The Aftermath

Lucie's List had forewarned me about what was to come after delivery. However, the email also indicated that an epidural would make me blissfully unaware of it all. Um, nope. Delivering the placenta, the fundal massage, and the stitches all hurt like hell (especially the stitches... thank you teaching hospital), but it was the beautiful baby on my chest -- not the epidural -- that made it all easily bearable.

At some point (the order of things is a total blur), they took the baby to the warmer to do various
doctor-y things to her, including getting her cleaned up. At some point they brought her back and helped get her latched on to feed. A nurse arranged a bunch of pillows and her to make it easy, and it seemed to go well from what I could tell. I was still in a state of utterly disorienting bliss.

I remember them bringing me food, which included oatmeal. I love oatmeal. Then they called for a transfer and I regretfully had to hand over the baby so we could be moved to our new room on the mother/baby floor. They didn't want me walking at this point so I had to go in a wheelchair, although when I think back to that moment it reminds me of this scene from Princess Bride:

(I must be losing my touch, as I couldn't find it in gif form.)

In the new room, the initial euphoria started to wear off and the pain kicked in. I was very pleased to find that the pain from the actual delivery was not nearly as bad as I anticipated (thank you norco), but breastfeeding was excruciating. My nipples were cracked and every time I nursed her I had terrible contractions. The hospital's lactation consultant told me that Raeyn Drop was eating well and latching beautifully, so my breasts should not hurt. Well, they did -- a lot. The line that breastfeeding doesn't hurt if nothing is wrong is a load of B.S. I just kept trying to remind myself how lucky I was that she did have a good latch, as I can't imagine the unbearable pain people feel when things aren't going well.

Other than the breastfeeding issues, I was feeling pretty well. I guess the nurses could see that I was recovering nicely and they told me I should be able to go home the next day. Wait.. WHAT?? I was quite certain my insurance allowed for at least a 48 hour hospital stay after delivery, and I was definitely not ready to leave the nice safe room with the magic button that brought medical professionals running to help me and answer all my questions.

On Sunday morning, there was more talk of going home. T was in favor of this plan because Raeyn Drop had been crying all night and in the tiny hospital room neither of us had gotten any sleep. But he didn't have an electronic bed that raises and lowers with a remote control. And he didn't have to use a squirt bottle and pain killers to make peeing bearable. I wanted T to be comfortable, but I also wanted to continue being a patient for another night. Anyway, I was unconvinced that there was more sleep to be had at home.

Then the pediatrician came and informed us that Raeyn Drop was looking too yellow and we would not be going home after all. They wanted to keep us until the morning and then do a bilirubin test. We requested that it happen as early in the morning as possible so that we could leave in time to pick up my mom from the airport at 1PM. She said that shouldn't be a problem, and we settled in for another night of crying.

Monday morning the pediatrician returned while T was sleeping. She told me that Raeyn Drop's initial test was worse than she thought and we should not expect to be discharged in time to pick up my mom. In fact, it was very possible that Raeyn Drop would have to stay another night as a patient but I would not. Wait... WHAT? She would be transferred to a different floor where T and I would both be relegated to the pull out chair in the corner. Cue panic, as we waited a couple more hours for the results of the blood test to find out more.

Shortly before 11AM, the results came back and we were told they were actually not that bad and we could go home. I was just supposed to spend the next couple days nursing her naked in a sunny window to help with her color.

We were packed up and ready to go in a matter of minutes, half thinking that if we dawdled they might change their minds. In a flurry, I signed all the discharge papers and enlisted a sweet nurse's help getting teeny tiny Raeyn Drop into the car seat. She was swimming in her 0-3 onesie (T didn't have the heart to pull the newborn one over her head for fear of smooshing), but you could hardly see it anyway since the car seat straps basically covered her entire body.

A quick (but exceedingly careful) ride later, and our new family was home! Now what exactly did we get ourselves into?

Raeyn had a baby!

Okay so I guess this is kind of old news now, but it's been hard to find time for tasks that require two hands.

I had a baby!

Three and a half weeks later, I am still in a state of disbelief over this fact. Everything happened so quickly and unexpectedly (yes, after almost 9 months of pregnancy I still wasn't expecting an actual baby), that I hardly had time to think. But I figure I should write it all down before too much more time passes and I start to forget.

Friday, September 13th was my last scheduled day of work (after the HR fiasco that sent me back to work for 4 weeks of this school year despite my approved plans to take the whole year off). I said goodbye to the kids, the teachers, and to my wonderful principal. On the way out the door, my principal asked if I was ready. "Nooooo!" I responded vigorously. I had a hospital bag to pack, a car seat to install, a nursery to organize and finish decorating, a baby monitor to set up, essential baby items like diapers to purchase, etc. etc. etc. Definitely not ready, but thank goodness I was going to have two weeks before my due date to finish preparing. I was feeling good and quite confident that this baby wasn't going anywhere any time soon.

