I was all ready to have one with D2… that is the one where we made it to the hospital with 5 minutes to spare. They said it was too late. 
I sure could have used it in the car on the way there!
Two born in the hospital birthing center with no drugs. 24-hour rule meant I went home about 18 hours after delivery of the first and the same with the second. I wish someone had told me that it was really, reallly okay to take the drugs they offered me for afterbirth pains. They were the worst cramps ever and I stoically refused all pain meds. Stupid. It meant I didn’t sleep a wink after his birth, and his 3.5 year old sister, who spend the night in the birthing center with us and DH, was so excited about her new brother that she didn’t sleep a wink either…
After I had the epidural headache with S1, the doc who told me when I had my cerclage with S2 that I had terribly narrow epidural spaces and that I should never let a doctor give me an epidural again.
Had a saddle block with S2, which didn’t work. I nearly ripped the sleeve off of DH’s shirt while I was pushing. OTOH, I felt SO good after delivery compared to post-delivery with S1.
It’s not PC to say it but I found recovery after C-section to be much easier than recovery after vaginal birth. Of course I never went into labor with the C-section so maybe that was the difference.
I didn’t have any epidurals or any drugs and I wanted it that way. Not having a needle put in my spine at a painful and huge (belly) part of life was a nice fringe benefit.
Of course, years later I needed to get a spinal tap. I was probably the worst patient ever and they had to give me valium first. It didn’t hurt at all! But very strange and disturbing - especially when the doctor told me to cough as he pushed it up through, I don’t know, something that went pop-pop-pop. Shiver… stay away from my spine. I had a spinal headache for days.
After the misery of first delivery (pitocin, forceps and no epidural…just crappy Stadol which just made me weepy), the next time I was telling every nurse, doctor and janitor that I wanted an epidural STAT. Lol. One cute older nurse said, “honey, you gotta get to your room first”. But I guess it must have worked because the anesthesiologist met me at the room. Oh happy day!!
With my third, I had an epidural at 5 cm, and never really got comfortable. After an hour (and two additions of pain meds to my epidural, one perky nurse had the nerve to tell me it wasn’t pain I was feeling…just pressure. Uh, honey I KNOW what pain feels like, and this is it! They called the doc, who about fell off his stool when he checked and saw that baby was crowning. Yup…he was born less than a minute after that, and the nurses got chewed out for not checking me before allowing more pain meds to be administered. I think if they hadn’t called the doc at that point in time, I may have delivered the baby unassisted 
ek, you had a visiting nurse for a few weeks?? All I got was a stack of handouts, a pack of diapers, and an escort to the car.
I was luckier than California mothers who gave birth a year before I did. At that time, some insurance companies were booting new mothers and their babies out of the hospital 8 hours after an uncomplicated birth. Lawmakers stepped in and required them to pay for a 24-hour stay.
I was talking to my mom just today about her childbirth experiences in the mid 50s. She got to stay in the hospital for a week.
ETA – I see that in 1996, the federal government started requiring insurers to pay for 48 hours (96 for caesarian). Good. Sounds like some women got involved.
I had
At least two of my relatives had to have their babies re-hospitalized under belirubin lights shortly after discharge due to jaundice. This could have been noticed and treated promptly if they hadn’t been wisked out the door right after birth. It was a big hardship for the family to have baby taken back to the hospital so soon after brith.
I believe I was allowed to stay 48 or 60 hours for each of my two kids born in the 80s. I only had to pay for H’s coverall that he was supposed to wear for the delivery that he forgot to wear with S & I made him don for D (#2).
S rarely slept–he was only napping may 30 minutes/day or so from when he came home from the hospital. He and D also flipped over IN THE HOSPITAL and neither kid needed their neck supported, as they would hold their bodies away and look around when they were being held. D slept through the night after 5 weeks! H said we should try for #3, but I said I only have 2 hands, we didn’t yet have the colicky baby, and that H would already have to be working forever, since our kids were born when he was in his 40s.
S was lucky he was born first–I thought he was a good baby when actually folks felt sorry for me because he so rarely slept. He was quite interested in the world around him and rarely cried, as long as he was being held or spoken to.
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ETA – I see that in 1996, the federal government started requiring insurers to pay for 48 hours (96 for caesarian). Good. Sounds like some women got involved.
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Likely!
HImom, jaundice is one problem with early discharge. Another is feeding. Being discharged in 8 hours (or even in 24) means that the baby can’t be checked to be sure it’s swallowing properly, nor can they check to see that the mother is effectively feeding the baby. Getting a tutorial on breastfeeding isn’t a substitute for having a doctor or nurse observe and correct if necessary.
