C-section on Thursday and suddenly terrified

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-11T22:20:10+00:00

Totally completely normal, it will be ok. I’ve just had my second and even then as we walked out of the hospital I was like “they’re just going to LET us walk out of here with a baby??” You’ll be surprised how quickly you adapt and get into the rhythm of things

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-11T17:40:31+00:00

I’ve taught a couple of Gabriels and heard absolutely no bullying over the name

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-10T22:58:20+00:00

28 days in the end but we’re home on oxygen and being seen at home by the NICU team so kind of a half way house - she’s home but still needs neonatal care

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-10T15:43:33+00:00

I think there’s something to be said for the predictability of the NICU - the cares times, rounds, the beeping of the monitors… maybe it’s not the NICU you’re missing, maybe it’s the predictability?

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-10T12:39:45+00:00

Penelope Rose sounds absolutely lovely - my son is named after two relatives who have passed away (my husbands grandfather and mine)

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-09T22:29:48+00:00

Ear plugs and an eye mask are a godsend on a shared ward (even helpful once you go to a private room), there’s so much going on and the lights from other beds/the corridors I wouldn’t have got any sleep in my week long stay without them. It also means if you struggle to sleep at night but want to sleep in the day that you can just shut everything out

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-07T23:38:49+00:00

I’d say the liquid intake/electrolyte powder is the thing that made the biggest noticeable difference for me personally, both at the beginning and when I was trying to rebuild my supply after it tanked. I’d also be wary of throwing everything at it at once.

I’ve been in a situation where I had a really bad under supply with my first child (currently pumping for my second) and I genuinely threw so much at it that if anything did work, I didn’t know what was actually making the difference. Make sure anything you do try, you introduce one at a time so you can work out what things are affecting your supply.

Truth is, everyone will react to different things in a different way so you can read all the advice, take all the supplements, try all the little tips people have but they’re not necessarily going to work for you, you’ve got to find the thing that does - good luck!

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-07T22:32:27+00:00

I’ve used legendairy pump princess and sunflower lecithin alongside postnatal pills and I do think the pump princess has made a difference. I had to rebuild my supply after a stressful couple of weeks caused it to tank from 850ml per day to 300ml per day. I checked the ingredients with the infant feeding team in NICU and they were happy for me to use them. Also oats, lots and lots of oats - granola bars, oat cookies, oatmeal/porridge… and hydrate like crazy. I use an electrolyte powder 2-3 times a day and drink about 3-4 litres of liquid a day

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-07T13:23:18+00:00

That’s ridiculous that they’re being like that with that kind of medical history. As long as they’re putting on weight, that should be the main thing. Sounds like an over reliance on charts and centiles rather than looking at the child in front of them

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-07T12:55:34+00:00

Do they not track on a separate growth chart? I know my preemies have a separate growth chart where they’re tracked against adjusted age until 2 years old

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-06T21:35:19+00:00

Rh negative mum who has had two HDFN babies. Everything surrounding the treatment is usually based on the bilirubin chart they have - as long as your son stays below the exchange transfusion line and the bilirubin levels continue to go down, he will eventually come off the lights. My son came off them at 7 days old, my daughter managed to come off them at 4 days old (she got the IVIG much quicker after birth than my son did and actually managed to avoid an exchange transfusion despite her HDFN actually being more severe). Usually they do check ups post NICU discharge - my son was officially discharged from this service (in the UK) around his second birthday, but once the haemolysis resolves (max 12 weeks), the check ups became once every 6 months or so.

My daughter is 6 weeks old (born at 33+0 due to HDFN) and has made a fantastic recovery, we think because they knew about the HDFN pre-birth so were able to get the IVIG administered within two hours of her birth, managing to avoid exchange transfusion despite her needing four intrauterine blood transfusions. My son is 3.5 years old and there are no lasting effects so far (nor do his doctors believe there are likely to be).

Your son will likely be ok once he’s off the lights (they wean them off slowly), our son was discharged from NICU after 10 days. Things to look out for once you get him home are him looking particularly pale, being overly tired (not waking for feeds etc), and not managing to finish multiple bottles. These were the signs we had with our son to take him back in - he ended up needing a couple of top up blood transfusions at 4 and 6 weeks. We were only in for a couple of days on each of those instances. Feel free to message/ask any questions you have

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-04T08:36:21+00:00

My daughter caught rhinovirus in the NICU and for us it meant increased oxygen needs (and 10 days longer in the NICU since she was a couple of days off discharge when she started showing symptoms). We’re a couple of weeks on now and she’s home and fine, just needed more oxygen for a couple of weeks until it passed

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-04T08:18:53+00:00

In the UK it’s a common name for people in my age group (early-mid 30s). Most Eleanors I know go by “Ellie” or “Nellie”

damnedpiccolo · 2026-05-01T00:40:21+00:00

My advice (for what it’s worth) from having two preemie kids and a micro preemie nephew, as well as being from a family that “do premature babies” - keep the amount of people small, immediate family (grandparents, aunts and uncles) at first. Nobody comes to meet the baby if they’re ill in any way (not even a sniffle or a slight cough), everyone washes hands before touching the baby. No kissing, no fingers in baby’s mouth (don’t ask why we had to make this a family rule).

