The story of pip

With my first, I struggled through pregnancy; bad morning sickness, raging hormones (poor Mr p), although don’t feel too bad for him, he jokingly retched once which he found funny until I was actually sick, luckily for him I never strayed far from my sick bowl! We found out the sex with Sophie as at our first scan we were told she could have down syndrome and after all the bloods the odds were still borderline so we had to go for a very detailed scan across to the mainland.

At that scan, every detail was checked, the heart chambers, ventricles, arteries, valves, flow of the veins, everything in the abdomen, spinal column and the face even seeing the tiny folds of pips brain. It was fascinating that this highly detailed baby was being grown by my body without even thinking about it. Then the senior sonographer asked us if we wanted to find out, Mr P and I looked at each other both answering yes and we found out pip was a girl.

As we walked to the car, paying for our ticket I just broke down and cried, the last 5 months of uncertainty and worry pouring its way down my cheeks. Relief washing over me that my little pip was healthy. That is my one wish for my family that they are happy and healthy because ultimately that is all that matters.

Pips due date approached and we were so excited to meet her and that evening after a long walk, my waters trickled a little and at 3am when I could hold out no longer, we made our journey to hospital. After pushing for what felt like forever, she was born just after midday. She was handed to me after Mr P cut the cord and I gave her a feed to which she took to like a duck to water, then handed to Mr P for a cuddle whilst I was whizzed to surgery to repair my tear (I was given a spinal though so for the next day I was blissfully unaware.)

We had settled into our new roles well and then the colic hit big time. Looking back, now, I can see that I could have winded her more effectively or got her latch on better but then as a first time mum you feel like if you ask for help all the time then you are failing.

It lasted up to 15 weeks old and although I had infacol and gripe water and tried a dairy free diet she still suffered as did we. One day, as we were travelling to the mainland in our sleep deprived state, I said to my husband that I felt I hadn’t bonded with her. All she seemed to do was scream at me and I felt helpless when I tried to do anything. Thinking back to this, I felt terrible but also remember how those nights were.

After that episode, she thrived and I ended up feeding her exclusively for a year and nightly until 18 months.

This is one of my proudest achievements.

N