Quick update...

Hi all,

Things have been a bit...challenging...shall we say? I'll explain why in a bit, but suffice it to say that we've definitely been given our fair share of obstacles in the past week and it's been somewhat tough. But the good news is that Cooper is still doing great, he regained his birth weight by the time we saw the pediatrician the Monday after he was born, and other than some eye schmutz that cropped up today (might be a tear duct thing), he's a wonderful, perfect, lovely little guy.

Birth story, abridged: Started induction at 1pm on 3/17 with cytotec, which didn't do a darn thing to dilate me past the 1cm I was already at, so around 5pm they put in a foley catheter...which, holymotherofgod, hurt more than I thought possible. That was put in to dilate me to 4cm, which took about 4 hours. In the meantime, I fully embraced the idea of an epidural and asked to get that put in after the catheter fell out. It worked well enough that I think I was able to rest overnight, but to be quite honest I don't really remember much other than the constant BP monitoring cuff and the oxygen mask they insisted I wear. Oh yeah, pitocin was started at the same time as the catheter and they kept pushing it up and up and up. I was also told to stay on my right side as much as possible, because it was best for the baby, and doing that meant that at some point the epidural stopped working as well on my left side. GREAT! Jump to Tuesday, and I've since lost track of when I dilated to what centimeter, but I do remember that I was progressing VERY slowly and was becoming quite discouraged...and uncomfortable...and worried about the level of pitocin I was on...and sick of being on my right side...and generally just getting wiped out and tired and frustrated. During the day I had two additional doses put into the epidural and they only worked for a couple of hours, and by 5pm I was dilated to 8cm. We got somewhat encouraged by this news, but cut to 4-ish hell hours later and I was still at 8cm, and the docs finally declared me "failure to progress". I was quickly prepped for a c-section, and since the epidural was obviously not as effective as it could have been, they took that out and did a spinal block on me. That wasn't fun, since the same guy who did the epidural did the spinal...and appeared to be a trainee on the spinal part. But by then I was in so much pain and misery that I mostly didn't care.

I'll spare you the details of the c-section (I wasn't a huge fan of all the sensations, to say the least), but Cooper was born with a major conehead - due to hanging out in my pelvis for so long - and apgars of 7 and 9 at 9:50pm on 3/18. I was stitched up and the three of us moved to the recovery room for a couple hours of monitoring. It was nice to have Bob and Cooper in the room with me, since it distracted me from the discomfort, and we were moved to the postpartum room and settled by 1am. Three days of recovery and we were discharged home on 3/21.

I was recovering fine until Sunday morning, when I woke up with some sharp stabbing pains in my incision. It didn't look all that great throughout the day, and I went in to the OB acute care clinic on Monday after our pediatrician appointment where I was told to come back on Wednesday since they weren't sure if it was an infection or possibly a hematoma. So, we go back on Wednesday...all three of us since I'm still unable to drive by myself...and after two doctor consults, it's determined that I definitely have large hematomas/blood clots that are hindering the healing of my incision, and the incision was re-opened to get cleaned out and packed with aquacell. The plan was to come back to OB for a dressing change every other day, but by Wednesday evening the bleeding had seeped heavily through the outside dressing and Bob and I drove back to the hospital to have it all looked at again. Fortunately, my mom made an emergency trip to come help us with Cooper, so at least we didn't have to lug the little guy with us.

The docs in L&D (thankfully we didn't have to go to the ER) decided that the wound was seeping too heavily for aquacell, and they switched me to a wet/dry dressing...which means packing my own wound twice a day. FUN!...not. Bob is unable to do the dressing changes, says he could do it on a stranger but not his own wife, but he's able to hold the mirror for me and either keeps his eyes closed or on the TV. While it's amazingly gross seeing the inside of your own belly (fortunately it's just the fat/skin layer, but about an inch down...seriously, just gross), I'm trying to channel the old days of my college zoology classes when we dissected things and keep myself totally removed from the process while doing what has to be done. Hopefully we'll be getting set up with a home health care nurse starting on Monday so at least I'll have a medical professional here for the dressing changes, with a practiced eye on how the wound is supposed to look, and can help if there are any issues that come up.

It's just so odd that opening the wound is supposed to help me heal faster in this case, something to do with how the blood clots were in the way of the layers properly healing and how opening it and doing wet/dry dressing will help things heal from the inside out. But, I do have to admit to a bit less pain now that the clots have been somewhat removed, there isn't as much pressure. I still have to go to the OB every other day during the week, where they will continue to monitor my progress. And at some point the goal is to get me back on the aquacell, which in theory will reduce the number of dressing changes.

To say we're overwhelmed these days is an understatement. Fortunately, Cooper is a wonderful little guy and we're so blessed that he's healthy so far. His only issue is that he doesn't sleep as well at night as he does during the day...the lovely night vs. day thing that many newborns have...but hopefully we'll get that worked out soon. We're also blessed to have generous parents who have rallied to help us get through these tough weeks. My mom came down immediately on Wednesday when all this incision stuff started and stayed until today, which is when Bob's mom Alice arrived to stay for a week. Dad and Jeannie are then arriving when Alice leaves and we plan on having them stay as long as they can, about 8-9 days. Mom may come back for a few days, depending on my healing status, and then my cousin/sister Susan will be visiting for a little bit (yay!!), and beyond that we're really, really, really hoping that I'll be back to somewhat of a normal health level and be able to care for Cooper the way I'd like to. Bob returns to work this Monday, but we're hoping that his boss will allow him to have reduced work hours or grant him some leave, at least for another week.

So, that's the story about Cooper's birth and our adventures since we've been home from the hospital. I hope you'll all forgive my lack of response to emails and phone calls and gifts/cards for the time being. Any energy and pain-free time I have goes to Cooper, and the rest goes towards trying to mentally heal so I can physically heal. Things could be so much worse, but it's been a tough time lately and it's hard not to feel a little disappointed and drained. Bob has been truly wonderful, as have our parents, and we'll get through all this eventually...and holding Cooper in my arms for our afternoon naps together certainly takes my mind off everything.