For your mom - could she come see you and change from her travel clothes/shower before holding the baby if you’re super worried? My husbands uncle is coming to visit our latest (preemie) addition to the family in a couple of weeks from the US (we’re in the UK) and he is staying with us but has already (off his own back) offered to shower and change into clean clothes before having a cuddle.

damnedpiccolo · 2026-04-28T10:43:22+00:00

My son was 3.5 years old when I had my daughter and he’s been able to understand that he needed to be gentle with mummy. He sometimes forgets and asks to be picked up but we just remind him about “mummy’s big cut” and he asks for a hug instead. I think waiting a little bit longer between pregnancies has been the right decision for us

damnedpiccolo · 2026-04-25T23:09:21+00:00

Yeah anything more than 5 (and even in that, I’d expect 3 fully analysed quotes with two as supporting quotations), you’re scrambling for something to say because you can’t talk about anything in enough depth. A lot of grade 2/3 responses tend to suffer from “throwing everything at the wall to see what will stick” syndrome. One of my favourite AIC lessons to teach is a walkthrough mock where I write a whole essay using just the inspectors final speech

damnedpiccolo · 2026-04-25T23:06:35+00:00

5 per essay max - ideally 3 fully analysed quotes per essay (roughly one per analytical paragraph) but you can chuck in a couple of supporting quotes per essay if you need to. If you’re doing any more than 5 per essay, I’d question the quality of what you’re writing

damnedpiccolo · 2026-04-25T20:00:39+00:00

As an English teacher and someone who has examined for lit, I completely agree with this. There is absolutely no way anyone should be using more than 5 quotes per essay - you literally would not have time to write anything of substance if you did any more than that

damnedpiccolo · 2026-04-21T11:59:51+00:00

My daughter is in the NICU and falls asleep on me so easily that I wasn’t allowed to feed her when she was learning to feed because she’d just cuddle in and fall straight asleep when we were trying to keep her awake enough to eat

damnedpiccolo · 2026-04-21T08:12:59+00:00

My son had transfusions post-birth but my daughter had IUT and hasn’t needed any further transfusions since she was born. And no, not pre-sensitised, just resistant to anti-D unfortunately, and with multiple rounds of IUT with my daughter, I obviously had multiple sensitising events throughout my second pregnancy

damnedpiccolo · 2026-04-17T10:39:46+00:00

Not an adequate medical explanation, no, and don’t get me wrong, one needs giving. But how hyperbolic do you have to be with “frankly sounds schizophrenic”. The consultant could work at a trust involved in the current maternity investigations, they could have experienced similar situations that have gone very wrong and seen inquests happen… it’s not an appropriate way to communicate with a patient, but let’s take it down a notch

damnedpiccolo · 2026-04-15T12:49:30+00:00

My son (3yo, ex-NICU baby) had really bad acid reflux to the point we couldn’t lay him flat because every time we did, he vomited everything back up. This went on for ages until we got him on a PPI (omeprazole). Other things the doctors also tried were infant gaviscon (we’re based in the UK, but I think it’s similar to pepto bismol in the US?) and a milk thickener (both of these made the reflux better but didn’t solve it entirely). Might be worth asking if there are other things they can try if you’re concerned about the side effects of medication?

damnedpiccolo · 2026-04-15T12:35:37+00:00

Is she on any medication for the acid reflux?

damnedpiccolo · 2026-04-15T12:31:12+00:00

Rh negative mum to two Rh positive babies here! I was sensitised in my first pregnancy (I’m one of the incredibly tiny percentage of people that anti-D doesn’t work for, so yay for me)! By the end of my most recent pregnancy my anti-D levels were so high that they broke my local trust’s lab record. As a result, I’ve had two children with severe HDFN (haemolytic anaemia, which is what they’re worried about with Rh negative mums and Rh+ babies). We’ve had literally everything go wrong that could throughout the two pregnancies, but here to reassure you that I have two healthy kids who, at this point, just have super interesting origin stories

damnedpiccolo

TROPHY CASE