What did you do immediately PP?

[Ky-Momma]

I was wondering how things went immediately pp for you UC'ers.  I know with a MW HB, they are usually really good about cleaning everything up for you, but when it's just you and your SO, how do you handle all that? 

We have NO family around, so it will just be DH and our four kiddos.  We have friends who have offered to keep the older three kids during the birth, but I would feel really uncomfortable with any of them cleaning our house or doing anything PP related.  We just don't know them THAT well.

I know DH will be able to do a lot, but he'll also be keeping three other kids fed, cleaned, entertained once they come home...

Just wondering how you guys handled the PP time.  Especially immediately after.  We've thought about just buying cheap sheets for the bed and disposable everything else so that after babe is out and everything DH can just throw everything in a large trashbag and not have to worry about laundry...

Anyway, would love to hear what BTDT mom's have to say about those first hours PP then that first week or so...

~Connie

[Multimomma]

we did set things up to make it easy to clean, and dh did all the work. But honestly it just wasn't that messy. The blue pads got thrown away, and the (white) sheets got thrown in the wash with a cup of bleach and came out looking better than they did on the bed. I think there were some spots in the carpet after one of the births, but a bottle of hydrogen peroxide got that out, dh took care of it after i was tucked back into bed. 

afterwards, I had a lot of prepared meals, frozen meats, premixed baking mixes etc that was easy to just throw into a crockpot or casserole dish. Although we wind up eating a lot of that in the two weeks before the babies are born as I get more ponderous and slow lol!

[zoebird]

Right after giving birth, I jumped up and went into the bath. the placenta came while I was in the bath, and we put it into a bowl.

I don't know why I jumped into the bath, but there were about 4-5 drops of blood on the floor. The rest were on the bath mats on the bed. We pulled up the bath mats and put them into the clothes basket, which was next to the bed (about 2 ft away). DH grabbed a wash cloth and wiped up the blood on the floor, and then tossed that into the basket as well. 

After the bath, I held DS skin-to-skin and he fell asleep. I put on a robe and ate some yogurt. We then went to bed -- probably about 2 am? Mecomium came a bit later (maybe an hour? time is sketchy and I was sleeping), so I slipped off the robe, cleaned myself and the baby up, and put on a different robe (dh's). Put the dirty robe in with the bath mats, and went back to bed. 

Woke up around 9 am and called family. Decided to cut the cord around 10 am or so, family arrived around 11 or so. 

By this time, the bath mats and everything were in the wash, I was in mamacloth and dressed, and so was the baby. Everyone was still tired though, and would be for several months. 

[seraf]

I made a birthing stool from a 5 gallon bucket and a toilet seat with the front of each removed.  All the mess was contained except that which continued to come from me.  The placenta went from a bowl to a baggie in the fridge and the contents of the bucket were dumped down the commode.  I sat on a folded towel on the bed (chux make me uncomfortable) which was easy to wash after the fact and easy to re-fold if it moistened at all.  I wore mama cloth once I decided to get dressed the next day.  In our case it wasn't really any worse than diaper laundry.

[purplerose]

After my UC, I spent about an hour trying to get my daughter to latch on, and birth the placenta. The placenta finally passed, and I went and took a shower(I just felt the need to.) while my mom, dh and kids held and looked at the new baby. Got out of the shower and had dh look at my genital area to make sure it was ok (it looked like hamburger meat to me) and then sat on the couch, ate some corn dogs and my daughter nursed for the first time. My FIL showed up while I was in the shower(dh had the kids call everyone and FIL sped to our house lol), and as I was sitting, he and dh cleaned up the plastic off the floor. I birthed on that plastic, and anything bloody or gooey we weren't keeping ended up on the plastic sheet. So they just rolled it all up and threw it away. We didn't keep the placenta, duct taped it inside a bowl so it wouldn't fall open and scare anyone and everything went into the dumpster. It doesn't sound all magical like most birth stories but it worked for us! I have wonderful memories :) Oh- the cord was cut after the placenta finally came out. My step-father cut it. We are lucky to have some of the family members that we do! My daughters are very close to my FIL and I'll never forget him speeding to our house and helping clean up the mess, and never had a negative thing to say.

[purplerose]

Also, it's good to keep in mind that birth is not really that messy. The worst thing for me is that I had a bm while pushing...it just sat there on the plastic lol I know that's normal but it's the most embarassing part for me. But as for the rest of it, chux pads and a plastic sheet were all we needed to contain any liquids, even amniotic fluid. I believe dh caught the baby with a towel, or maybe mom handed him a towel after he caught her, not sure how that went.

[amberskyfire]

Cleanup for us was a breeze. I didn't have a pool to take down and didn't get any special supplies for the birth. We had a lot of old towels and that was it. I leaned over the bed instead of using a birth ball. It served the same purpose. I didn't even have a shower curtain to birth on. I took two towels and folded them in half on the floor and gave birth on that. When I was finished, my husband just picked them up by the corners, dropped them in the washing machine and hit rinse. When I had to throw up, I did it in the diaper pail I had set up by the bed. My husband just rinsed it out in the shower. It was going to get all poopy soon anyway. The placenta went into a plastic Tupperware container with a lid and right into the fridge and I just rinsed myself off in the shower at the end. I can't even imagine having a pool. IMO, the cost, the setup time and then the cleanup and take-down time are a nightmare. I'm glad I didn't have one. It wouldn't have been worth all the work, I think. Ten minutes after the birth, there was absolutely no indication that a birth had occurred at our house except that there was a baby.

We didn't have kids, so we just sat in bed and stared at our new daughter until we passed out. We slept for probably 6 hours and then all woke up to a crying, hungry little mouth. My husband took two days off of work to cook and clean and after that, I was on my own. I kind of liked that our birth was just "business as usual." We didn't really do anything to prepare for it. We didn't have any "special stuff" or birthing gadgets. We just did it and then it was done and life as usual. :)