blue stripy cotton night gown

number 24.

Bought for being in the hospital. I'm not sure if this might also count as evidence of bad taste in pregnancy. But it shows different taste ... or maybe I just didn't care. Maybe it is quite consistent as it is practical.

It had buttons down the front for breast access. It was as light as possible (the hospital was the most uncomfortably hot I have ever been - though I did have an infection that got missed for a while). It reminds me of being ignored and forgotten and of only realising later that I should have been treated better. Of knowing now that that wasn't normal. That I let myself down because I didn't know what to expect.

For the first day after Beth was born noone attended her. She was born at 7.49 am and after 6 someone came in and shouted at me as she hadn't been changed or fed. I remember that first day, looking at her in the scratched plastic cot. I still couldn't really move properly following the emergency spinal block and my skin itched like mad after the diamorphine (heroin) had worn off: I wanted was to hold my baby. But I couldn't sit up. I couldn't get to her. So I just looked at her sleeping. Wishing.

It reminds me of my family coming to visit and finding me in a pool of blood, not decently covered with a bursting full catheter bag. My little brother looking shocked and saying nothing the whole visit and my mum helping me clean up and getting someone for the bag.

It reminds me of them finally realising that the reason my temperature was too high and my blood pressure, heart rate wasn't right was not because I wasn't drinking enough water (I had a drip and had drunk 2 jugs but still got given into trouble for not drinking enough) was because I was sick. It reminds me of them realising, some time after, that I was anaemic.

It reminds me of being woken at 3am the night after she was born. A couple of hours after I had fallen asleep, the first proper sleep I'd had in days. To be antagonised by someone who seemed very angry that I didn't know that I would be woken at 3am to feed my baby, even though no one had tried to get her to feed all that first day.

It reminds me of the midwife who managed to get her to feed by expressing some colostrum from me, "Just you wait, it will be worth all the pain when you see her face, it'll be like the cat that got the cream" her timing was comedy. She syringed the creamy stuff into my newborn's mouth to have it spat back in a storm of screaming. Made me laugh. Though after that latching on did start to work. And my daughter loved her breast milk.

It reminds me of a few days later when the same midwife came round: my milk had come in, which I was finding quite uncomfortable and awkward and odd (quite difficult to dress when you are spraying milk all over the place) and she was so delighted- I realised that it doesn't always happen, that maybe the screw up at the beginning could have meant it might not happen. That we were lucky. That is was good. And she helped with the discomfort and had recommendations for the extra milk.

It reminds me of the second day, and my daughter's father organising for loads of people to come and visit (supposed to be a max of 2). My twin arrived first or second. I remember looking at him like he was in another world. Me struggling to talk to him. Then a sea of people surrounding us and taking turns with my baby. Her dad playing host to his wonderful party. While I sat, hot, exhausted and shaken. Sat in a blood stained, practically see-through nightie with no idea who these people were anymore. Then realising my brother had gone, feeling that I needed him. Hobbling along the corridor (I was still in a lot of pain from 5 1/2 hours in stage 2 - the pushing bit and the forceps delivery) to try and get him. I can't remember if I had started to cry but it was there. And of Dave running after to me to try and get my brother for me, because he had realised I couldn't walk fast nevermind run. But I got to him. I don't think I had anything to say to him, to my twin. But I didn't want him to just go. I think i got to him on my own, but I can't remember ever feeling more grateful to Dave. Because I needed someone to see me, and he saw me, and tried to help me.