After a total of four nights in the hospital, I was I was finally discharged. Armed with my birth notes, and a referral for a colorectal surgeon, we left the hospital. And boy, was I surprised at how hard the walk to the car was. All up it was about 100 metres but felt more like a 5k!
Physical healing
After being discharged I kept an eye on my stitches so I could see how things were improving. Ten days after the birth of my daughter it didn’t look right down there. My mum is a nurse so I asked her to take look. She agreed, it didn’t look right. And I managed to get an appointment with my new GP for the next day.
It was a very slow physical healing process. I needed to go to the doctors daily to have a dressing changed. Eventually, it dropped down to even second, then the third day before finally only once a week. Needless to say in that time I became really good at leaving the house with a newborn.
At about eight months postpartum I had physical healed completely.
Mental healing
My daughter’s six-week maternal health nurse appointment was a few days before my six weeks check up. At the maternal health nurse, I completed a quiz known as the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. I scored high and agreed to ask my GP for help at my visit in a few days time. I also scheduled a few more appointments with the maternal health nurse. My GP also asked me to complete a similar quiz when I suggested that I would like to talk to someone. I received referrals to two different doctors, Unfortunately, I was unable to secure an appointment until the new year.
I was no stranger to seeing a psychologist, I had seen one a few times in high school as well as a few appointments during IVF.
I’ve had a total of seven sessions and found things got a lot better around my daughter’s first birthday when she was able to do more things on her own.
Sexual healing
I’m not adding anything here. It was too funny not to include though. But if you are really interested, Our Mama Village has a great post on sex therapist approved tips.
