d virtually eaten nothing for 2 days, drank very little and hardly slept making it very difficult for her to do anything for Lily which just exacerbated the problem.

And – just as in labour – it was getting harder and harder to fight the natural urge to push but fight it she sure did and even a further 2 suppositories produced nothing. A really nice doctor saw her at GDocs at midnight Wednesday night and gave her 5mg of Valium plus an enema to put in but she wouldn’t let me do it and wouldn’t do it herself. I phoned back for advice but they could only suggest a doctor coming out and administering the enema which she refused.

So now her anxiety took over.  And let me tell you, when Nikki’s anxiety takes a hold it’s a force to be reckoned with.  It was that force which held Lily in for a solid 7 hours when she was in labour – fully dilated and ready to be born.  She absolutely refused to push her out unless she got an epidural and eventually they had to give her one in order to do a forceps delivery.  (I did try to write up an entry on that whole week and actually ran out of characters it was that long!!  And I was only half way through the week as well!)

I must admit I was really stumped at this point because I knew that poo couldn’t stay in there but how on earth we were going to get it out without knocking her out was a mystery.

On Thursday I phoned the surgery fully expecting no empathy whatsoever but to my surprise they agreed to a home visit and the nicest doctor ever came out to see her.  She’d just had a baby 11 months before as well so totally understood the hormones being all over the place and the fear and pain and everything but at the same time was at a loss to know how it was going to get sorted because she was doubtful the hospital would accept Nikki in these circumstances.  However she said if we could get the Health Visitor to come out to try to do the enema and Nikki refused that as well then at least we’d have a better case (she obviously didn’t want to put Nikki through any more distress but there was a chance that Nikki would be so exhausted that she’d be persuaded to have it and if not then at least the surgeon would see everything had been tried first).

So we had to go through another stressful 45 minutes when an older Health Visitor came round and desperately tried to persuade Nikki to end her distress.  She was more of the old school variety and I could see the whole concept of the anxiety thing was shooting past her at the rate of noughts not to mention completely baffling her but nevertheless she gave it her best shot and was very patient but had to admit defeat along with the others and off she went having phoned the doctor to report back.

I took Trooper out for a walk and was almost doing the proverbial wringing my hands I was so stressed because I really couldn’t see how this was going to pan out at all.

Suddenly I noticed a missed call from the surgery.  That angel of a doctor had managed to get Nikki a bed in the surgical ward and said we could just make our way up whenever we were ready.

Mass relief!

Lily was due a feed so we phoned one of Nikki’s friends and she came over and took her up amidst much tears – saying goodbye to her baby for a whole night at only 2 weeks old – made even worse because she knew she’d created the situation herself.

The staff in the ward were absolutely lovely with her – apparently they get quite a few new mums in that ward so they’re quite used to women awash with tears at being suddenly parted from their newborns and told her I could come up with Lily any time – I didn’t have to stick to visiting hours.  I fully intended to bust a gut on the Friday to get us both up there but was having real trouble trying to figure out how to fit the car seat properly and also lift the buggy into the car (it won’t fit into my boot) so really not looking forward to the whole experience but nevertheless I got her dressed to go when – thankfully – I got a text from Nikki around lunchtime saying she wasn’t sure if it would just make things worse because she was missing her so much and maybe we shouldn’t come.  Added to that was the fact she was getting ‘done’ sometime in the afternoon but they couldn’t give her a set time so I could well end up getting up there and find her gone and maybe miss her altogether so we decided to leave it.  I was soooooooooooo relieved because I was operating on one hour’s sleep over 2 nights by this time and my stamina was fading fast!

By half 2 she was off to theatre and by teatime was texting me to say she was getting discharged as soon as she had something to eat and drink and they could see she was okay so I organised my niece to go and pick her up and by 9 p.m. we were back to being 3 again.

Normal service now resumed.

Nikki and I have had a chat about the whole thing and she’s going to go back to the doctor to perhaps try medication realising this now doesn’t just affect her but Lily as well.  She was getting counselling throughout her pregnancy but it wasn’t having much effect.  I shall ensure she carries that through because I sure as hell am not going through that again although Lilypie and I managed just fine but it was exhausting.

I have a new found respect for single mums now I can tell you!

And in the midst of all the angst it suddenly hit me.

My poor poor mum and dad!

This is exactly what they had to put up with when I was growing up – but not just for one week.  For years I had – weirdly – exactly the same problems with my bowels as Nikki had and there was an almost weekly faffing about with suppositories and the like which always fell out 5 minutes after they were inserted anyway accompanied with threats of phoning the doctor to do it if I wouldn’t let mum do it properly.  I was 9 before I finally got into hospital to get it investigated and it all got sorted out after that but when I think of how much she and Dad must have had to go through beforehand I feel terrible.

Not sure Philip Larkin got it entirely right – ‘they fuck you up your mum and dad’.

I think we do a pretty good job the other way round sometimes ……