@sryrstress , yes…if I was first time mother and wanna be breastfeeder, I would have given up if dependent on the staff at the bad hospital. I had heard that they weren’t ver supportive and appreciated the heads up ( it was the hospital assigned to us as military dependents in Staten Island in 1990 )
“. I"m still amazed at the things hospitals do that undermine success breastfeeding. At least (at this hospital) they are no longer putting the little bottles of formula on the baby cart, “just in case” and sending home free formula and coupons. I really wish every new mom got her hospital breastfeeding advice from at least one experienced nurse who knew what she was doing regarding this.”
I wanted the lactation consultants to leave me alone and stop pushing their agenda on me when I was already critically ill. When your body has “failed” as mine had (HELLP syndrome at 31 weeks necessitating immediate delivery), the concept that your body produces some magic elixir because “body knows best” has no face validity.
The first year after D1 was born, whenever someone told me they were pregnant I would want to say, “My condolences.” I was always tired between work and taking care of D1.
A friend had twins and was very stressed out. Her mother said to her, “It’s because you don’t drink enough.”
Ironically, it was my mother / mother-in-law’s generation who were the ones encouraging us to hire sitters, get out of the house, have coffee with a friend, etc. That good advice somehow morphed into - oh, you’re not a good mother if you aren’t blissed out by the idea of being physically attached to your baby 24/7. Mental health is important too and there is a grave disservice being done to new mothers these days by the cults of breast feeding at all costs and attachment parenting (one of the most supercilious names ever IMO).
First born–fantastic nurse who really helped with breastfeeding. Just encouraging with lots of tips and a “you’ll get it and so will your kid. You’re both learning.”
Second born–some young nurses who pretended to know things that they had NO clue about. Thank goodness I didn’t have them first. They were concerned I didn’t have milk immediately–fortunately I knew much better and told them the facts. If I hadn’t already “been there, done that” they would have had me a nervous wreck.
I breastfed out in the mall (80s) with first born. I was with a friend and well covered. A security guard came over and told me I couldn’t do that. I told him he could go into the dirty bathrooms and eat. Neither I nor my newborn were going to do that. He was really taken aback and left me alone.
We always say we returned D1 to the hospital (like you return something to a store).
D1 was born when we got to stay 3 days…but the night we took her home, I noticed she was stopping breathing for several seconds, then starting up again. She had been 6 weeks early (as mentioned earlier, H was out of town, cab to hospital),but was good sized (6 lb 8 oz). I called the hospital and got to talk to a resident who said to “watch her” and bring her down in the morning to the clinic at the hospital. “Watch her”? It was 3:30 am, and I gave birth 3 days ago, and I am supposed to “watch her” until 8 am to make sure she keeps breathing? The resident called back at 5 am and said he had spoken to the doctor on call, and to bring her down then. Well… by then everyone was up, and I wanted a shower and breakfast, so we went in at 8 anyway. And… they checked her into the NICU, found she was stopping breathing 100 times/day. Kept her for a week for many tests, then sent her home on a monitor with doses of caffeine to go in a bottle of breast milk or formula. I was SO careful to avoid caffeine during pregnancy, this was quite ironic. She grew out of her apnea problems around her due date.
So even a longer stay does not always detect issues. She was in the nursery for 3 days, and no one noticed she was stopping breathing many times/day. My first lesson in the fact that no one has instincts like a mom when it comes to their kid’s health, and to listen to those instincts.
I agree with that. I think it’s in our DNA.
DH is a WONDERFUL father, but I noticed that he could sleep heavily through the sound of a young child puking in the middle of the night, while I would wake at the first gag. And our bedroom was downstairs, while the children’s were upstairs!
In our house it was the other way around. As an ob-gyn H is trained /. Used to waking at a moment’s notice and being immediately responsive. I’m a deep sleeper (“trained” from ignoring middle of the night phone calls) and if the babies made noise, I would keep sleeping and he’d wake me if he needed help.
We played around with each-of-us-take-one and one-person-take-both and ultimately decided that it was best if one person took both and had their sleep ruined vs having both of us have our sleep partially ruined. Even though I was on mat leave, we split 50/50 - wild horses couldn’t have dragged him away.
“Kept her for a week for many tests, then sent her home on a monitor with doses of caffeine to go in a bottle of breast milk or formula”
Was the drug theophylline?.