I thought about if I would write this for days. I don't want the blog to be a place that feels negative; but after much contemplation I decided to tell my story. I think that other women (and their partners) who have a less than perfect postpartum period need to hear that they aren't alone.
I think I will start by saying that my pregnancy was a breeze. I didn't experience any of the first trimester nausea, the hormones actually made me feel good, my hair and skin looked great, I encountered no health complications and I was doing yard work, shopping, etc. up until the day my son was born. Sure, I had some heartburn and once I was the size of a house my back ached but overall I had a wonderful pregnancy. I really enjoyed it and felt a deep connection to my baby before I ever met him.
About a week before my due date I noticed I was leaking a very small amount of watery fluid. I noted the change but being so close to my due date I guessed it was normal. To be safe I called a nurse and was told I was fine and that it was typical of many women. I felt fine and put it out of my mind. Three days before my due date, I was leaking enough fluid to worry me. What if this is amniotic fluid? I dreaded the idea of going to labor and delivery to potentially receive unwelcome news but I hadn't come this far to let something go wrong. Mark and I packed our hospital bags "just in case" and headed to the hospital.
It took no time at all for the fluid to be identified as amniotic fluid. The bag housing my child and the fluid that was his current world had ruptured and was slowly leaking. I was told I would be admitted and induced. I couldn't leave. It was happening now.
I know a lot of women would have been happy and excited at that point; and really I was so ready to meet my son, but I wanted it to happen naturally, I wanted my body to decide when my labor began. I had said from day one that I would not allow pitocin during my birthing process to encourage contractions and here I was, three days away from my the due date being told I needed to do just that. I had already been leaking fluid for days and if I lost enough it could be devastating for my baby. How could I refuse knowing that? Off we went to a delivery room.
As I recounted in my last post, my birth experience was tough. It was long and exhausting and when it was over and my husband and our new baby an I were finally home I felt like I had been to battle and back. There was a lot of crying. Mostly tears of joy and gratitude but also from overwhelm and my hormones being out of whack! I had also fractured my tailbone during birth and sitting and standing up was (and still is) very painful. Throw sleep deprivation and learning how to care for an infant on top of that and I was really stressed. I credit Mark for getting me through those first days at home. He assured me that my hormones would eventually get better and I would feel like myself again. I kept my focus on the baby and allowed myself to process my emotions as they came up. I was coping and feeling better each day but I had a headache that just wouldn't let up. At my one week check-up I was told I was probably experiencing "nurser's neck" from bad positioning while nursing. Over the next few days I worked on perfecting my mechanics but the headache kept getting worse. It traveled from my shoulders up my neck into my head. After about a week and a half with no relief I made a call to the on-call nurse at around midnight. I just couldn't believe this was normal. She asked me to check my blood pressure to rule out postnatal preeclampsia. I drove to Walmart to use the blood pressure cuff but it wasn't working. With my head throbbing I grabbed one off the shelf and spent the forty dollars.
When I got home and checked my pressure it was ridiculously high. Something like 189/110 (normal is 120/80). We put Fox in his car seat and headed to the ER. I had no idea the nightmare I was about to endure.
At the hospital, in the ER, I was put on an IV drip of magnesium. This was to keep me from having a seizure. They also started me on blood pressure medicine. After several hours my pressure was down a bit but not enough to release me. I was admitted back to labor and delivery.
In labor and delivery the lights were turned low to keep the room dark and I was put back on the magnesium drip and had a nurse in the room for constant monitoring. I wasn't allowed to be alone with the baby in case I seized. We hadn't eaten for hours and it didn't look like I'd be getting any food for awhile. They were going to keep me on the magnesium for 24 hours. My main concern was breast feeding the baby. I was told it was safe but that he might get drowsy from the mag. Of course this made me feel even more upset. The mag was making me feel awful, the way your body feels when you have the flu but worse. The thought of my baby feeling even a little bit that way broke my heart.
Several hours later we were transferred to ICU. Still on the drip, banned from leaving the bed, forced to use a bedpan and barely able to sit up to feed my child, I felt depressed. This wasn't how I wanted to start my new journey as a mother. It wasn't fair. I'd had such a healthy pregnancy...why was my body failing me now? I asked Mark to text my mother and let he know what was happening. When she arrived I broke down sobbing. I felt helpless.
The next day we were moved to the postpartum unit. I was finally off the magnesium and my blood pressure was at a safe number. We spent the next two days in that room while my vitals were monitored every hour. I felt scared and didn't understand how something so life threatening was expected to just correct itself. Would I always be monitoring my blood pressure now? How long before I'm off the medication? What other illnesses does this put me at risk for?
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| In the postpartum unit after being taken off the magnesium. Fox is in the bassinet behind me. |
That was weeks ago and I'm still taking medicine to keep my pressure in check and I have to check my numbers every day. Now that I'm past the 6 weeks postpartum period my care is being transferred to a cardiologist because it's no longer considered a pregnancy related issue. Does that change my situation from postnatal preeclampsia to flat out hypertension? Does that change the outlook for my recovery? I hope to get some answers when I see the new doctor next week.
For now I am trying really hard to focus on the positive. The medications I am taking make me dizzy and give me the feeling of being weighed down but they are keeping me from having a seizure or a stroke so I can deal with it.
I tell you this story because it is important to be truthful about our experience of birth and the postpartum period. It is a way we can support one another. Women need to know that it might be hard or overwhelming or even scary if you have a health issue; and our men, our partners, need to know what to expect too. I also tell it because this is a personal blog and this is my life right now. This is what I have to share. Things haven't gone even close to what I had imagined but I am still lucky. My baby is perfect and beautiful and the most wonderful gift I could have ever imagined. Every day my body gets stronger and my thoughts more positive and my heart swells greater with this new love for my little guy.
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| Home with my little love. |
~ Love & Light ~
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