Updates since the hospital

This morning we got up and went to the nearest garden centre to find a large shrub or (my final choice) a rose bush to plant over the baby's grave. We still haven't named it, I'm not sure Martin can talk about it yet (he's grieving right now by looking after me and rushing around doing jobs). For some reason I'm odly more comfortable calling this baby "it" - perhaps because I held it and don't need to stake my claim to its personhood. All the same I was careful to refer to it constantly at the hospital as "the baby" and correct anyone who called it a fetus or, worse, tissue.

Sadly my week is not done with terribleness (if that is a word). I have looked up the hormone I was given and the manufacturer states that it is absolutely not compatible with breastfeeding and that it may cause severe diarrhoea to the breastfed baby. Needless to say I have utterly fallen apart and struggled to decide what to do even with the help of a team of nurses and a breastfeeding consultant from NHS direct (another WONDERFUL experience of the NHS, they were incredible).

The consensus from them is that the drug isn't OK, the doctor was negligent in not giving me a choice of medications or warning me of the side-effects to Morgan (they didn't use the word negligent obviously, who in the NHS would willingly say that?)... I have complained, fully, about both his attitude towards me and the apalling fact that he either knowingly lied to me or utterly made up his answer to my questions about my treatment!

And I have decided that given my lack of further contractions it is probably OK to keep nursing her. She is also currently well, which suggests to me that we're going to be fine. And if she gets diarrhoea it should be treatable and not a real threat to her. The NHS direct nurses supported this decision and suggested basically that although I shouldn't have been given the drug, stopping nursing her could be more harmful if she already has got a dose of something. I just can't believe it, after the lengths I went to to make sure that I wasn't given anything to jeapordise being able to mother my living children.

Otherwise, I'm as well as can be expected. I'm frequently very dizzy, struggling to sit or stand for long, and feeling exhausted still. One last thing, I just want to say that every single bit of support we've had via text from those people we were able to keep informed all through this ordeal, it was all valuable and I am grateful for it. Also, offers of help with the children and support with meals etc are fab, but I don't know what I'll be up to (or not) yet in the coming week or so. I may yet call and accept any such offers! ;)