After the birth...

After the euphoria of having had a VBAC and welcoming our daughter- things started to look less peachy...

I had some "extensive" tears from the hand/elbow scraping and after 1 hr in the delivery room the OB wasn't able to stitch me up correctly.  They moved me into the OR and 3 Attendings worked on me for over 1 hr.  Apparently I didn't tear all that bad, but the location of the tear was very difficult to access and stitch- also the bleeding was reducing their visibility- yes they vacuumed blood out of me during this.  Man so much trauma to my poor body. I felt very panicky in the OR, I was shaking uncontrollably from the increased meds so they could work on me without me feeling it, and something was going on with E and D.  I asked to be mildly sedated because although my legs were numb, I was about to jump off the table.  Something about numb legs makes me very panicky- it happened during my epideral too, but with everything else going on in the OR I couldn't cope.

D was fortunately able to accompany me in the OR with our little girl, E.  But as I was being wheeled in I hear the nurse say to another nurse, "she doesn't sound so good, we need to check her out."  So there I am on the table and they begin to asses E- I look over and she looks a bit blue and they say she needs to be checked out because her breathing sounded like grunts.  So D goes with E, and I go into a sedated state till they finish with the stitching.

When I get back to the room they discover I have a fever and begin me on tylenol and antibiotics (oh joy!).  Then D comes back and tells me E is in the NICU having some trouble breathing- she had to have a CPAP to help her reach 100% oxygen.  I was honestly so exhausted and also so high off the birth hormones that I coped surprisingly well.  A bit later the pediatrician comes in to say they did an X-ray and it looks like pneumonia.  So E was started on antibiotics.

She was born around 6:30 pm and went in the NICU around 10:00 pm.  By the next morning she was doing much better, not needing the CPAP, the next X-ray looked much better (no longer were they thinking pneumonia), but her blood tests came back showing some sort of infection could be present.  So they wanted to continue her antibiotics and monitor her for 5 full days.  This was devastating- I hated being in the postpartum section without my baby.  And despite having a vaginal delivery I was seriously struggling with walking, I was in a lot of pain from the surgery, and carrying around my own IV of antibiotics- so visiting the NICU was no easy feat.  I was also pumping and then visiting her every few hours to nurse.  We managed to use only a few ml of formula (mostly because those NICU nurses were NOT very supportive of exclusive breastfeeding- they are all about pushing fluids, measuring output with each diaper, and expecting major weight gain in the first week- I understand why, but E was not preemie or dealing with multiple major issues).

Long story short- E did great, never needing to stay past the 5 days of antibiotics, and we were able to stay down the hall from the NICU in a parents sleep room for the remainder of E's NICU stay after I was discharged.  It was hard being away from L (we visited with him a few hours at a time), but E needed us, breastfeeding was our full time job till she was out.

My recovery has been rough- at times it feels harder then the c-section, at times not...
I am less then 3 weeks postpartum but still in a lot of pain at times, walking hurts, but at least I have my abs!  I can't imagine being around L after a c-section- this guy has been expressing himself by jumping on me, pulling me, climbing, and throwing himself into me.  Poor guy is really struggling with having missed us for about 1 week and now mommy is even more incapacitated then during pregnancy.  Overall he seems to adore E, but he doesn't like to share me with her.

E is turning out to be such as easy baby- despite the difficult delivery, the NICU stay, and health scares, she is calm, sleeps really well, only cries when she wants her diaper changed or to be fed.  It's like a whole new experience to D and I- L was ridiculously hard as a newborn (ha and even still!), so thankfully E will create some balance in this intense family.  She looks a lot like I did as a baby, very curious to see how she grows both physically and personality.