Why are you crying mummy?

During the first evening of my baby’s life she nearly died. A passing midwife noticed that she wasn’t just coughing, as I had thought, but was turning blue. The midwife grabbed her and, yelling ‘crash’ and pressing a button on the wall, ran from the ward taking my baby with her. I was left tied to the bed by my catheter for seconds? minutes? hours? Long enough to know that the worst had happened. Long enough to think about having to send a message to everyone cancelling the birth announcement I had sent out a little earlier.

When I realised my catheter would unhook and my legs, numbed by a spinal, would carry my weight, I found my baby in a side room. “Is that my baby?” I asked the midwife. I had not known her long enough to recognise her yet, something that haunts me still. That was my first question. “Is she alive?” was my second. She was. They had a question for me too. “Why are you crying mummy?” asked the midwife, the hero midwife who saved my baby, the monster midwife who could not understand why I might be upset.

I still do not know how to answer that question. Is it because I thought my baby was dead or is it because she was alive?

Over a year later mostly I manage to put this to the back of my mind. I have a healthy baby who has become a wonderful mischievous loving toddler. The world is her oyster, which easily becomes lobster, which is tantalisingly close to the Yiddish word lobus which means little monster, in an affectionate cheeky way, and which although conventionally only used for boys is used in our household for our beautiful girl. The world is her lobster, and this lobus is our world.

A healthy happy baby is all anyone wants. That we have one is magical. Every day I appreciate it and most days I choose not to remember the moments when I thought it had been taken away just as it began. Yet sometimes, in the shower, driving alone with the radio on, walking through the park, I remember that night, and anyone who sees me and my tears may well also ask that question, “why are you crying mummy?” And still I cannot really answer.

Why I love the NHS

I've been writing a series of posts (to be continued) on ways to improve postnatal care in order to make those difficult scary first days with your baby a bit easier, or at least not harder, but it has struck me that I should also write a positive post about the NHS and the care we received. Because most of it was excellent. 

The antenatal appointments checked that the baby and I were safe. Blood tests were taken using clean equipment and results came back quickly. I had choices over pain relief. Pregnancy bleeding led to a trip to casualty and to the early pregnancy unit where both times we were seen quickly, scanned and reassured. My blood pressure was frequently checked. The baby's heartbeat was often listened to. Had I needed to get to hospital in an emergency I knew I would have been able to call an ambulance. We had scans to pick up and monitor any problems. I had my own room to give birth in and was constantly monitored by midwives determined to safely deliver me a healthy baby which they did, and to leave me as unbattered as possible, which they did. Doctors operated on me post birth in a clean operating theatre using strong drugs and great skill. Midwives and doctors looked after my baby when she was sick in the first few days, and looked after me too. The wards were clean. I was given food. The medicines were plentiful. The most up to date technology was used to diagnose my baby and to treat her. And in the days and weeks and months since the birth every time we have needed to see a GP, we have been able to, all
medicines needed have been free and all hospital appointments have been with experts. Wow. 

I have complaints and suggestions for improvement but it's important, I think, not to lose sight that all of this was free at the point of use, available to anyone who needs it and delivered in a clean and safe environment by well trained staff. 

So this is a post to balance out the ones about improving postnatal care and to say how grateful I am to the NHS and all who work for it. How lucky we are to have it. 

Related posts:
Ways to improve postnatal care #1: Don't call me mum
Ways to improve postnatal care #2: Change the sheets
Ways to improve postnatal care #3: Help us buy the basics

Ways to improve postnatal care #4: Allow partners 24 hour access

Ways to improve postnatal care #1: Don't call me mum

This is a plea to midwives, nurses, doctors and health visitors who see women in the hours, days and weeks following the birth of their baby. Don't call me mum. There is one person in the world currently allowed to call me mum, and she can't speak properly yet. 

I know it's easier to just call everyone by the same name, but you manage to use names in every other ward so let's do it in maternity too. You may have put your hands up our most private bits, you may have seen us grunt and cry and bleed and push and poo as our babies came out, but pretend for a moment we're not just on the birth conveyor belt and that we're individuals with names and feelings. That way we might just feel your plans for our health and the health of our babies are individualised too. 

Ways to improve postnatal care #3: Help us buy the basics

Ways to improve postnatal care #2: Change the sheets