We are Ellie and David! Ellie is a teacher and David is a security manager – we live in London and are first time parents! We took the Happy Parents Happy Baby antenatal classes in Bexley.
My pregnancy started off pretty straight forward, I didn’t struggle with sickness but had lots of food aversions – I lived on mac and cheese for most of it! I was very nervous about the birth and very fixated on how I wanted things to go in an ‘ideal world’. HPHB helped me to see things more flexibly, having birth preferences rather than a plan.. this came in very handy for the birth as it definitely did not go to plan!
Lewisham hospital – we wanted the birth centre however ended up on the labour ward. The care was brilliant.
At 36 weeks I started to experience unusual abdominal pains and at week 37 we were rushed in for an emergency C-section as I was diagnosed with HELLP syndrome. This was completely out of the blue and definitely not in any of my birth preferences, however learning about C-sections on the HPHB course was a godsend as I knew exactly what to expect and didn’t feel as anxious, especially knowing how many people I could expect to have in theatre! HPHB had also encouraged us to pack our hospital bags early.. which was also very handy when our friend had to go to our house to pick it up. We are grateful that everything went smoothly and we’ve got to have a few extra weeks of baby Zahra!
Breathing techniques were the most useful for the C-section as I was shaking from nerves and the spinal block. We could have used music, however in the moment it did not even cross our minds!
Relieved and absolutely in love!
We stayed in hospital for the first few days and due to my recovery, David had to take on a lot of the nappies and burping! HPHB had given him practice in these areas, with some tricks of the trade to avoid the dreaded nappy leaks! I was able to breast feed straight away, and used the knowledge from HPHB to understand the benefits of this to keep persevering through any breast feeding stumbling blocks. All in all we felt much more prepared to be parents and could make informed decisions with our baby’s care instead of using good old Google!
Breastfeeding! We are on week 6 and still going strong.
A very unexpected emergency C-section.
We are both proud of how we handled the whole event, and still managed to enjoy our baby bubble and laugh at the poonamies on zero sleep!
The 10 days of blood thinner injections following a C-section.
Not getting checked over sooner when I had unusual abdominal pain – listen to your body!
Conversations at 3am on the night feeds.
Comfortable, buttoned nighties for breast feeding and big pants!
Toast and a cup of tea.
The bottle warmer so David can give some expressed milk.
A nappy caddy.
Be prepared for any eventuality… don’t get too fixated on the perfect birth, as long as the baby and mum are happy and healthy!
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