March 4, 2013

So....

This is kind of TMI in parts, so you've been warned.

OK?

OK.

My fears over not knowing when I should go to the hospital turned out to be unfounded:  I woke up in the middle of the night and knew these contractions were different.  I called L&D after the 1st hour and the nurse said give it another hour before I came in to make sure I'm close to 4cm dilated.  Anyhow, two hours later, we go in...and I'm already at 7cm and nearly fully effaced.  Gee, I could have gone after hour 1 and had the epidural that much sooner.

By the way, the nurse I spoke to also told me to take some Tylenol to help with the pain, so we suspect she has never actually given birth.

Of course, finding the anesthesiologist always takes forever.  He finally arrived but my sister didn't realize it was him.  She thought it was a nurse and was about to give him grief for taking forever with the consent process.  I had to explain it to her when he left to get his supplies.

Epidural went in and my labor went fast except for the littler-one-to-be's heart rate dropping to danger levels during contractions, as well as his failure to turn to LOA (the desired position) and descend.  So it ended in an emergency c-section after only 8.5 hours--the time I woke up to the point he emerged.

My sister photographed it all.  I have pictures of the baby, the c-section, the littler-one's emerging, the uterus, the placenta, the fibroids that they suspect were not helping things, the blood on the floor...yeah, my family is warped like that.  

Meanwhile, my better half had gone home to get the little one to school, and when he returned to the hospital he had no idea what was going on--they just brought him to the OR.  We had no time to text him and let him know.  He handled the blood and guts fairly well considering his squeamishness.  He didn't pass out upon seeing a real placenta.  Though he did ask, upon seeing the blood on the floor, "Is that normal?"  Sister and OR staff were all made aware of his squeamishness, so they kept telling him, "Don't look at it, keep moving, keep walking."  

Only two complications during the whole hospital stay.  The first was the fibroids:  apparently they got stuck to something and had to be cut free.  They weren't removed, so I'll have to address then down the road.  The other one was that they gave me Demerol.  I was shaking pretty bad from the epidural, to the point that I couldn't even hold the littler one.  Demerol apparently fixes this problem and in this case it was the lesser of the two evils, so...I said Yes.  I know, but you have no idea how violent the shakes were.  I was scaring everyone, especially myself.

So I got two syringes of Demerol, stopped shaking within 15 minutes, then spent the next 18 hours vomiting bile.

I was fine the next day, discharged the day after.  And yes, I had nursing students...I swear I was a magnet for them.  One of them was really nice though, so I consented to letting him call to follow-up on me for his class.

Went through the baby blues early in the week but I'm over them now.  

Littler one passed his first checkup with no problem.  Me, on the other hand...

I had to go to the OB because my headache was going on two days with no relief.  My blood pressure was up and my feet were very swollen, so labwork and another 24 hour urine test was ordered.  I'm a pro at these now, so I did that with ease and dropped that off on Friday.  The headache finally broke on Friday (thank God), the feet shrunk, and I felt fine all weekend.  At my follow-up today, my pressure was down to nearly normal levels and the bloodwork was normal.  The 24 hour urine came back over 300, but the doctor isn't concerned.  He said that if he had seen these results on Friday and I still had the headache, he would have talked about admitting me to the hospital.  But he feels that as it's been a couple of days since the test, the pain has stopped and my pressure is now normal, it has likely resolved itself.  So as long as I don't have a reemergence of any signs/symptoms of trouble, I can follow-up at my 6 week checkup.

Then there's the tea incident.

I burned myself with boiling water while making tea.  The glass shattered, water splashed my leg, I stumbled backwards and fell on my rear.  No cuts from the glass.  No injury from the fall.  A hand-sized burn on my front thigh which I thought was first degree, but it formed scattered blisters overnight.   Whee.

When I went for the follow-up today, the doctor checked out the burn and gave me some supplies to dress it.  I also dredged up everything I remembered about burns so I know what to do and not do when caring for it.  It's in a bad spot...that's the most annoying thing about it.  I can't quite tape the gauze on comfortably.

Anyhow, here I am.  I've lost about 25 lb of the pregnancy weight gain.  I no longer look 6 months pregnant--I'm down to about 3 months.  Pain from the C-section is manageable with Motrin/APAP.  I'm getting decent sleep considering I wake up three times a night for the littler one.   Overall, I can't complain.  Life is good.