My birth wasn't straightforward- I will touch on how it affected me later down the line on another blog post (I'm not quite ready to share this yet, but I will) I don't think I will ever put my actual birth story on here. Don't get me wrong, I love a good birth story, especially a good one, but... no.
After having her with a good amount of gas and air I remember while having stitches asking the midwife, "can you ever have too much of this?" The answer was no so I just went for it. The hospital bed turned into a lilo floating on a pool in Marbs, I was at a rave at my local club, I was in a room full of clowns, (I was hugging a big clown at one point) at one point I was in Newquay and I had flashbacks to being in a club when I was 18. Loving life.
Obviously this was all down to gas and air- something I knew would wear off and I would become my normal un-crazy self again. What I didn't know, what no one ever told me, was that actually the crazy may hang around for a while longer- this was nothing to do with gas and air- it was all down to those pesky hormones. Oxytocin and prolactin are the hormones you produce when you're feeding- and they are a big mix of crazy when they are in my body. Everyone is different, but this is my crazy journey.
After giving birth I had to keep reminding myself that she was mine and her name was Bonnie. I kept thinking she was a little baby girl called Neya lying next to me and I couldn't really understand why she was there sometimes. I am guessing it was because I was scrolling through instagram while I was in labour and obviously thought I had Nikki's (@nikki_and_nugget) child next to me??! (I had had one hour sleep in 5 days so it may have been down to tiredness too) this carried on the whole time I was in hospital.
As soon as I was home and for about 6 or 7 weeks afterwards, I kept thinking I had 2. I would put Bonnie down to sleep and then look for the other baby to put down. I woke up in the night on two occasions and was so upset because I 'couldn't find the other one' it took my husband a good couple of minutes to convince me at those times that we only had one. My health visitor said it was normal so I decided to open up to my antenatal group. I think I could tell by their faces that it wasn't a common thing!! I came to the conclusion that I thought there was two as it was kind of like I had 2 completely different babies- she was AMAZING and absolute dream for the first 3 weeks- she fed well, she slept loads, she was content- she was a breeze- then week 3 hit and along came colic, feeding problems and silent reflux with it and it it was like someone had came and swapped her for another baby in the night.
Another thing that happened was the fact that I couldn't quite comprehend that I had actually given birth. When people would say 'well done' I would feel as though I had just done a big exam and deep down I knew that I had cheated- I didn't do it properly. And whenever anyone would say how great it was that she was born on her due date I would say 'well she wasn't actually was she' I couldn't work out why I felt this way for ages. Going through it recently, I have worked out that the reason why I felt this way stems from having to be induced twice for her to come along. This mindset affected many things including bonding with my baby (which I will touch on another post) and giving myself that 'break' I needed as I had just put my body through so much.
Those are the main things that stuck in my mind, but daily being a bit of a snappy bitch, talking absolutely no sense and crying at odd things are things that are just that come with having a child I guess. Crazy comes in all different levels- but don't panic, it happens to more people than you think- my mum didn't know who my sister was after she gave birth to her, she completely forgot she had had her! And my auntie was looking for a baby on top of the wardrobe! Just remember when you are panicking that someone will turn up and wheel you away in a straight jacket- it does get better! To the point where you can look back and have a laugh at that absolute crazy bitch you left behind!!
A M L
LaLa xx
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