The Hospital Stay

The hospital stay was kind of brutal.  I suppose that is why they keep you in a hospital for a few days – because they know you are going to feel like crap and need to be taken care of.  If you felt good, then chances are, they would send you home early to get you out of their hair.

Anyhow, I really struggled to get any rest and enjoy myself much at all.

Night #1

The first night, I blame everything on the IV.  They put a catheter in you when they do a C-section…this makes sense, because you get a spinal block and won’t be up and walking around for several hours till it wears off…and in the meantime, you are being pumped full of liquids.  The problem was, they took this out of me around 1 p.m., but didn’t remove the IV for another 24 hours.  Which meant that despite having just had abdominal surgery and needing to rest, I had to get up every 1.5 hours, around the clock, to pee.

“Get up.” is the key phrase here. The act of sitting up from an even slightly reclined position after a “C” is horribly painful for several weeks, and nearly impossible that first day.  The recline feature on the bed is helpful to a point, but it doesn’t go to vertical, so here is still that last bit that taken your just-cut-and-stitched muscles to pull you up, and it really is excruciatingly painful.

Problem #2 is that peeing itself is nearly impossible after a “C.”  They move around all of your internal organs, and they must swell up or something, but peeing feels like you have a raging urinary tract infection – it burns, it is hard to start doing, and you dread it so your body tenses up, making it even harder..

So the actual act of going to the bathroom took a full 10 minutes – call the nurse, get the IV unplugged from the wall, get myself up, wheel myself and IV to the bathroom, fight to pee, struggle back to bed, try to get comfortable…repeat every 80 minutes.  Ugh.

All this while my perfect little baby is sleeping away, being an angel and allowing me to do the same, if only my bladder would agree.

This continued through the evening – I was still full of fluids from that IV and it took a while for my need to pee to slow down.  The good news was that Wes was going great – breastfeeding like a champ, resting happily, cuddling like mad, and being a perfect little bub. And then I hit problem #2…

Night #2

Pain.  For some reason, the pain medication they were giving me wasn’t doing much at all, and I was literally gasping every time I had to move.  Which was less frequently now, thanks to the removal of the IV, but still too often for comfort.  Wes was a little needier and I has having to get him in and out of his little bassinet next to my bed frequently, which was adding to the problem.  When I finally broke down and complained to the nurse that I thought I was experiencing an “abnormal” amount of pain, (as in, I’m bawling hysterically in the bathroom at 4 a.m. because I don’t think I can make it back to bed), so told me that probably I had a lot of gas backed up in my tummy and that was causing it, and that I needed to “walk it off to get things moving.”  Hmmm….maybe so, but slightly impossible right now, thanks.

Thankfully, when the doctor came in at 9 a.m. and I explained to him that I wasn’t coping well, he switched up the pain meds they were giving me and by noon I was feeling much better, and my spirits were much improved.  I felt pretty good throughout the afternoon, which was fairly peaceful – we had a few friends come and visit and take Lyndon out for a beer, but that was it.

And then, I had to worry about the dreaded “post-pregnancy poo.”

Night #3

You aren’t allowed to leave the hospital until you’ve gone #2 – standard procedure I’m told, so if you haven’t had success by the middle of the second day, they start feeding you laxatives.  Apparently, like they are going out of style.  I was given 4 doses of something potent…they really wanted to get things “moving” so to speak – within a 12 hour period.  I was anxious that this may have ill effects, but a nurse actually used a stethascope on my belly before the last dose and determined that nothing was “moving” and that I needed another dose.  All fine and good, till they ALL start working…night #3 and the entire following day were spent with horrible stomach cramps and (finally) frequent trips to the bathroom, where I was having absolutely no problem with “movement.”  To add insult to injury, at was at this exact stage that I had to share a bathroom.  Until that evening, I had the entire OB ward to myself – not another pregnant-but-ready-to-pop gal in sight, and was enjoying it.  The unit had five different rooms, only one that didn’t have its own bathroom.  For unknown reasons, I was put in one of the shared-bathroom rooms – and then gal #2 was put in the adjoining room.  Lucky us!  I suppose they save on the cleaning bill, but the timing meant that just when I was having my most “sensitive” bathroom moments, I had to worry that she was next door listening to me.

Needless to say, I was more than ready to the comfort of my own home!

We’re Home!

We’re finally back home and settled in – and I’m so thankful! We actually got home yesterday afternoon, but I was too tired to do anything but eat cookies and cuddle with my boys.