So I went home, ate some dinner, and headed upstairs to watch some TV in bed just after 9 o'clock. About 10 minutes into Burn Notice, I ran for the bathroom.

"What's wrong?" Inquired my dear, sweet husband.
"Um, I think I peed myself," I replied. "I guess I didn't escape the dreaded loss of bladder control that goes along with pregnancy after all."

It was an awful lot of pee, though. In fact, I was quite proud of myself for not getting any on the bed, given how much I had peed. But then I peed again. And again. And every time I stood up or moved around.

"So... I'm not sure this is pee." I called from the bathroom.

A quick phone call to the on-call doctor later, and T and I were frantically trying to pack a hospital bag and head out the door. I kept telling him that surely this was a mistake -- it couldn't possibly be my water breaking at only 37 weeks and 4 days. I wasn't even in labor! Due to my firmly held convictions that I would be laughed out of OB Triage and sent home, I didn't think too much about what I was packing. Things like a laptop power cord and clean clothes for leaving the hospital didn't seem super important when I was operating on the assumption that I'd only be there a few hours. Oops.

On the way to the hospital, I attempted to time my non-painful, totally ordinary contractions (the same kind I'd been having since I was 24 weeks pregnant). Three minutes apart, then nine minutes, then 5 minutes... no particular pattern, which is what they say to look for to distinguish Braxton Hicks practice contractions from the real thing.

We arrived at around 10:30 PM. They had me put on a hospital gown, and it quickly became apparent that I wasn't going home. While I hung out in Triage, T ran out to the car to install the car seat by himself. I think he did a stellar job operating under pressure! He also picked up some Ben & Jerry's Americone Dream ice cream, which was smart thinking for a man whose wife is about to go into labor.

It was 12:30 before a doctor came to check on me. I was just 1 cm dilated and still not having painful contractions. They told me that as soon as a labor and delivery room opened up, I would be getting pitocin to kick-start real contractions. I finally got a room around 2 AM, and had been having painful contractions for an hour at that point. Rather than do another cervical check to see if I'd progressed on my own, the nurses insisted that I start pitocin right away. I was really hoping to avoid it, but since I had already ruptured they wanted to move things along as quickly as possible to avoid infection. We asked if it was our decision and were basically told no.

Oww. I lasted about 20 minutes with the pitocin before the nurse convinced me to get an epidural. I knew I was going to get one eventually, but I was trying to hold out for a while. She basically pointed out that it was silly to wait, given that I couldn't get out of bed anyway now that I was hooked up to the pitocin and about to get a catheter.

The epidural was awful. I was expecting it to hurt, or to be freaked out by the needle, but neither of those were my issues. When they put it in and gave me the test dose, my blood pressure dropped and I became extremely nauseous. I threw up a couple times and pretty much felt like I wanted to die. I was far preferring the painful pitocin-induced contractions to this horrible feeling. They gave me Zofran and did something with the epidural to help, and it was soon feeling bearable again. Based on my reaction to just the test dose, the anesthesiologist decided to give me just half of what she usually gives. Unfortunately this didn't do much and she had to come back to increase it a short while later.

The epidural started working, but primarily on my left side. My left leg was completely dead and I couldn't lift it at all. My right side was mildly tingly, but I could still feel everything. The nurse told me to lay on my right and let gravity do the work of evening out the medication

At 5:30 AM a doctor came to do a cervical check and found that I was 5 cm dilated. When she left, I was able to somewhat drift off despite still feeling the contractions on the right. At 6, the nurse came rushing in because the baby's heart rate had dropped (when I looked at the computer screen after I realized what was happening, it said 100). She had me roll over to my left side and gave me an oxygen mask. I asked about the gravity theory of the epidural, but it was clear that the heart rate issue trumped my desire for the epidural to even out. Fortunately the shift worked and the baby was fine. T miraculously slept through this portion of the evening, and was very confused to wake up and find me with an oxygen mask.

Somewhere around 8 AM, Dr. P (the on-call doctor I'd spoken with the previous night) arrived and said it was time to start pushing. T was charged with the task of holding back one of my legs and counting to ten during each big contraction. He was so focused on being supportive, that he kept stopping mid-count to tell me what a good job I was doing. The nurse holding my other leg took over the counting, probably fearing for T's life should his counts of 10 continue to take more than 10 seconds!


At some point when it felt as though I'd been pushing forever and making no progress, Dr. P asked if Dr. B and I had discussed episiotomies. I said no, but the reason we hadn't discussed them was because Dr. B said she pretty much never does them! Freaked out, I continued pushing and apparently made some progress after all.

At 9:10 AM, Raeyn Drop finally made it all the way out and they put her on my chest. For a moment, nothing hurt and everything was utterly perfect. I have never felt that kind of complete happiness before.

I suppose after that absurdly long post, I'll leave it there and write about our postpartum experience another time.