Family Forum / Pregnancy / Breastfeeding / November 2005

G'day

haha. As attractive as that sounds to me, it's not clear I would still
be alive if this all happened at home.

Well I'm not dead yet. They estimate a blood loss of 1.5 L.

A lot of numbers ran past me while I was in the hospital. It is true
that they would quote me the "H&H" numbers (Hemocrit and Haemoglobin)
each time and I maybe haven't kept them clear in my head, but I thought
I had got it the right way around. I checked on the web to see what
"normal" values should be and based on that and what I remember (which
can indeed be questionable, other than I KNOW the final number was
6.something).

The "H" reading I am remembering was up at 42 before birth, plunged to
around 20 at some point during the fuss, was watched with some
consternation as it went down and down and though I thought that the
last down reading (6.4 I think) was lower than the previous one (6.5),
my OB was happy that it leveled out. Although various numbers looked bad
- clinically I was not getting dizzy, light headed, pulse racing, I was
good colour, my milk supply seemed unaffected, etc. So they let me go
home as long as I promised to behave, live on fluids and iron
supplements, liver and spinach, and not move off my sofa for weeks.

Over the course of several days I would take two steps forward, one back
so to speak. As soon as one test was passed I would be ok for a while
then something else would go wrong. I can't tell you how many times that
the outcome of the next test would have decided whether or not to do a
tranfusion. By the time I finally was given a get out of hospital free
pass, then Madeleina had the bad bilirubin test. Sigh. I'm so glad we
are out, but I'm really tired still..

Thanks. I think it's going to take some time.

DrRuth

PS. I just spoke to my doula and got it sorted out. The problem was that
the attending OB during the delivery and ensuing dramas was new school
and talked in Hemocrit numbers (hence the 42) and my OB who is a little
older and saw me over the following days of observation in the hospital
talked in Haemoglobin. Now it all makes sense. Whatever the numbers I'm
not in great shape.

*following a largish PPH, so I know how that feels, but I'm not completely
*convinced one can live with a haematocrit of 6%...

I've seen breathing, conscious puppies and kittens with hematocrits of
6ish... damn fleas.

G'day

One of the first things he said to me: "See I knew she was a girl mummy!"

We just couldn't not use it when it came time. It has grown on me over
the months. He actually doesn't like her first name because he had
already decided her name would be Eliza (from the book Hello Baby), so
we've told him that her official nickname is Eliza, and he can call her
Eliza or Venus, and one day he might call her Leina, or Madeleina,
because that's the name she picked for herself.

Thanks. Despite all the stuff I've been through in the past few days I
just have been so over the moon that the birth was everything I wanted
it to be (just a little faster than was necessary).

DrRuth

G'day

Amanda wrote:

Totally! So far every interaction between them has been so loving and
beautiful. This morning I was in the bathroom and heard Madeleina wake
up and start making cute baby noises. About five minutes later I hear
Josh.. "Good morning Venus - it's your big brother Joshua." and then
lots of quiet little talking about having a good sleep and nice dreams
and all that stuff. Very very cute.

DrRuth

Congrats, Ruth!  I hope you're feeling yourself very soon.

Your DD has a beautiful name.  It's so sweet you could allow DS to partly
name her.

-Patty, mom of 1+2

G'day

When we told my son that my embryo was now a fetus, my husband told him
that we used to call him "Cletus the fetus" before he was born. DS asked
what was the name of this new fetus. DH suggested that DS name it. I
held my breath because DS has done some pretty interesting naming in the
past - three of his fish are named PlantBed, Fence and Sank. And then DS
announced that her name was Venus the Fetus.

He knew about planet names. He had no idea this was actually a real
girl's name. I told him that was beautiful, but in my head thought
although it's a great fetus name, I'd never actually use that as a real
name.

Josh talked to Venus every day. I spent a lot of time, especially in the
last few months gently reminding him that Venus might be a boy, which he
would counter by talking to my belly "Venus, it's your big brother
Joshua, do you have a penis?" <waits, listening> "No mummy she says
there is no penis in there." He had me converted and I called my fetus
Venus and referred to it as feminine for the first 8 months or so, but
then switched to calling it male for the last month to get myself used
to that possibility. I worried about possible tantrums at the moment of
birth if I had DS there (which I wanted) but if Venus was a boy.

I had a girl. It was so fast that DS wasn't there. I was in surgery and
missed the first meeting of DS and DD, but when he saw me for the first
time, he said "See I was right all the time mummy".

We took the full TX allowance of five days to name her, spending a lot
of that time dealing with my complications. I called her Venus and
MissyMoo an awful lot. By naming time we couldn't ignore the name Venus.
I originally thought that only a particular sort of woman who was very
strong could carry off that name. I decided that my daughter could very
well be that woman, and now she has the choice whether to use that name
or not.

I call her Venus most of the time now. DS does too because he actually
is mad that we didn't name her "eliza" (like they do in the book Hello
Baby), but my husband just thinks of the biochemistry ELISA test when he
hears that name.

Madeleina was the name on our short list of girl names that seemed to
fit her the best. We chose the spelling over Madelena, to guide
pronounciation (Lay-na, not Leena), and because we prefer the nickname
Leina to Maddy.

DrRuth