Jude’s Birth Story and my first month as a new mom

It’s been almost six weeks since Jude was born but my blogging has been sporadic despite my best efforts! Today, I thought I’d give you an update on how I’ve been; along with sharing his birth story and how it’s been adapting to motherhood alongside Crohn’s disease too!

Jude’s arrival

As mentioned in my pregnancy updates, I have known I’d be having a C-Section from the beginning of my pregnancy but I think I’d always thought he might still make an early appearance; especially since my last few weeks were spent having painful Braxton Hicks. But nope, as the 3rd May loomed closer it was very odd having ‘have a baby’ so clearly in my diary, and soon the 2nd May rolled around and I realised: ‘Shit! I’m having a baby tomorrow!’

The day before we went for a scan to check baby’s position and go over everything again. The baby was weighing 6 pounds 12 predicted, which was a little on the small side based on his growth chart so of course, I managed to get myself worried about that! I also had to have my blood taken and was given a prescription (Basically just anti-reflux medicine you take to stop you sicking up on the operating table I believe.)

The night before we went out for a meal and champagne (well I had a tiny sip before panicking I would somehow harm the baby!)which was nice but we were shattered and it probably would have been best spent trying to just relax. After a sleepless night (cue lots of ‘I’m having a baby today’ each time I woke up in the early hours!), we made our way to the hospital for 7.30am. I’m very glad we hadn’t told many people to be honest because receiving texts like ‘good luck today with the baby’ was just freaking me out more and more.

When we were admitted, there was another woman who was ahead of us so after listening to baby’s heartbeat on the monitor, we were popped in the side room to wait.

Whilst it was great to have a comfy room to ourselves, it was literally next to the operating theatre; meaning people kept nipping in during the other woman’s section and saying ‘not long now!’ and we could also hear when their baby arrived, which was surreal, to say the least! I just couldn’t believe we were sitting so casually, scrolling through our phones and we would be next!

After what seemed like forever, we were called in and my husband waited outside whilst I got my spinal. It’s weird as I have had a quite a few operations but this was nothing like that. The room was TINY-literally the size of my kitchen and the lights were bright. There were no calm, soothing lights and an anaesthetic to drift me off to sleep! However, I was nowhere near as anxious as I thought I’d be: it was almost like I didn’t believe it was really happening.

As I mentioned in my mental health and pregnancy post, I’d asked on my birth plan to keep me updated with what was happening at each point as I do not like to feel out of control. However, once Matt came into the room they popped me on a table (it’s so narrow, nothing like a bed!) and popped a sheet across (an actual sheet, I’d envisioned a high-tech thing ) to create a divider between my top and bottom half so I couldn’t see what was going on. Then all of sudden… we heard crying!

I’m not being dramatic-it was literally five minutes. I remember saying: ‘Is that my baby?’ and thinking it couldn’t be because I wasn’t even sure we’d started and they’d not told me he was coming out but they said yes and popped him to me!

That was it! No five-minute warning or a rundown like I’d asked! To be fair they did say it was a very quick section (I have no idea what makes a quick C-Section) but we were quite shocked, to say the least, and I freaked out for a good twenty minutes or so until I got my head around the fact we had a baby and the one on my lap had come out of my belly where it had lived for the past 39 weeks!

It was definitely incredibly surreal and I don’t think anything prepares you for that. Obviously, with natural labour, you have more time to get your head around it and natural hormones at work but with a section, your body just thinks it is another day and it took my brain a few minutes to catch up! So just a word of advice for those who might have a section in the future: don’t be surprised if you need a bit of time to process things.

My attempts at breastfeeding

I thought I’d mention my attempts to breastfeed as it’s an interesting topic with IBD. I’d seen a breastfeeding counsellor before my section and after being reassured that it was safe with my medication and Crohn’s, I decided I wanted to give it a go. However, it didn’t go to plan (does my life ever?!)

One thing I was pleasantly surprised about my section: I was not in as much pain as I thought at first and in the weeks that followed. However, one thing I really hadn’t realised: It was pretty much impossible to lift my baby for the first 24 hours. Not only due to the section but because of the catheter (not fun if tugged on!) you get post section and the drowsiness of morphine. Everyone is arguably pro-breastfeeding but in the hospital, I just found it impossible to get Jude to feed and there wasn’t the help there to help me a)physically lift him but b) help get the technique sorted. I was also prescribed morphine at first as having Crohn’s, I can’t take any ibuprofen so I wasn’t 100% with it.

I ended up giving him in formula in hospital and after coming out, I managed to get a home visit from a private breastfeeding counsellor who managed to show me how to express whilst we tried to perfect his technique. In the end, I expressed for two weeks after giving birth but it was time to stop. One reason is since my milk came in, my Crohn’s began to flare and I really struggled to keep on top of expressing whilst feeling poorly. I have always had hormonal links to my Crohn’s and I suspected that the hormones related to breastfeeding were making me feel worse. After stopping, I felt much better-I still don’t feel anywhere near as good as I did in pregnancy and suspect that my Crohn’s is active but I don’t feel anywhere near as bad as I did whilst breastfeeding. Please note, some people find breastfeeding actually delays their flares so its not to say breastfeeding causes a flare up!

Jude’s struggles with weight gain

Another reason that breastfeeding was hard to establish is we ended up in hospital twice with Jude, who lost 9% of his weight on day 3 and then continued to lose a bit, gain a bit, lose a bit and then finally find his groove and gain and gain!! We had two overnight stays during the first 2 weeks and the focus was making sure he had enough formula as well as running some blood tests. I was focused on giving him as much formula as possible so it wasn’t the time to focus on breastfeeding techniques. However, I’m so happy I was able to give him my milk even for two weeks-which I wouldn’t have been able to do without the counsellor. I had lots of colostrum still so it made me really happy to know he got that!

Five weeks on: How I’m feeling now

I won’t lie, the first weeks postpartum have been tough for me. I absolutely loved feeling healthy and having a bump when pregnant-as someone who has been underweight forever, it was amazing to be thriving and constantly gaining weight.

For the first few weeks, I felt so deflated (literally) as my bump disappeared the same day. I have also really struggled with other hormonal symptoms like incredibly dry, flaky skin and hot and cold spells (thankfully these have gone now). No one tells you how many horrible symptoms you experience postpartum-I was so worried about things like the blood loss and my scar but these have been relatively easy in comparison! I’m frustrated that I only managed a week before my perfect digestion deteriorated but I guess my doctor did warn me! I have an MRI tomorrow to see what’s happening with my Crohn’s and an appointment next month to discuss going back on medication.

The midwife told us to spend as much time as possible indoors and just stay in with little one but I’ll be honest, my mental health massively improved once I started going out every day and I’ve loved getting out with Jude to baby groups. Everyone is different but stopping in only made me feel worse (Both physically and mentally) so I’m trying to get out each day-if only for a walk and a coffee.

Overall, I’m so proud of what I’ve achieved-it was only last year I was blogging about my low ovarian reserve and now I am a mom to an absolutely perfect baby boy and on reflection, had a perfect pregnancy. I’m gutted I don’t feel in perfect health at the moment but that’s IBD for you! I can’t wait to keep you updated as Jude grows and expect to see lots more baby content on here soon-and hopefully an IBD update with a new medication plan too!