Hellobee

Just when you thought the horrifying gruesomeness of my birth story was over… here’s part 3 for you!

After delivering RJ, recovery was as I had imagined it: painful, difficult, and slow. But things seemed to get better with each passing day, until I hit day 11 or so. My bleeding had slowed almost to a stop, but then started up again. I didn’t think too much of this, just that maybe the slowing of bleeding had been a fluke and I wasn’t really done bleeding yet. But then I started feeling like I needed to pass something every time I peed. I had been feeling this sensation all along, but with poop, not pee, since I had been constipated and scared to poop since delivering. But again, I chalked up the feeling up to normal recovery pain and discomfort.

The morning of Christmas Day, I went to the bathroom, and when I wiped, I looked at the tissue (as always, to check for bleeding) and noticed something… weird. There was something on the tissue that wasn’t blood, but didn’t seem to be toilet tissue either. It was pink and a little spongy. I got a little scared, then felt around down there to see if there was something. I felt something, so I got a hand mirror to check out what it looked like. I then got a lot scared when I saw a piece of something hanging out of me!

I screamed for Wagon Sr. (the baby sleeping in the same room didn’t even blink an eye!) and when he got to me, I said “there’s something hanging out of me.” He took me over to the bed to look and tried to tug on it a little, but it wouldn’t move. We called my OBGYN’s office, and since it was Christmas Day, we got the answering service. We left a message and the nurse called us right back, and after hearing what was going on, she had the OBGYN on call at the hospital call us right away. She instructed us not to touch it, and to head into the hospital to meet her in triage.

After making sure my parents were all set with taking care of Wagon Jr. for at least a few hours (thankfully, I had managed to pump a few bottles of breast milk by this point), Wagon Sr. and I headed into the hospital once again. The roads were so clear because of the holiday. When we arrived at the hospital, we parked with valet again (those darn guys got so much of our money) and headed into admitting. After checking in, they strapped us with hospital bracelets again and wheeled me up to the labor and delivery floor.

The on-call OBGYN met us in triage pretty quickly and took a look at what was going on down there. As she asked questions about what had happened, she proceeded to do a vaginal exam and then pulled the thing out. It was extremely painful! But pretty quick. Wagon Sr. said later that he had never seen someone move so quickly. She explained that what she had removed was a piece of membrane which may or may not have had a piece of placenta attached. It was left over from the afterbirth when the placenta had broken up inside me and the doctor had to manually extract it.

The nurse sent it down to pathology right away. I asked how big it was, and after a pause and a wide-eyed silent exchange between the doctor and Wagon Sr., I quickly told them not to tell me. Later on, after I had calmed down for a while and was on some drugs, Wagon Sr. told me that the membrane was black and big enough to fill a handful. The doctor had also mentioned that it didn’t smell great either. Awesome.

The next step was to take my blood and get me started on some antibiotics in case I had gotten an infection from the leftover membrane stewing inside me for the past two weeks. They also needed to get an ultrasound done to see if there was anything left in my uterus. If there was, I’d have to stay and get a D&C done. This is a procedure done under general anesthesia where the doctor dilates the cervix and basically scrapes out whatever is in the uterus. In case I needed to get this done, I couldn’t eat or drink anything, just ice chips.

Since it was Christmas Day there was only one ultrasound tech for the entire hospital, so we had a long wait ahead of us. The nurse got my IV started. After poking me twice in the right hand, she finally found a vein in my left hand… I hate IVs so so much. She also took my blood (which checked out just fine), and started me on both antibiotics and some really fabulous pain medication. I then spent the next hour or so in a lovely drugged-up state, feeling no pain and waiting for our ultrasound.

Finally we were taken to the ultrasound room where the tech gave us a report that there was stuff in my uterus, but it was probably just blood and blood clots since nothing showed any blood flow. But they couldn’t confirm that there was nothing in there. We went back to the labor and delivery triage and the doctor proceeded to tell us that she would be very surprised if anything was left after she took out that piece of membrane, and since the ultrasound looked pretty clear and my bloodwork looked fine, she’d send us home with some antibiotics and a drug that would contract my uterus and push out whatever was in there. She explained that the membrane had been sort of a band-aid in my uterus, and now that she ripped it off, I’d have bleeding again like I had in the beginning of my recovery. Only now, with the help of the prescription drug, my uterus could continue to contract down and finish recovering.

The rest of the day went by in a nauseous and painful blur (nauseous mostly because I hadn’t eaten anything since dinner the night before… sound familiar?), as my family tried to get me to eat and Wagon Sr. chased down my prescriptions at the only pharmacy open on Christmas Day. I barely had time to even see the baby before I slept for the rest of the day. My parents continued to care for Wagon Jr. They had run out of breast milk and were feeding him formula by now, but I had pumped while waiting at the hospital so we had two more bottles for him when we got home. For a few days I just rested and recovered, going in and out of states of fear that something else was going to come out and I’d have to go back to the hospital for a D&C. But luckily I didn’t.

So that’s that… a Christmas Day not easily forgotten. This IS the final part of Wagon Jr.’s birth story, and I do realize that all three parts were pretty scary. I’m not one of those people who say “once you see the baby you forget about all the pain” — I TOTALLY remember exactly what contractions felt like!! But 2 years later I can honestly wear my labor and delivery experience as a badge of honor and I’m not that scared for the next one. After all, I’ve been through so much with the first and I’m fine now… I am hoping it cannot get much worse than this!! If it’s somewhat equal or les than what I went through to deliver Wagon Jr., then I know I can survive through it and encourage other future moms that if I can do it, anyone can do it. I’m really such a wuss when it comes to pain and injuries, so honestly– if I can come out of it untraumatized, both physically and emotionally, then you will be fine too.