I know so many amazing women who have no idea that is exactly what they are, flaming amazing!

Being a Mum can be very hard work, not suggesting for one minute that being a Dad isn't also hard work.  However this is from my point of view, and I am a Mum and not a Dad.  I go from feeling like I am failing at every turn to thinking "I am rocking this" on a daily basis.  The point of all this is a bit of therapy for me, as I have struggled over the last few years, but also hope that someone might not feel as alone as I have at times.  Last year my doctor told me to do things that made me happy and I realised I couldn't think of anything and I certainly never did anything for myself.  This year I feel I have turned a corner and starting think of what to do for myself and how to help myself.  This will keep me strong for my family and especially my child who is my world and inspiration!

Heart & Mind

This year I have really started to look at myself and when things started and I think it was really when my daughter was born. I attempted to breast feed but I really struggled with getting her to latch on, it would then end up us both getting upset.  So I took the view quite early on, when she was just a couple of days old, to start bottle feeding on formula.  It was because I did this that I noticed her feeds dropping off and she was taking less milk, not something I would of necessarily noticed breast feeding.  The guidance from my health visitor was to feed more often, every two hours.  So that is what I ended up doing for months, day and night every two hours.  Also we had developed this little cough which I mentioned to the doctor in our check up, she just said her chest sounded fine.  I remember coming out of this appointment thinking what a waste of time, the doctor wasn't interested in anything I was saying.  So we continued as we were but then her weight dropped before the measure lines, she never actually lost weight due to the way I was feeding her, but she didn't gain the weight as she should.  It was at this point the health visitor referred me to the GP, the GP had already decided to refer us straight on to pediatrics at the hospital by the time we went into see the GP.  I also mentioned the cough again, to be told that she is probably catching one cold after another.  Looking back this assumption was interesting when she is an only child, so no siblings to catch something from, and I was barely going out as I was too shattered feeding every two hours day and night. One of the things that stands out to me was being made to feel like a neurotic first time mum and being told she is just a small feeder.  I kept saying to my husband this can't be just a small feeder, something is not right

 

We went to see the doctor at the hospital who prescribed her high energy formula to try and get her gaining weight.  In the meantime this little cough continued, so yet again I spoke with GPs and managed to get an appointment with a locum.  I remember this date, 14th February 2018.  This doctor was brilliant and knowing what I know now, was the only one concerned about the right thing at this point in time.  This doctor was concerned at the way she was getting a dip at the bottom of her neck through drawing breath, like she was having trouble breathing.  She got on the phone to the hospital and made them aware we were coming, gave us a letter to hand in, and off we went to the hospital.  The hospital wanted to send an ambulance for us but the GP said it was not needed, but told us if she did get worse in the car to park up and phone an ambulance.

 

We arrive at the hospital, give our letter in and see a nurse for triage quite quickly.  To the nurse we explained about the feeding issues and that she was under pediatrics at that same hospital for it, then explained why we were there this evening.  we went back to the waiting room and we waited, and waited and waited.  Eventually we were called in by a doctor and we went through everything with him again as we had the nurse.  After examining her he, in a polite way, told us we had wasted their time as it wasn't bronchiolitis, which I never thought for one minute it was.  To put some context to this, we are currently in February and I first mentioned the cough in early December!

 

Then our next visit to the pediatrician resulted in him wanting our daughter in for a day to run some tests, when we got home this was all arranged.  By this time it is March and our daughter is about 20 weeks old and tiny, no meat on her at all, and off we go for our day in the hospital.  Only when we get there and settle her into a cot, our doctor informs us he wants us in overnight, so my husband had to go home and get me some essentials to see me through the night.  Nothing happened that day, but that night I sat upright next to her cot in the chair, as didn't want to get too comfortable.  The next day the tests started and it was horrible, blood tests, heat patch test, scans and all sorts.  I felt like shouting "leave her alone she is only tiny" but I knew it was all to help her so I stayed silent and felt completely helpless.  Cardiology came along to do their scan and the questions I was being asked, I knew they had found something.  Sure enough the Cardiologist came to speak with us about the results and took us off to a different room.  I have watched enough drama on tv to know this is not a great sign.  So turns out the feeding issues and the cough were all due to a 1cm hole in her heart!  It felt like the floor had been removed from under my feet and that I was looking at the doctor from the end of a very long tunnel.  So she was put onto an NG tube and wasn't allowed a bottle as it was making her heart work too hard, due to the hole her lungs were also very wet :-(  So our visit to the hospital that day went from a day to overnight, to us leaving 2 weeks later. 

 

Everything during this time felt like a battle, a battle to get someone to stop writing me off as being just a first time mum and listen to me.  Battle to get her to feed, it was so hard to get her to stay awake to drink enough milk.  Battle to stay awake while she was on the feeding pump at 2 am.  Then it was a fight to get her off the NG tube.  She wouldn't take the bottle after her surgery so we came home from hospital still with an NG tube.  I hated the tube feeding, before her surgery I found it really stressful as I was terrified she would pull the tube out.  When we were home and I got back to weening, unlike before when she couldn't gobble the food quick enough (I started early weening at 4 months due to her feeding issues), she refused to eat.  So I kept telling the the dietitian at the hospital that I felt the NG tube was in fact holding her back from weening.  After many emails I got them to agree to remove the tube to trial her, I even had to prove this was the agreement to the district nurse before she would remove the tube.  That evening my daughter gobbled down her food and asked for more, she started drinking from her bottle again.

 

So one thing I have learned and the advise I give anyone, you know your child and they don't.  They can go by training and experience but they don't know your child.

 

All this I believe is when some of my own problems started without me really realising it.  I certainly felt my husband could of helped me more at a weekend during this time, I didn't get the chance to try and get any extra sleep.  he rarely took over and never offered to take her so I could go for some sleep.  By the time she went into hospital for her surgery I hadn't slept in a bed for a couple of months, as due to her feeding, it was easier to sleep downstairs on the sofa.  If her surgery had been delayed I am not sure what I would of done, as I was already running on the last of my reserves, I was told I looked ill myself.

 

Just started to feel like it was one thing after another, when I returned to work I thought I was returning to a promotion, as this is what I had been told prior to my maternity leave.  However upon my return I found out that was not the case, that the job was going to someone else and the person who had told me I would be promoted even said they had never promised it.  It was all said to keep the current manager in the role (as they were retiring) until I returned from maternity, there was never the intention to promote me.  In the meantime a job came up in another department that would of put me slightly above the job I had been doing.  The manager of that department wanted me for the job, so I moved departments.  All while this is going on my husband was working quite far away from home, so was having to leave 5.30am, so I was dropping our daughter off at grandparents and picking up as he wasn't getting home until about 5.30pm (I don't drive so it was a fair bit of walking).  During these early months back at work I was too tired to even cook for my husband and myself, we lived off microwave dinners. This was a really tough time for our family.  The problem is my husband was understandably shattered but was sleeping in both days on a weekend, and I wasn't getting a chance to recharge.  Our daughter, every night, would wake more than once, to the point some days I was working on 3 hours sleep.  I was really struggling to learn my new role and in the end had to tell my husband I needed just one night of at least 8 hours sleep or I was in danger of losing my job as I was struggling to learn the role as I was so tired. 

 

We still do this now, he get's Saturday mornings and I get Sunday mornings.  Doesn't always work out too well but for the most part it does.