PostPartum Infection
I thought my hospital days were behind me after delivering my first baby. Little did I realise.. just a few weeks later when it all went badly wrong.
Again, these are journal entries from the time, with comments added by me now in italics.
WARNING – CONTAINS GRAPHIC MEDICAL DETAIL
October 1st 2006
[snip part about lovely wedding we went to, with Bethan just 10 days old!]
Now the crap bit – after I got home I started feeling a bit weird and my temperature was all over the place. As the night wore on, I felt rougher and rougher, and this morning my temperature is 101F (it’s normally quite low at 97F). I feel like shit. My appetite has vanished, which normally would be great from a lose-weight point of view, but I have a small creature to feed. I’m really worried I’m going to give something to the baby, or, that an infection has set in from my war wound. Has anyone else got a temperature or similar at the moment – i.e. is there something bad going around?
Why now? I haven’t had a fever for nearly two years!
October 2nd 2006
Normally, my temperature is 36 celsius (97F or so). Today, it is 39C (102.2F).
Because the little one won’t sleep in her crib, for the last few days we’ve had her in the bed next to me and she sleeps really well. However, with a fever, this is a Bad Idea. It goes without saying she still screamed the place down in her crib last night, so Steve had the fun job of staying awake all night with her downstairs (only way she would shut up) whilst I vaguely hoped a good night’s sleep (with a few breaks to feed her) would help with my fever. Steve is now dead to the world too, along with me. Baby is fine and thriving, naturally, and UTIs aren’t catching so she can’t understand why we’re both zombies.
So I was too sick to even drive to the midwife appointment this morning (I can barely stand up) so we got a taxi there. I took along a urine sample, and sure enough it was as I suspected (and what I’d gone to see my GP about last week, but it came back clear then) – I have a UTI. And the baby shat everywhere. The midwife (same one who turned up when I was in labour – she must hate me as I’m so difficult!) managed to get me a GP appointment, but not before little one woke up and wanted feeding, so I had to feed her in the waiting room. Which would have been fine if some awful man hadn’t stared at me – I glared back and eventually he looked away. I was as covered up as I could be, but, well, y’know. I’m sure they’d rather that than the screeching she’d been doing.
So I saw the GP and she was training for some post-grad qualification so she videoed the whole thing (don’t ask) – anyway, I got some antibiotics so I hope they sodding work. The GP asked me if I was medical because I kept talking in medical terms but I said no, I just like reading stuff. I think she was put out I’d self-diagnosed or something! However, she wasn’t funny about it – and she said it was always good to be informed 
Given her next patient kept hammering on the door wanting to be seen, I suspect she’d prefer me!
On the plus side, baby finally weighs more than when she was born – she had lost nearly 10% of her body weight (totally normal, but still) at her weigh-in last week, but now she’s 2.5oz heavier – 3470g or 7lb 10.5oz. Must be doing it right then. She’s 2 weeks old today.
October 3rd 2006
Things were going so well. And then I got ill. The sickest I’ve been in terms of temperature since I had a touch of bronchitis not long after moving to London. I nearly got to 40C last night (39.6C – 103.3F) and spent a lot of time shivering very violently (body now aches all over as a result), sweating buckets, and having an aching stomach as I haven’t been able to eat much since Saturday beyond the pills I need to take. I mean, I needed to lose weight but not this way, and not this way whilst breastfeeding.
Under normal circumstances with no baby, Steve could spoil me. However baby does not allow this as she’ll only sleep alongside me – otherwise she screams the place down. And yes, we’ve tried everything for now. Steve *had* to sleep last night (he hadn’t the previous night so I could sleep) so I had to stay awake all night with her and a raging fever. For 2 hours (and a further 2 hours on and off later on) she made like she wanted feeding, would start and then stop after 10 seconds, screaming. All I can think is that I was too hot (or my milk was) for her. This sort of behaviour would be exhausting anyway under normal conditions. It wasn’t like I was all caught up with my sleep or anything.
