Within approximately seventeen minutes of discovering that oh-so-faint-but-hey-a-line’s-a-line positive result on the pregnancy test I’d just taken, I was deep within the bowels of terrifying internet territory, trying to offset the rising panic about what lay ahead by familiarising myself with any and all possible outcomes of labour and childbirth.
Even though I was thrilled, the idea of uncertainty has always terrified me, so right up until I went into labour, my antidote for this fear of the unknown was obsessive research. Any article promising to reveal ‘what nobody tells you about giving birth’ was like a drug to my hormone-fuelled, information-addicted brain - I couldn’t help but click.
I learned I might bleed for a long while after birth. I found out it could take a while for my milk to come in. I discovered to my grim satisfaction that in-depth episiotomy instruction videos exist. I watched more episodes of One Born Every Minute than I care to admit.
So squeezable. Picture: Supplied.
My rookie error
Of course, I look back at my naive confidence that I’d be prepared for all scenarios and laugh. And laugh. Oh how I laugh (right before I check to make sure I haven’t peed a little bit). Almost all of my research focused on what would happen to my body during and immediately following the birth - with nary a thought for the affects it could have on the tiny body of my offspring.
Fast-forward to that relief-filled moment when my squawking babe was placed on my chest in the delivery suite, and that’s when shit started to get real.
Did my baby just vomit BLOOD?
About four hours after I’d given birth, fresh from a shower, I hobbled over to where my sleeping babe was positioned in his glass hospital crib, just in time to see him turn his head and choke out a mucky pile of what looked terrifyingly like blood. My (admittedly already shaky) legs nearly went out from under me and I managed to utter a gurgled cry to alert the midwife and my husband. Completely unfazed, our midwife mused ‘oh yes, that’s blood. Quite a bit! But it’s most likely yours, not to worry.’
As it turns out, babies can swallow a decent amount of blood on the way out, and a simple swab test can tell medical staff in a matter of seconds whether or not the blood came from mum or bub. Thankfully, that’s exactly what had happened in our case.
Are those jelly crystals in his nappy?
I’d read that female babies can sometimes experience a kind of menstruation in the days immediately following birth; the hormones from their mother need to pass through and out of their bodies and the result can be a bit of blood in the nappy. I remember thinking when I discovered this fact how glad I was to be having a boy, knowing my proclivity to panic at the sight of blood.
Imagine my surprise, then, when our second nappy change as parents yielded an orange, pinkish streak in our male child’s newborn Huggies.
Upon closer inspection I could see that the orange matter was actually a powdery pile of what looked like coloured sand.
The look of concern on my sleeping babe’s face was born of his knowledge that we, his parents, were absolutely clueless. picture: supplied.
“There is something wrong with his penis!” I yelped at my husband, and again the midwife was hastily called.
“Just increase his feeds,” smiled a different midwife, just as unmoved as the last. “Those are called urates - his kidneys are kicking into gear and they produce a high amount of uric acid which is excreted in crystal form. It can be a sign he needs more fluids to flush it out. It’s very common.”
“Well they should bloody have a sign somewhere if it’s so common,” muttered my pale husband.
“What’s going on with his nipples?”
Certain our (otherwise spectacular) newborn had exhausted his supply of surprises for one day, we fell back into the lull of gazing at his tiny, perfect body for the next hour or so, until my husband asked nervously, “erm - what’s going on with his little nipples?”
Two pearlescent drops of liquid had formed at the tip of both nipples. Our infant son was lactating.
As you’ve probably guessed, newborn lactation is just another one of the weird little side-effects being born can produce. He only ever made those two little droplets, at which stage my own nipples took over the job and his went back to being purely decorative adornments on his very kissable chest.
See? Totally kissable. Picture: Supplied
The moral of the story?
Suffice it to say, you can prepare all you want - but those first 24 hours after you have a baby (oh, and the next 18 years as well) will be filled with curveballs. Expect them. Embrace them. And tell as many expectant parents as you can that as adorable as newborns are, they will absolutely frighten the hell out of you. That’s how you know you’re a parent.
