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But surely a little cosseting wouldn't go amiss?Thankfully, the days of patronising instruction – "Today, mothers, we shall learn about nappy pins" – are over, and the emphasis now is all on self-reliance: "Here's a bum, here's a nappy – see how the two go together." But surely a little cosseting wouldn't go amiss? It would be nice to know that there are breastfeeding counsellors available, and that someone can offer support during those first long nights when you’ve got a screaming baby and no idea how to soothe him. Trying to feed the baby was a major performance. Each time I had to inch myself down off the high hospital bed in something approaching agony, turn the winch at the bottom of the bed to move the headrest to a comfortable angle, take Robin out of his cot and then clamber back up holding him in one arm, all the time convinced that one false move and my stitches would rip open. In fact, at one point the plastic bobble at the end of my stitch fell off and bounced off somewhere. Unsure whether I would start unravelling or worse, I had to ask a nurse to 'rebead' me, like a string of pearls. I've since learnt that you can get cots which clip onto the side of hospital beds, cutting out the rock-climbing aspect of being a Caesarean mum. I also got to sample several meals...Staying that bit longer in hospital than most women meant that I also got to sample several meals. These tasted fine but why were they served in grim, prison-style containers? I also saw how often the place got cleaned. No wonder why our NCT antenatal teacher advised us all to pack the Jif and J-cloths along with the babygrows. After Day two, no one came to change either my or Robin's sheets - I think they just forgot. My overriding memory of my hospital stay is the lack of rest. In order to keep an eye on me post-op, I was kept in the equivalent of an out-of-town car park on a bank holiday, ie right by the nurses' desk. This meant that I was ‘entertained’ round the clock by the constant comings and goings of doctors and visitors, and the midwives' chatter. After two days of this, I begged them to let me move to an empty side ward, more off the beaten track. After a day of relative peace in my new home, the room suddenly filled up with three other new mums and their screaming babies and streaming visitors. With only bedside chairs on which to dump our overnight bags overspilling with clothes, nighties, towels, babies' things, massive sanitary pads and other essentials, and a flimsy curtain to hide behind for those embarrassing early attempts at breastfeeding, the ward soon took on the air of a refugee camp. If this was a not-so-subtle ploy to encourage us to clear off home and so free up the beds as quickly as possible, it definitely worked. Dreading another sleepless night, I got the two of us discharged and headed home to my own, gloriously low bed. Where to next?
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