Steve got up to go to the loo and I said her feet were uncovered so he brought me a used sanitary towel [not too bad fortunately!!] (I have no idea where he found this!) and put it on my clock. This is the state Steve was in due to sleep deprivation, so you can see why he wasn’t able to be looking after us. He claimed he thought I’d said her nappy needed changing but the words don’t sound remotely alike and anyway, last I checked used sanitary towels don’t look like clean nappies and aren’t stored in the same place! I’m assuming he went to the loo in the right place..!
I finally got to sleep around 4am when she eventually decided to be quiet after drastic measures. Basically I took ibuprofen (not recommended for breastfeeding, but the paracetamol wasn’t doing a great job at this point and the doctor said I could if that was the case) to get the fever down enough so she could sleep with me and therefore finally put a sock in it!
Sod’s law she’s going through a growth spurt or something at the moment as she seems to need 30 minute feeds every 2 hours, as opposed to her usual 3-6 hours depending on the phase of the moon/the weather in Afghanistan/Chris Evans’ current colour of toilet roll etc.
Steve got enough sleep by 10am to take her off my hands, so I got 2 hours of peace. Currently between waves of fever and she needed feeding, so that’s why I’m at the computer. She is sat on my lap, post-feed, snoozing and looking as angelic as always. I certainly don’t blame her, nor are we cross with her as it’s not her fault I’m sick. If I wasn’t we could take better care of her, but I think we need three of us if I’m out for the count.
Goodness knows what single parents would do in this situation – I dread to think 
I still think she’s more than worth it though – this infection is just bad luck.
October 6th 2006
[WARNING - AN EXTREMELY GRAPHIC MEDICAL PART COMING UP.. YOU MAY WISH TO SCROLL DOWN]
As you may have known, I had a rather nasty fever from Saturday night onwards. It reached 103F at times, and it was not pleasant. There was a severe lack of sleep all round as we couldn’t let the little one in the bed with me as I was hallucinating occasionally, so she’d scream the place down. Mind you, Steve soon started hallucinating too through lack of sleep so altogether we were all a bit of a mess.
********* THE TMI BIT ************
To cut a long story short, I started passing a lot of huge clots and blood – so much so that I was seeing stars and almost blacking out.
************ END TMI ****************
In short, the baby had left her womb untidy and bits (not of baby, hopefully!) were left behind, probably bits of placenta. I recall them saying it seemed to be taking a long time to come out after I’d had the magic injection in labour and then the midwife tugging on it, so I guess it makes sense. Although it looked fine in that photo to me!! I did have a UTI, but only a very mild one – it wasn’t behind the fever I am sure now. [I later found out as I had precipitous labour, I should never have been offered that injection as this happening is one of the risks]
Still, I am a stubborn cow. This is the same stupid person who refused to believe they were in labour (or at least, refused to do anything about it other than lie down) for a good 30 minutes until an actual midwife turned up, examined me and told me she could feel the baby’s head and I was about to deliver. So, I lay on the bed, moaning a bit in pain, Steve getting annoyed as he wanted to go to bed, and every half hour getting up to change the pad. I also noticed that the stupid fever had suddenly stopped – hurrah!!
After 6 pads I reluctantly told a cross Steve that I should perhaps ring the delivery suite which is what I was supposed to do should this happen. I rang them, and they told me to call a nee-naw and come in right away. I just sat there for 5 minutes and looked really, really unhappy. Steve got cross as he was really, really tired and then finally suggested we all get a taxi given he couldn’t go in the nee-naw anyway, and last time it took 25 minutes to arrive and anyhow, I was still able to walk and somebody else who might need a nee-naw might not be able to.
So we get a taxi. Dude drives like a lunatic in a stale-smoke filled cab. We get to A&E – I am well flaked out by now. I tell the ladies behind the desk my tale and proudly told them I did not call an ambulance to which they called me stupid. I dunno, I have always had a phobia of ringing any emergency service, and this was long before I had a fear of Suzi telling me off! I think they drummed it into me too much at school over wasting their time or something.
