World Prematurity Day

Today, November 17th, is World Prematurity Day.

I feel a bit of a fraud including myself in today as World Prematurity Day naturally conjures up images of very tiny, sick babies, in incubators and covered in tubes.  However any baby born before 37 weeks is classed as premature and C was born at 35 weeks and 5 days, making her over a week premature.  I therefore feel we do have a story to tell today.

Depression, Anxiety and the Power of Writing

This post was sparked by a tweet earlier in the week by the PSS Postnatal Depression Project on how talking about your feelings can really help you understand the origins of your post natal depression or anxiety.  From my own personal viewpoint, I agree with this statement wholeheartedly.  In my darkest hours since C was born I could have quite easily have gone to the Doctors and been put on medication however I knew that it was being able to talk to someone that really made me feel better, and that things would only really improve if I was able to get to the root of the problem and fix it.

A Very Late Early Birth Story

Watching someone give birth on television last night made me realise that I never actually blogged C's birth story. Although 15 months ago, I feel writing it down now might help me focus what to put in my birth plan this pregnancy.

I am sure many of you saw my tweets during labour last year and therefore are familiar with how the situation unravelled however hopefully this will piece it all together and fill in any blanks.

Inguinal Hernia Surgery

As mentioned previously, C had a large lump on her groin that kept coming and going.  I suspected it was probably a hernia. In January we took her to see our GP and although the lump was not visible for the Dr to examine, the photo I had managed to take a few days before was convincing enough for him to refer us to a Consultant Paediatrician at our local hospital. Unfortunately he was spread across all the hospitals in our region and only available in our local hospital once a month. We were therefore warned that it may be a couple of months until we got to see him. 

We eventually received an appointment date of 22^nd March.  In the meantime I was noticing C’s suspected hernia more and more frequently. In seemed most visible in early afternoon after a bowel movement however didn’t appear to be causing her any distress.  

A couple of weeks ago, a week after her 1st birthday, C was being grumpier than normal.  This soon deteriorated into howls of pain.  Nothing I could do would soothe her, it was quite distressing.  I should stress again that at no point until now had her hernia caused her any noticeable distress, therefore it was just a passing thought to check her groin at this point. I was shocked to see a lump swollen to the size of a golf ball and rock solid.  I ran into DH’s room where he was on a conference call and gesticulated wildly at him. After making his excuses to his colleagues and taking one look at C, we are in the car on the way to A&E.

My first year a as a Mummy

This post has been an extremely difficult to write. I contains a lot of emotion and I am aware that it does come across negative. On the other hand, writing it down is helping me move forward therefore please do not judge me for it.

35 Weeks Pregnant

24th-25th February 2012 
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