All in all, Wesley’s birth experience was a positive one, but certainly had its ups and downs.  I have fantastic friends and family, and their love and support was incredible through the ride.  We snapped one last belly picture:

and were on our way…

Thursday Morning

I slept horribly Wednesday night, which is to be expected, I suppose.  I had dreams all night long that we had a girl, and thus was fairly convinced as such heading into surgery.  When I got up at 5:15, I quickly checked facebook, and was thrilled to see I had the little magic “32″ in the upper right hand corner – that many well wishes for our big day!  It really put a smile on my face and helped settle my nerves.  I love those little red circle on facebook, saying “somebody loves you…” but I digress.

Anyhow, we headed in and everything went as planned in the morning – check in, hook up to the monitor to make sure baby is OK, wait nervously for the anesthesiologist..

During and after my last C-section, I spent a fair bit of the day getting sick.  Not so pleasant, so I was anxious to make sure the anesthesiologist knew of my problems with the medicine and hopeful that we could do something to make the experience a bit more pleasant this time.  She assured me that they would keep on top of it – that probably I was reacting to the morphine pain drug and that she would keep it to the bare minimum so that my nausea wasn’t so bad.  Although I wasn’t keen on the “bare minimum” of pain medication – if I have to be cut open and have a planned birth, I would like to at least reap the benefits of modern chemistry, but I suppose a bit more pain is preferable to upchucking all day.

Anyhow, all went as planned – I was rolled off into surgery, Lyndon changed into his scrubs to meet me later, and they hung up that “blue privacy sheet” that saves us from seeing my innards.  The anesthetist had warned me that the nausea side-effect from administering the spinal block was something they couldn’t do much about, so I wasn’t surprised when the only a few seconds after the spinal took effect I was getting sick.  Good news was, I felt much better afterwards, and they were prepared for it so I didn’t have to just puke on the side of the table (lyndon put his arm in it the first time – ewww….)

Lyndon came in, and they got to work.  I was so anxious!  But the procedure is so quick, and not a few minutes later, they said “Lots of pressure, lots of pressure….It’s a Boy!  and he has a huge bottom!”  I kid you not.  The first descriptive words about our son weren’t “he’s perfect” or “ten fingers, ten toes” or “he’s so cute…”  Poor kid – “he has a huge bottom!” were his welcome to the world.  That, and his mother getting sick….again.  It seems Wesley was “locked and loaded,” ready to come out on his own very soon, and so they really had to yank to get him out.  All of that pressure made me get sick again, so as they were proclaiming the large size of our wee one’s bottom, I was simultaneously bawling and getting sick.

Lyndon was worried I was sad that he was a boy, and that was why I was crying.  Not the case – I just felt so guilty that I was yacking as he entered the world!  I was actually not at all surprised when they said “it’s a boy.”  There are so many boys in the family (Wesley is the fifth boy on Lyndon’s side – no girls yet!,and the 11th of 14 on my side, and the sixth boy in our close group of friends – no girls yet).  We were all relying on statistics to bring a girl into the picture, but I felt a flood of relief – somehow, a boy seems easier – so far, I know what to do, and we have all the clothes and toys and…well, Austin gets a brother!

Anyhow, after that was the worst part of all.  Lyndon and Wesley were whisked away to go get Wes’s vitals and weight, etc…and I was left alone with the doctors.  They fixed me up and got me into recovery, where I had to wait 30 or so VERY LONG minutes till I could get in with my family and hold the baby.  It was horrible – I felt sick, I couldn’t stop crying, and I was alone with a nurse who couldn’t stop talking about how fantastic the Lord is.  I know she was trying to make me feel better, but I just wanted her to shut up and take my blood pressure and get my back to my family.  There were two highlights – first, one of the nurses (a male one, at that!) came in and said “Wow, you look so skinny!”, and then the OB nurse (at the prompting of my mom, who isn’t known for her patience) finally called down to say “get her back here, her baby is HUNGRY!).  Thank you mom!

They finally decided I was recovered enough, and wheeled me back in, so we could take these pictures:

Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, baby, and Mama, in that order.

The rest of the day was a blur.  The family all went home – to give me time to rest and to rest themselves, and to fetch Austin and my 98 year-old grandma to come up for visit #2.  I still spent the afternoon getting sick, despite reduced pain meds and nausea medicine.  Thankfully, I was feeling well during the visit of my grandma and Austin. The moment Austin met Wesley was precious – probably a highlight from the day:

Grandma loved him

Our good friends Jen and Dan, who have a son who was born the EXACT SAME DAY as Austin, also came up for a visit:

And that ends day one.  I had a horrible night that night (really, all three nights, thus my exhaustion yesterday), but those are stories for another day. This is too long as it is! If you’ve made it this far, you’re a trooper.