So I sat in A&E, they triaged me, stole even more blood and said a gynaecologist would be along “shortly”. “Shortly” turned out to be half an hour, and as I could no longer lie down, my head started lolling and before long I couldn’t stay upright, I was passing out and had gone white as a sheet. Steve stroppily asked the front desk if they could do something given I was about to drop dead in their filthy waiting area or similar. Baby desperately wants a feed, having had real trouble given my dehydration earlier in the evening, so she starts crying.
A nurse appears and I flop onto a wheelchair and get sent into a special room and told to change into sexy hospital wear. The female doctor appeared and decided to give me a most excrutiating internal examination. ANYHOW, she says I have to go on a drip and have antibiotics and saline and stuff. Baby screams the place down a bit more.
Eventually they let me feed her and silence reigns. Then they drag me up to the maternity ward (oh no, not back there..) and by this point it has to be gone 3am. Then everyone disappears leaving me and Steve and baby in a shared bay with three sleeping women. What are we supposed to do? We have no idea. Are those people coming back? I desperately needed the toilet to change my pad so I had to leave Steve and the baby for a few minutes, and she screamed and woke everyone up of course. The bleeding slowed down quite considerably by this point, and aside from dehydration I actually felt quite fine and my fever was all gone for good and stuff. The fever must have been directly related to the stuff left behind, and not the UTI after all – I’d never had a fever with a UTI before which I had told anyone who’d listen on Monday at the GPs, but hey.[As I later found out, any sign of a fever in the two weeks following childbirth should be taken extremely seriously - I hope that "doctor" shows the video of what happened and gets disciplined]
Can’t quite remember what happened next, but in between feeding the little one I think a midwife appeared and set up the drip and stuff. Steve went home, and I spent the next 2.5 hours feeding a very hungry little girl who obviously had to stay with me for the duration as I am her luxury restaurant. Finally she went to sleep for about 20 minutes in her NHS-issue cot.. before waking up and grizzling because she wasn’t being cuddled by mummy. Again. Thus, I put her in the bed with me and the midwife appeared and got all cross but I said it was that or screaming the place down to which she said she was spoilt. Um, as if we haven’t *tried* to get her to sleep somewhere else – in fact we spent her whole first week trying that! It’s just the way she is – when she is a little older we’ll try again but a hospital is not the time or place to attempt it!
So I got an hour’s sleep (hurrah!) and the next morning revealed my bay-mates. Three ladies (one with a baby, two pregnant). However, they were all nice people, and once they met me I think they weren’t cross with me over the baby. Then their tales of NHS woe emerged:
Lady 1 had been admitted in a surprise over high blood pressure and as a result had no cash on her. After three days, she picked the morning I arrived to clear off down to Woolwich town centre to get some cash out and buy essentials like a toothbrush and nightwear and so on as honestly – *nothing* is provided. We all had to pretend she was just “elsewhere” on the ward as nobody was really allowed out!
Lady 2 had recently given birth. How nice, I thought. Then I found out she’d given birth the night before in that very bed.. i.e. not the delivery suite. And she’d done so after screaming in pain for most of the night, the midwife ignoring her and telling her to shut up, and if it wasn’t for the third lady checking on her and seeing the baby’s head hanging out, who knows what might have happened? Anyhow, she wasn’t supposed to still be there, but the doctors hadn’t got around to seeing her the day before I arrived, so she walked out in disgust the morning I was there.
The third lady had been admitted on Friday with a bad headache. She’d sat in that bed for 3 days before they decided to give her an MRI scan. Then they wanted to send the results off somewhere else, but that took them 24 hours to do. She had two kids at home who desperately missed her, and they just wouldn’t let her go. She was all set to just walk out but a bunch of consultants begged her to stay. We got quite friendly over the few days we were there and had quite a few rants over the state of things, and she gave me a bunch of trashy magazines too which was excellent! I believe they finally let her go this morning – a week after she arrived.
Anyhow, I eventually got a scan in the afternoon – very weird having an ultrasound and no baby in there! The scan revealed there were a few tiny bits and pieces left (well, I assume so, given they never offered me an operation) and I was sent back to the ward for the doctors to look at it all. Said doctors did not do so until lunchtime the next day, ha ha. So, another night on the ward. Baby was well behaved though and the next morning everyone said so. Everyone admired her too – but then they were all pregnant!
