Long Laborious Labor

Well, it's all over folks. After a little Oxytocin, 11 hours of waiting around and doing nothing but playing bejeweled on the ipod, I pushed out an 8 lb 2 oz. baby girl. She was perfect although cheesy... LOL. I started pushing and here comes the doctor who really believed that I had a while to go. She headed off to use the restroom and there came Cate's head. Someone yelled for the doctor and she came racing out of the bathroom pulling up her scrubs, but not fast enough. The entire OB ward knew that she had blue underwear. Then she yells to the nurse, "Barbara, hold her in there. I'm getting gloves. Oh, forget it..." Then she just caught the baby bare handed. I felt kinda bad but the chute was slippery and I had no control over how fast that kid was coming out. She is beautiful and I cried. My mom took pictures and posted them here. http://gammasusie.blogspot.com/

Then I sent Laura out to get me my favorite recovery meal: Arby's! When she got back I wolfed it down, fed the baby and then... it happened. I knew that dang Murphy's Law was waiting to kick my butt. I didn't tear from the delivery, she had come out so easy, this was way to easy. Something had to go wrong. I could feel the Arby's gurgling around in my stomach. I really was starting to get sick. I hate to throw up so I knew this was going to be bad. I said quietly to the nurse, "I'm going to puke." Then it all happened really fast. I couldn't breath. That was all I knew. I couldn't breath. I was raking in breath and no one was helping me. Where was a hand to hold? I was suffocating! There was a doctor there that wasn't my doctor and he was asking if I wanted to know what was going on down below. Apparently, they had pulled back the sheets and I was hemorrhaging. I actually said, "No, I don't CARE! I can't BREATH!" It's funny how when you can't breath, they put an oxygen mask OVER YOUR MOUTH AND NOSE and you feel like you can't breath even more. After what seemed like an eternity of not being able to get a breath, and some horrible pain coming from the nether region, I felt my chest begin to let up. I was breathing better but I was crying like crazy. They stuck me with needles that I couldn't see the need for, they pushed on my already tender stomach and basically made me crazy. Once I got my breath and my doctor (after getting a speeding ticket trying to get back to the hospital after being paged) got back and was standing next to my bed, the nurses pulled back the covers and I saw what happened. There was blood EVERYWHERE! I almost fainted just seeing them clean up and the concerned look on Dr. Happy's face made me worry. I was wiped out already but to see that there might be more after the not-being-able-to-breath incident made me want to cry all over again.

I finally got all cleaned up and Dr. Happy explained everything to me. I had clotted at the opening of the uterus and I wasn't bleeding out properly, therefore I was bleeding internally. That's not good for a uterus. You need to bleed out, not let it stay in. Usually we think of stopping the bleeding but that's not how it works with your uterus. It needs to bleed out and clamp down. So, I was building up and building up and the uterus didn't know what to do. It just kept bleeding and building up. Anyway, once they got the clot out of the way, all that blood came out and it was ALOT so I was way weak and they considered giving me a transfusion. They got me all cross checked and drew more blood to check my platelets. After 6 hours or so, they decided I didn't need blood - just rest. So I'm stuck in the hospital for a while but I have Cate to keep me company and her little gruntings are great conversation for me.

I know this blog was all about me and not much about Cate. She is perfection itself and when Abby came to see her today, she pronounced her Baby Cakes. Love it. Don't worry about me. I'm doing great. Cate was with Daddy through the whole scary experience and my mom was by my side for the whole thing. Mission Hospitals Dr.s and nurses did an amazing job and I'm very lucky to be in such a great place with my new baby who I LOVE! So, now if it would just stop snowing long enough for us to get home...