So where did we go then? I think, almost immediately after the placenta was delivered I had acute abdominal pain, and [sighs] it was so, it was so bad that I actually couldn’t hold [first daughter] on my, I couldn’t have her touching me anywhere near my stomach and I just assumed that that was normal to feel like that. That that was, that was what you felt like after you’d had a natural birth or anything, delivered a baby, that you’d sort of suffer pain. And it was really uncomfortable. And I felt really sad that this whole sort of moment was supposed to be joyous when you know, when your baby is born, and it was, believe me, in the water, I didn’t, I don’t remember, it was after I’d been taken out of the water and delivered the placenta that I started to feel the pain.
And I was thoroughly irritated by it, because I really wanted to bond with my baby and sort of feel good about everything, but I was in so much pain, and I mentioned it to the midwives and I was told categorically by the midwife who at that stage had taken over, to dry my eyes, I had just given birth and it was supposed to feel like that. So nothing was done about it.
I wondered whether it was may be something to do with my Crohn’s. I kept thinking it was something to do with my bowel, because it felt like it was in that area and I wondered if my bowel had been so contorted by the pregnancy that now it was all sort of starting to go back into place, sort of arranging itself back to where it should have been, post-delivery, that that was what was causing the pain. So I kept assuming it was that. And I may be even mentioned that to a few of the staff on duty that I had these pains and that I wondered if that was may be what it was, but nothing was done about it, so nobody investigated it. And I subsequent to that I think that it may have been that my uterus had gone into some sort of spasm because it was trying to contract down but there was still bits of placenta left behind. I just don’t know. But all I can say is that I was in agony. And that [husband] my husband, had to hold [first daughter] for quite a lot of that early bonding process because I was in too much pain.
Three weeks plus two days later, I think that three weeks and two days later I went to the GP’s surgery and the emergency surgery and waited around for several hours to see the GP and when I went in and explained my situation, he said, “You’ve just had a baby. You’re having acute abdominal pain. It could be appendicitis. It does sound like it could be…” Sorry I should mention as well I had a high fever. So my temperature was spiking and it had been all weekend. And the antibiotics that had been prescribed that weekend weren’t bringing it down. He said, “I’m a bit concerned that it might be something else going on. I’m going to get you admitted to A & E.” He said, “I would call an ambulance, because I think it’s that serious, but I think it’s probably quicker if you husband drives you. But I will have, I will fax this information through to them so that someone is there to deal with you as soon you get there.”
So my husband drove me to [local hospital] A & E and sure enough they had received the information about me and they did attend to me immediately. And very well. So I had, I think various doctors came to see me. The accident and emergency doctors came to take the history, and within about half an hour of that a gynaecologist was by my bedside and they were going through the options of what could possibly be wrong, but obviously one of the main concerns was that there might be retained products and that’s what they were going to sort of… They were going to do a test, they were going to do a scan