So the next morning the doctors said I had to stay another night for observation (ARGHH!) and then hopefully I could go the next day (today). At about 5pm they suddenly and randomly moved me to another bay as I’d been on an antenatal bay and not a postnatal one. I suddenly realised what that meant, given the bay opposite had been vibrating from screaming babies the night before. They’d all had c-sections, and with their partners sent home, there was nobody to hand them their babies when they cried. There were only three midwives for 36 beds during the day, and I think only one at night. You get the idea.
At this time we bumped into a couple from our antenatal class who were due two weeks ahead of us and were planning a homebirth. Poor lady is now still stuck at QEH having had a c-section after going over 2 weeks overdue. Not what she had planned either.
So, at first my new bay was empty. Little one decided she wanted to feed constantly until about 3:30am, then she went to sleep, just as a sobbing woman with a retained placenta immediately post-birth (they’d given her an epidural and tried to get it out, but it was stuck on so they wanted her to stay in for ages, although she thinks they just couldn’t be arsed as they wanted to go home) who desperately wanted to go home. Then some noisy sods arrived for elective c-sections and talked really loudly from 6:30am, so no sleep for me.
Finally they started letting me have oral antibiotics instead of the drip, so I ate them on an empty stomach (could not handle the hospital food any longer) and that made me feel sick. I did not tell the doctors for fear of being kept in FOREVER and EVER. Nor did I tell them about my cracking headache caused entirely from lack of sleep, lack of water (could not leave baby screaming whilst I got more water) and stupid pillows as they’d keep me in longer for that too. Anyhow, doctor said I could go once the paperwork was sorted out, probably by lunchtime.
At 2:30pm there was no sign of this despite us nagging, and when visitors to the noisy families started arriving and screaming the place down, I lost it and told them I was going home as there was no medical reason to keep me. This seems to flag up action stations in this place and almost immediately I got my prescription and discharge papers and we ran away thank god.
Throughout all of this Steve was there for all the visiting hours (and then some) but as we kept thinking I was going to be going home soon, I never asked him to bring anything else in. So I had a dirty food-stained nightie (only thing I could find in a hurry as we’d left on Tuesday evening) and cereal bars to supplement the hospital food that is as bad as the cliche.
It goes without saying the hospital computers were broken for most of the stay so no blood test results ever showed up.
The whole experience left me feeling very sad. There were some great midwives and other staff there, working very hard to get things done as best they could for people, but stretched so thinly it was impossible for them to do that. There were complete fabrications of things I’d said written on my notes, which scared me – no doubt caused by overwork. Some staff were rude, but most did their best. There were no “things” available like towels or even blankets. In fact I had no pillowcases until I asked for some, and it took a while before I had a blanket instead of a sheet. They didn’t automatically give you new pads or nappies – you had to ask for them and have a special case. Everything was run as cheaply as possible – the barest, barest minimum. My bed was never changed, and nor was the bed of the girl who’d been there since Friday. There were no extra pillows available, hence my headache and backache. My bed even had a tag on it saying “defective, requires repair” and was dated 9th June.
They did swab me for MRSA though.. heh. Bet I get that now *sigh*
I’d read about how bad things had got with the NHS but I honestly thought this was just a few bad stories that you hear about. But no, it’s the standard or so it seems to me. This hospital is 5 years old with shiny new equipment and some fantastic staff but the service they deliver is so poor entirely because they are chronically in debt and have to penny pinch everywhere.
Next time I think it will probably be easier to quietly bleed to death at home.
In summary: An adventure I could have probably done without, but will provide excellent anecdotes in social situations for years to come over the whole State of Our Hospitals!
Plus, I am fine, albeit shockingly sleep-deprived and really rather hungry, y’know? And it makes being at home with a newborn seem like a walk in the park after the last week of either fever or hospital.
All was quiet on the drama front then for almost another year, when we decided to start trying for a sibling. Here’s what happened..
