E - Elective C-Section

There's something very strange about knowing the day your baby will born. Oh yes, it's much more civilised this way round, but there's no drama. I miss the drama.

First time round... Waters break 6 days early at 3.00 am. The other half  is drunk.Mum woken in the early hours and drives us to hospital. Discover baby is breach. Rushed down for an emergency c section as contractions are coming quick and strong. One hour later I hear a tiny baby cough. He's here.

Second go... Waters break 6 days early at 3.30 am (again? that's a bit freaky) uproot and dump Little O at his grandparents. Go to hospital. Labour doesn't start. Wait 24 hours (in hospital). Still no labour. Get induced. 5 hours later he flies out. Cord round neck. Silence. Crash team called. He breathes.He cries.

Third time lucky... We wake up.Get showered.I do my hair. Drop boys off at their Grandparents at a reasonable hour. Drive to hospital. Get shown to ward. Meet the midwives. Small talk. Chit chat.Wait patiently in hospital bed wearing only a hospital gown and dark green hospital stockings. Random trainee midwife says a heartfelt goodbye to bump.walk down to theatre. Meet all the team (appears to be about 35 of them). More small talk. More chit chat. A few injections. A screen. Some tugging. A baby.

So the elective section was quite straight forward. Quite unusual for us.   We returned to the ward and I looked at Little Leo and felt utterly complete. My work in procreation was done.

E- Eaves dropping

Never, ever, presume they are not listening they are always listening...

E - Expressing

Ok so now you can breast feed and have your own life back - all you need to do is express - easy!

Not really.

If you are going to make expressing work you need to be very organised, have great determination, good at sterilising and strong willed. These are some of the reasons why I breast fed, because I am not good at any of these things.

But I have tried it, hand pump, electric pump, no pump... Still not very good at it.

Once, I looked after a friends' 3 month old baby, in an emergency situation, she dropped her off and handed me a bottle. "Oh are bottle feeding her?" Iasked surprised
"No it's breast milk" she said and flounced off, free from stress or worry at leaving her breast fed child with a stranger.
"Amazing". I thought. But the baby took the milk, no problem. And was perfectly happy for the two hours I looked after her.

So it does work and you can have both. Just I can't - mainly because I'm a bit of a lazy cow.