Baby Aftermath, Part One

I'm tempted to write a little Juggalo 101 so you can all understand Brandon's last post...but I'm not really in the mood.  Just know that Juggalos are groupies to the band Insane Clown Posse (ICP) and we laugh, groan, and even lament that whole subculture a lot in this house.

But instead, I'm feeling the need to gather some thoughts about some of my postpartum experiences and thought I would do it here since many have asked me questions about it.  I’m going to divide this post up to make it more bearable and not so long. I’ve already written everything so you don’t have to worry about me saying ‘more on this later’ and then never getting back to the topic. I’m the queen of that sort of thing. I’m also going to try to make this fairly benign…I’m not going to mention the word uterus, vagina, dilation, placenta, etc anywhere except for in this very sentence.  And that’s not because I’m too squeamish to do so but because a.) my husband has heard those words way too many times in the past year and I’m going to spare him and because b.) this is a postpartum story, not a birth story. So here we go…  

Part One

Childbirth is a really crazy thing.  I'd go through it again in a heartbeat.  And yet, I've been surprised on the toll it took on my body.  The main thing that happened--the thing that totally caught me off guard, was that my lower back, hips, and pelvis took a pretty serious beating. I'm fairly sure it all happened during the delivery process although some of the reading I've done suggests that certain hormones (relaxin and progesterone) were probably doing some of it throughout the pregnancy.  

The process of laboring that little baby was a long one...from the time my water broke to the time he was born was about 37 hours.  The final 4 were the most dramatic, with the final 2 ½ being the most physically intensive. Needless to say, everyone was exhausted by the time Russell made it. After the commotion of his arrival had quelled, our new little family was transferred to our recovery room and we finally got the opportunity to rest. Brandon had the nurses take our baby to the nursery so we could get a few hours of much needed sleep. I slept for 2-3 hours and woke to the most excruciating pain. At first I could not tell what was what...where was I feeling the pain?  Was it pain or just the sensation of the epidural wearing off?  Was supposed to be feeling this way?  I had, after all, just delivered an 8lb 10z baby.   

I still don't know how much of what I was feeling was normal, but I was in pain and it was both awful and scary. I couldn't sit up, move my legs, switch positions in bed, let alone get out of bed without yelping in pain.  My hips were sawing into my muscles and my tail bone was stabbing me...it felt as if I was a dried out tree branch and any sort of movement would potentially snap off my limbs. Getting out of bed was a nightmare; the nurse and Brandon moved me because I couldn't do it myself.  Shifting my weight made me cry out in pain and I was terrified of moving because I knew all subsequent movement would bring agony.  The anticipation of pain was almost as bad as the pain itself. When finally standing, I couldn't support myself and again needed the nurse, Brandon, and sometimes even a medical assistant, to help me.  

Getting to the bathroom was quite the challenge. For a normal person, it was about five steps away. For me, it was about a 15 minute team effort. In the bathroom, I couldn't even sit on the toilet...I had never been so helpless.  Getting back into bed and getting comfortable again was another team effort.  I think I swore, screamed, whimpered, cried, and then begged for pain medicine.  I didn't do any of that during the actual birth...I postponed the epidural for as long as possible, shed only a few tears, and kept pretty good composure during those long hours.  But this, this was something else.     

That intense level of discomfort continued for about another 48 hours.  It took a while for people to understand that the pain wasn't coming from my lady part areas but was instead in my lower back and hips. We finally got into a routine of pain medication--rotating between the maximum doses of Percocet and ibuprofen. The meds made the pain somewhat manageable, but I still couldn't get in and out of bed or go to the bathroom by myself, and definitely noticed when I was due for another dose.  Walking around our little room took all my effort--sometimes even to the point of getting dizzy and almost fainting--but the nurses wanted me to do it periodically to help the recovery process.  I dreaded getting out of bed and would postpone it for as long as possible, which then created its own set of problems, as I couldn't manage the pain and hold my bladder at the same time...it was humiliating.  I remember tears just streaming down my face on multiple times because everything was just so hard.      

Part Two to Contain: Figuring out the pain and going home