December 7th, 2011 will always be the absolute most important and most meaningful day of my life... the day i met my son, the day we became a family, and the day my life officially became about more than just me and my needs! Carter has been the biggest blessing in our lives from not only our son but to our parents beautiful grand baby.. It was all so blissful for the first two days. It was all that i expected from a pregnancy, labor, and delivery! Me and justin really enjoyed the food and the ability to order as much food as we could handle! I got ridiculously addicted to the southwest breakfast burrito that i ordered it for almost every meal of the day as well as fruit plates and cranberry juice! I was loving nursing my son, but it was ALWAYS thirsty! it was unreal.. i cannot even describe the sheer thirst you have when your breast feeding!! It was all going so well that to all that were a part of the whole ordeal thought i was a blessed women and birthing babies was a natural process for me.... we all spoke WAY too soon!!!
On Friday December 9th, 2011.. everything that seemed ideal went the complete opposite way! We were an hour away from being discharged and i had just met with the lactation consultant to finalize all the learning i had done in the past two days in the hospital. I felt a little off and my groin was unreal tight, but to my knowledge at the time it was just normal recovery stuff... I stood up to use the bathroom before waking up justin to get carter changed and ready to go when my legs almost gave out. It felt like knives were being stabbed into my left groin and my legs werent working right. i slowly made it into the bathroom and took deep breathes through the pain but getting back into bed was sooooooooooooo horrible i started to actually cry and jus woke up wondering what the heck was going on! i couldnt explain it to the nurses or doctors when they were asking what i thought was going on. it got worse and worse throughout the day and it really got scary when i couldnt use my legs at all to move in and out of bed or to the bathroom. That night they moved us to a bigger room in hopes to help with all the madness. Through that weekend it got worse and worse.. my lady parts were so swollen and my ligaments hurt so badly that even talking was painful. My parents were so upset that they didnt have any idea what was going to happen. The doctor that was seeing me was an on call doctor... of course my doctor had to leave the country while all of this was going on! throughout the weekend the on call doctor did absolutely nothing and just fed me pain pills to get me by until my real doctor got back.
Saturday night around 9 pm my parents, jus, and his mom were all so sick of nothing being done that they had to say something! a very sweet nurse came into check my vitals for the first time on her shift and my parents finally unloaded all of their worries, expectations, and fears on this women! i dont actually remember this portion of the weekend due to the heavy morphine injections i was getting through my iv, but ive been told many times this is how it all went. i had an ultrasound of my pelvic region and there was a pocket of fluid that was found but my on call doctor wouldnt call in a ct scan or anything to pursue it any further! THAT WASNT OK!!!! Heather the sweet nurse came back into the room and informed my parents that she was able to get the ct scan scheduled and id be going in less than 5 minutes! WHAT A RELIEF, SOMEONE FINALLY CARED!!! the CT was painful because of them having to move me... IT HURT HORRIBLY.. but it was something we had to do! thankfully it came back ok but then what? the on call doctor decided to just put me on three different antibiotics and crazy pain meds to see if that would cure the issues.. everything seemed to be getting better on sunday as i could walk a little and get my catheder removed! we all thought i had turned the corner and would be better in no time!
Monday my dad took the day off of work to spend it with me and help me with carter in the hospital while jus went home and got sleep for a while! it was such a relief to have my dad there and an advocate for me and my health while being so drugged up! Monday went pretty smoothly and we even got up for a walk on monday afternoon! It was time to go home.. even though i was still really swollen up down there! We got discharged around 9 pm monday night and my parents had dinner ready for us at our house when we got home! it still hurt to walk and move but i figured in the next few days it would become less painful and become easier to move and be helpful with carter! WAS I WRONG!!!!! That night was horrible, no sleep because of being propped up in bed, carter waking up needing to be fed and changed, and horrible pains in my groin area. around 7 am i started to have serious pain in my lower back and kidneys! i thought it was another part of recovery but after about an hour and the pain getting so intense i couldnt walk at all again i knew something wasnt right. Jus had to take carter to his first peditricians appointment so my dad had to leave a meeting at work to come and take me back to the hopsital. when my dad got to our house it took us 30 minutes from our room to the car in the drive way... not walking... shuffling my feet without a lot of success!
Once we got to the ER things started to get foggy again. THANKFULLY jus knew an ER doc and he was there that day working! we got right in and he already had orders ready for me for morphine and pain meds... it was such a blessing! they put the IV in.. missing a few times again.. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT RIGHT? well eventually they got it placed and they did a bladder ultrasound... the nurse said in a very urgent voice, "we have to get a cath placed.." i didnt know what this meant exactly but later they told my dad that i had 1900 cc urine in my bladder when youre only suppose to have about 30 cc at a time.. the urine was backing up into my kidneys and other organs! they were worried that had spread another infection into my body but my bloodwork said i was in the clear on that problem! THANK GOD!!!! I was immediately admitted and was diagnosed with cellulitis (a skin infection) and treated with a heavy anitbiotic and pain meds! I was so bummed that i had to leave my family to readmit back into the hospital, but it had to be done for all everyone to get better. I tried to pump milk for carter while staying in the hopsital away from him, but it wasnt working and i had to think about myself getting better for his sake! He had also lost almost 2 pounds because my body wasnt producing enough milk to keep him full and happy! We knew then i had to give up my idealic dream of nursing and get him food that would help him grow and thrive.. IT WAS SUCH A BUMMER AND STILL IS... but it had to be done! :(
The second stay at the hospital was lonely.. i was there all day by myself and jus would bring carter by for a few hours before he went to work. HE WAS A SUPER DAD!!!! he did everything without complaining! my parents were also a very very very HUGE help! they took the night feedings while i was gone so jus could get enough sleep to last through the day doing it by himself! WE DONT KNOW WHAT WE WOULD HAVE DONE WITHOUT THEM!!!! slowly but surely i started to feel a little better and the swelling started to go down! I was finally released on Friday after almost 10 days!
Once i got home i felt like i had been punched in the face with a brick! i had no energy for anything.. a shower took so much out of me that i would lay down and be out for hours afterwards! Again, my parents, jus's mama and justin really stepped up and helped make it easier on me! I feel like this recovery was something i never would have expected.. it was unreal painful and ridiculously long... but our beautiful baby boy is worth every tear i have ever shed.. the sleepless nights i layed awake wondering what was even happening... we made it though, and thats all we will remember about this experience in the years to come.. WE MADE IT THROUGH!!!!
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