Complaints:
I am far too hot
Not sleeping well, day or night:- noise, heat, discomfort
Oh yeah- discomfort. If I lay down it hurts my shoulders and arms. If I sit up, it hurts my lower back and hips. Stupid upward-tilted anti-gravity bed positioning. I'd be about as comfortable doing a hand-stand.
The food is repetitive and boring. And the portions are too small.
I am discovering the perils of eating too much fruit!
My muscles and body strength are literally wasting away
Although I have my own room, at the end of the corridor where nobody ventures unless they are coming to see me, I feel like I have no true privacy. A succession of people waltz into my room throughout the day, on their schedule not mine-either so speak to me or change my bins or sheets or clean my floor. This morning I came out of the bathroom to find a doctor waiting in my room for me. I apologised for keeping him waiting.
Do these things REALLY need to be done several times a day? I am not sick, nor am I able to move around and create any mess or put more than a lone wet wipe in the bin in between the tree times daily changes. So wasteful. I just want to be left alone for a couple of hours so I can cry. I could put my do not disturb sign on the door, sure, but then I'll feel guilty about unnecessary moving around off the bed.
They now want to know exactly what time I take my medication each night so they can log it wherever the heck it is they log it. Never mind I've been quite happily and competently taking this stuff for years, now I am in hospital so they have to know the ins and outs and record everything in The Log. And no, I don't want you to lock it in the cupboard for me, thanks. It's just fine and dandy right here in my drawer, thanks.
I know when they are coming to do my stomach injection (which only some of them will allow me to do myself) becuase I hear the drugs trolley and the crocs squeaking along the corridor. The whole thing reminds me of One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest. By the end of this I'm going to need electric shock therapy!
There's a speaker for the patient call-bells right outside my door. They chime every five seconds until someone responds to the call and shuts it off. I appear to be the only person on the ward who has figured out that if they aren't responding within say 7 beeps, they are too busy so maybe switch it off yourself and try again in a while? Becuase, you know, it is disturbing EVERYBODY and their NEWBORNS.
Yep, newborns.
I am nothing but an incubator for this baby. (They are worth it) but I want me back. I miss home and husband and cat. I miss my things. I want to put makeup on and wear nice clothes and go out and be in society.
I am truly concerned that my legs are going to be permanently indented by my compression stockings. Why do I need them anyway? They are so hot and itchy and horrible and I'm having the stomach injections now and by the way they really hurt- and I am not a needle phobe and have done loads of stomach injections to even conceive this baby. Ok, so it is all to stop me getting a life threatening DVT. Well, the risk is so low. So low. I don't want to be this medicalised!
Junior doctor: Look me in the eye. I am a human not a case note!
Fears:
Are dreadful.
Birth is going to happen. Too soon. Far too soon. We don't know when. We won't check your cervix again becuase it won't change the management and it may irritate it and trigger you off. So just lay there an wait, ok? No. NOT OK. I don't want to be a time bomb. What's my birth plan? I haven't even seen the delivery ward. What is going to happen to me? To the baby? What pain relief options do I have? Under what circumstances will you do a section? I categorically DO NOT WANT A GA. What do you mean we just have to see what happens? This is every day for you but for me it's a HUGE deal. Yes it's baby no 2 but you know what happened with no 1 don't you? You know I have never had birth classes don't you? You realise my labour was less than three hours last time, and was and still is all a huge trauma, physical and psychological? Well?
I am so scared. I am scared history is going to repeat and I'll be put to sleep and we'll both miss the birth. That my first glimpse of my baby will be a photograph again, groggy from anaesthetic. They can't promise me it won't happen. Just "we only do that if we have no choice" there was no choice last time.
27 weeks. Fantastic. Still THIRTEEN WEEKS EARLY. Still not guaranteed life. Still high risk of developmental, physical and mental difficulties. Of operations in the first year of life. Pregnancy should be 40 weeks. Not less than 30. 30 is my target, it isn't good, or OK, or they'll be fine at that point. It's, possibly achieveable. But then, possibly not.
Blessings:
It is different. We are here and they know. SCBU are ready for us.
We have gotten beyond 26+3
This baby is oh so active
There are buts. But there are also at leasts. Lots.
Grub is the most prayed-for baby in the north west
I am in the UK. And therefore don't have to remortgage my house to pay for this.
So many people care, so many are helping, visiting, texting.
The staff are all friendly and kind and most of them are trying their best to make it all a little less rubbish for me.
I have a loving and capable husband who is doing his best to hold everything together at home and make it all OK.
There must be more. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to focus better on them. For now I have to focus on this promise:
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