So this blog will have graphic details of womanly functions for those of you which may be squeamish so be warned.
To be honest, the first 24 hours were all a bit of a blur and I was completely consumed by fascination and love for my new babies. I just stared at them in amazement. I was quite high on drugs too which was great coz I felt no pain from my csection but I think that is why I can’t remember much. My babies were really sleepy and didn’t cry at all. They just slept and didn’t move. I was all motivated by my sense of duty but they hardly needed anything. I had to wake them to feed them. I could have got loads of sleep but the other babies on the ward were screaming their heads off so I couldn’t fall asleep. I couldn’t wait to go home. I started to get feeling back in my toes, feet and then my legs. I waited about 14 hours and then I was able to get up out of bed to go for a wee (once the catheter was removed, which I hardly noticed).
Although I had pain medication, I felt that my tummy was injured and it felt sore when I got out of bed so I was hunched over and shuffled to the toilet very slowly. I had to take it slow but the more I moved the easier it became (so you have to suffer a bit of pain.. but it is definitely bearable and I would try to move as much as you can, coz it really does speed up your recovery.)
I didn’t realise how much blood comes out of you though and at one point it was dripping out of me in a line all the way to the toilet (so that is what maternity knickers are for). I could shuffle over to my babies and pick them up without too much discomfort. Time ceased to exist, I had no idea whether it was day or night. Every couple of hours I would try to breast feed. One twin took to it better than the other but neither were getting much. I thought my milk would never come. I just didn’t understand how it would suddenly know to produce milk…. but it did. I was hand expressing and using syringes to put drops into their mouths. Yet still they never cried.
By the second night one of the twins started to look really pale compared to the other and he was really twitchy. I know nothing about babies and I was like a drugged zombie but I knew something was up (mothers’ instinct?) I told the midwife and she did a blood test and turns out his blood sugar was really low coz he wasn’t feeding properly. So they gave him 30ml of formula out of a cup which he sipped. (yes a cup…amazing right?) I was worried and I felt like it was my fault that he hadn’t fed as the other twin was fine but she seemed to have a better sucking action. So after that he was given a 30ml cup by the midwife every couple of hours, whilst I tried to feed the other twin.
By day three I hadn’t been to sleep in 3 days and I was exhausted. I was no longer on pain medication (just paracetemol!!) and I was moving around the room with ease. The babies were still sleeping all the time and the twin who was drinking the 30ml was settled and healthy again. But it really put me off breastfeeding as I saw how well he was doing on formula and the only time the other twin cried was when I was trying to breast feed her and she was struggling to latch on. I persevered though but I really felt like I didn’t know what I was doing.
The babies were a little jaundice but not enough to be treated and by lunch time of the third day, I was allowed to go home. I was given far too many leaflets to read on lots of important things (which I never got round to reading) and off we went home.
I walked out of hospital, slowly, only stopping when someone wanted to look at the twins and congratulate me. This was a start of things to come.
My stay in hospital was fine, I felt fully supported and cared for but I was a zombie and didn’t sleep. The pain was bearable and I just spent the hours just staring at the twins waiting for them to do something. (ooo look …they’ve just blinked!) However, I was just dying to come home to get started in my new chapter in my life of being a twin mum.
