Birth Story Part 2 - Post Partum

Soo.... the delivery was incredible, and everything I ever wanted it to be. Family came, pictures were taken, and everything was awesome. I had two minor 1st degree tears that were quickly patched up and everything looked great!!!

About 3 hours after Davey was born, I was checked again by the nurse, and she had continued to see more bleeding than she cared for. She called Cecily back in to double check and make sure that this was ok and nothing was wrong. Most painful part of entire process: Cecily looked around for about 30 minutes trying to find the source of the bleeding. Key word: freakin-oww. She couldn't find it and finally had to call in Dr. Inzer, the head honcho doc, to see if he could help find the source of the bleeding. MORE ouch. I'd say that whole business was 2.3 times more painful than actually birthing a child.

Long story short, I was losing a lot of blood, and they were growing concerned, because they couldn't find the source of the bleeding. I was just ticked that we weren't finished with this whole process! I don't think I realized how serious it started getting, but finally they looked at me and told me that I had two options: I either had to get an epidural so they could really go in and figure out what was wrong, or they could wheel me into the OR and put me under.

Are you kidding me? I just gave birth naturally and now you are telling me I have to get an EPIDURAL? But I was woman, you heard me roar! Now I have to do the stinky thing I wanted to AVOID in the first place? What if I get a spinal headache? What if I don't feel like a kick-butt woman anymore?

These were the thoughts going through my head. I didn't know anything about the amount of blood I lost, so I didn't understand the urgency. In the end I decided NOT to go into OR and Dr. Nixon (Fun coinky-dink) came in and numbed me right up. Cue BIG time blood pressure drop as result of blood loss. I will tell you folks, I have never been drunk in my life, but I can guarantee you that if you had seen me in that delivery room, you would have been convinced that I was, ahem, CA-razy faced. They quickly put my head below the rest of my body (wheee, roller coaster), and I started to feel normal again.

All in all, I lost 2 units/liters of blood, or roughly 1/3 of my blood. Crazy. I had a blood transfusion (another first, and yes I made a vampire joke in all of my awareness), and started to feel much better. So did everyone else in the room, I might add. They had kicked mom and dad out, and it was just Ryan and Davey, the docs and I. Later my parentals told me I was a lovely shade of ghostly white all over. Thank the good Lord they didn't show their nervousness. Woulda plum freaked me out. Thus, everything was over, and finally later that night I got to be wheeled up to post-partum for recovery.

What it ended up being was a ruptured blood vessel that caused a hematoma, apparently pretty uncommon. BUT the glory to God thing was that most of those things don't actually leak, and end up being SUPER painful later on (TMI?). Thank you Lord that they found mine early!

All in all, my experience was AMAZING. The delivery was exactly what I always hoped it would be, and the aftercare I received was awesome. I'm so thankful to Cecily, Dr. Inzer, and EVERYONE that cared for me during my recovery (LSHEP - BEST post-partum nurse EVER.)

Thank you guys for reading and caring, and Soli Deo Gloria, to God be the glory for the way He allows us to experience his desire for such intimacy with us through childbirth and learning how to care for some little person that you love more than the air you breathe.

Love you Baby Davey Cate.

Mumsie

P.S. - 2 week Dr. visit today!

Stats:

Weight: 9 lbs. 8 oz! GINORMOUS! Go girl!

Length: 20.5 inches. Oh good gracious. She's growing again.

Head: 36.5 in.

Noteworthies:

We can let her sleep at night for as long as she will!

She made her first visit to Watermark today! Yay women's bible study!

She HATES being awake. When sleeping, she's happy as a little lark. When awake, she's generally pissssssed. We are going to keep praying through that. Little high-maintenance thing.