Sunday, January 29, 2012
I ended up getting two units of blood transfused into me, and by the afternoon, my blood levels had risen enough that the doctors were convinced the bleeding had stopped on its own, which was such a relief.
Additionally, I’d noticed that when I was in pain, my shoulders and chest area would tense up with muscle spasms. I’d had this happen after the last c-section due to the amount of pain I’d been in when I’d had the hematoma. I figured that since the surgery was painful, as well as I felt a lot of the tugging and pulling, so I naturally tensed up but didn’t know it. So after this surgery, whenever I felt pain, I’d get a muscle spasm. Since it was in my chest as well, it made it difficult for me to breathe and get good deep breaths in. I told the doctors and the nurses about it, and a couple of the nurses actually witnessed it a few times, so they noted it in my chart.
At this point I was still on the Labor and Delivery floor so I could be more closely monitored since the doctors hang out on the L&D floor and not on the post-partum floor. My nurse came in and told me I should get up and try to walk, even if just in my room. She also mentioned that they could change my bed out since I was still sleeping on a surgical gurney. That was incentive enough for me to get up since that was such an uncomfortable bed! So I was able to get up and out of bed to a chair so that they could bring the new bed into the room, and then I was able to walk from the bed to the end of the room a few times. After that, I decided that was enough since I was in so much pain at that point. I made it back to bed and had some more pain meds.
My appetite was pretty much non-existent, but by late afternoon I decided I should eat something, so I ordered a sandwich, some fruit and some green tea. In the meantime, my old nurse came in and introduced me to my new nurse. At first, she was being thorough for all of the right reasons – checking on Gaby, checking my ID tags to make sure she had the right patient and I was due to get the right meds, etc. But then it became a bit too thorough. My food finally came, and I was able to sit up in bed to get ready to eat. At that point, the nurse came in with some of my medicine to take. She proceeded to go through every medicine, what it did, why I was taking it, and then doled it out to me one medicine at a time (and watched me take it with water each time.) She did this for 3 pills. Then she said she’d be back with my other medicine.
In the meantime, I picked up my sandwich to take a bite, and then she walked in again, and proceeded to explain the other three pills in great detail. I was so hungry and my blood sugar was so low I was SUPER cranky. So she left again to get something else, and I went to pick up the sandwich and looked at Tito and started crying because I was so hungry and so emotional about the whole situation (and probably super hormonal at this point too. It seemed like every time I went to take a bite, there this nurse was again, and I was trying to be polite by not eating in front of her, and also I have a thing about eating in front of people I don’t know because it’s messy, so I just wanted 5 minutes to eat my food but couldn’t seem to get it!)
Two minutes later, after composing myself with Tito, the nurse came in again as I was trying to have a bite of my sandwich. She then proceeded to take Gaby’s vitals and change her (which seemed to take her forever as she explained the whole diaper changing process to Tito as well as how to swaddle her…I reminded her that we had another child who was only 22 months old, so it hadn’t been that long since we’d last done these things. She didn’t seem to care and over explained everything to us again.) I finally lost it and started crying, which made my body tense up and made it hard for me to breathe. In between breaths, I was able to ask her as politely as I could if she could just leave and leave us alone so I could eat since I hadn’t eaten all day (and it was 7pm at this point.) It took her a moment to understand what I was asking and she left the room. Tito followed her out of the room and further explained things to her (probably in a nicer way than I would have) and when he came back he said for me to eat and that she wouldn’t be bothering us for awhile.
Monday, January 30, 2012
We were woken throughout the night by Gaby who wanted to eat. Thankfully, my milk had come in so she was able to get actual food rather than just colostrum. At 7am, the nurse (a new one thankfully!) came in to tell me that they were moving me to the post partum floor. Within about 20 minutes, I was packed up and there was a wheelchair waiting to bring me downstairs. I took my time getting out of bed since I was still in a great deal of pain. Once we were downstairs, Tito got our things settled and the nurse came in to introduce herself and bring me pain meds. My doctors came in and told me I just needed to get my blood levels up to 1.8 and rising before they would let me go home. I’d been restarted on my Coumadin the night before, and they took blood that morning to get my levels. Awhile later they came in and told me my levels were 1.2, so it was just a waiting game.
The rest of the day was broken into three hour segments where I would sleep when Gaby slept, watch tv, talk with Tito, and then nurse Gaby and put her back to sleep and then repeat all over again. Santi came to visit with my parents and to meet Gaby. It was a little chaotic and truthfully, he was more interested in spending time with us than with seeing his baby sister.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Basically the same as the day before. Nursing, sleeping, tv, talking, etc. I was able to get up and walk around the floor to encourage my healing process. I made it four laps around before I was too tired to walk anymore. I was still pretty doped up on the pain meds, so I spent a lot of time sleeping and actually asked them to reduce the meds since I was so tired I wasn’t able to keep my eyes open while I was nursing or looking at my phone to catch up online. The doctors took my blood for my Coumadin levels and the levels were 1.5. I asked if the next day if it was up just a little bit if I could go home even if my levels weren’t the desired 1.8, and I was told no.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Another day of waiting around. More tests were run and my blood level was still at 1.5. Santi and my parents and my brother came to visit and see Gaby again. We were really hoping that things would look up the next day and I’d get to go home. But we still needed to wait to find out.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
We both started to get really anxious about going home. I was thinking about it as I was getting washed up that morning that I would be truly really disappointed and depressed a bit if I wasn’t able to go home that day. As I was finishing up getting dressed, my nurse came in with the good news that my levels were at 1.8 and I was able to go home! I came out of the bathroom after she left and Tito and I both hugged and cried. We both didn’t realize how much we’d been hoping I could go home after the craziness of the birth, the issues afterward and missing Santi SO much. We both started packing and then it was another waiting game as the nurse had to get the discharge papers together for me so that I could leave. About 4 hours later, we were able to get Gaby into her car seat and leave for home.
We arrived home and my parents had made a welcome home sign for us and put it on the outside of the house. Santi was so excited to see us and we took Gaby out of her car seat so that we could show her off and relax. I was so exhausted and sore that I basically headed upstairs to nap while Gaby napped.
It took us six days after meeting our daughter to get home and it was the best homecoming we could have ever had. We’re still adjusting to being back and Santi is almost fully adjusted to us being home and having his baby sister, as he calls her, home with him and taking some of the attention away from him. He’s very sweet with her and will kiss her when she’s crying, helps with her diapers (he’ll bring the dirty one to the trash or will bring us her wipes and a clean diaper if we ask him.) I think he’s enjoying being a big brother and enjoyed having my parents here as well as he’s enjoying having my mother in law here as well to visit and play with.
I had a two week check up with my OB on Valentine’s Day and I found out I have some blood clots underneath the skin on the incision that just have to absorb back into my body. So I’m not able to lift anything over 10lbs right now, and just have to take it easy. Tito’s been a great help with everything and with Santi. He was due to go back to work on the 27th, but is going to talk to his manager about working from home since I can’t lift Santi into his crib for nap time or even throughout the day. I have a few times and when I have it hurts my incision, so I think I still need some more time. After Tito is back to work though I’ll definitely be getting settled into my routine. Hopefully after my 6 week check up with my doctor on March 9th, I’ll be able to get back into my full routine which includes lifting Santi and also going for walks and hopefully soon eventually runs with my new double jogging stroller I just ordered.
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