My recovery in the hospital was pretty awful. So much so that I feel sick whenever I try to remember it, much less write out all of the details. In summary though, I ended up passing out a few hours after birth when the nurses tried to take me to the bathroom.
I puked a ton.
I couldn't fall asleep which made me even sicker.
I had a third degree tear (which every doctor and nurse who came in commented on how bad it looked.)
I was nauseous most of my stay.
I couldn't walk to the bathroom so I had to have multiple catheters.
My tailbone was bruised during delivery so it was incredibly painful to lie down.
The first night of breastfeeding went so poorly that I had bleeding, bruised nipples by the morning.
I felt so sick most of our time in the hospital, I couldn't even handle holding Aaron, much less taking care of him. Sammy was a rockstar and did everything. Everything. He changed every diaper, he fed Aaron once I was unable to breastfeed, he comforted him every time he cried, he burped him which was quite a task. My mom and sister are rockstars too. My mom came to help me feel better, and my sister took care of Aaron and I so that Sammy could get some sleep. Without them, I seriously have no idea how we would have gotten through those first few days.
Those days in the hospital were crazy. At one point I was overwhelmed thinking I would never be able to walk again. After passing out, every time I tried to walk my legs would buckle and the room would get tipsy and I was terrified to stand. I eventually walked again though with the help of a kind understanding nurse. After that, it felt like I was just trying to move from one hurdle to the next. I'd think I would never do one thing again, then I'd do that a few days later, only to have a new obstacle to get over.
Aaron had a bit of a time too. He swallowed some amniotic fluid and so he would just grunt and gasp and made a lot of weird noises, trying to get it out. It was in his stomach though so he needed to puke it up, but he couldn't. The nurses tried to help him, but it just wouldn't come up on it's own. It was sad to watch him struggling with that, he was obviously uncomfortable, but there was nothing we could do. After twenty four hours they finally stuck a tube down his throat into his stomach and pumped him with 10ml of fluid to get it out. They ended up sucking out 17ml, and it was so thick it clogged up the tube. After that was out of his stomach, Aaron did a lot better.
It's hard to see in the pictures, but Aaron has a scar from his lip up to his nose. Every nurse who came in was fascinated by it because it looks like he was going to have a cleft lip, but it healed itself. I knew it was unique when other nurses and doctors came in just to look at it real quick. All of the nurses in my family love to look at odd things. His doctor looked it over and his mouth is completely fine and he'll just have a little scar.
Despite all of those awful moments, there were sweet ones too. Seeing all of our family meet Aaron for the first time was so sweet.
Realizing Aaron had Sammy's cute ear.
Seeing that Aaron had little blisters on his hand and arm where he'd sucked on them in the womb. We'd seen him sucking on his arm on that spot in the ultrasound.
Watching Say Yes to the Dress with Aaron in the middle of the night.
Those few moments where I felt okay and could hold Aaron, and he snuggled right up to me.
Moments with Sammy
Watching Sammy with his son
At one point one of the housekeeping staff told us that she'd see us again in two years when we have our next baby. I laughed pretty hard at that because with how awful I felt, I have reminded Sammy over and over that this will be our only child ;)
Comments
Post a Comment