Week 39: June 11, 2012 (LABOR DAY)

To preface this, I will say that a few of the things I will write are probably too graphic for some to read. However, it seems no one ever talks about the tough part of labor and recovery so for those who would like to read about my experience, read at your own risk. 

So...turns out I didn't quite make it to my estimated delivery day which was set for the 14th of June. Lily decided she was ready to take her first breath of air on Monday, June 11th at 4:06 pm.

I would like to say that my labor and recovery was short and sweet but it wasn't. I mean, it is my first labor (and my last, after this experience lol knock on wood lol) so I suppose I should've known better to think this would have gone by quickly.


Well, it all began on Sunday morning (6/10), I started feeling crampy beginning at 9 in the morning, kinda like cramps when you're about to start your period (ladies, you can relate lol). They came and went at roughly 20 minute intervals (give or take). This went on pretty much the entire day, the cramps getting progressively stronger and closer together, but tolerable. In the early afternoon Ed said that he was predicting us heading to the hospital like at 10:30 that night. Little did I know that his prediction would be correct.  Well, the contractions started getting closer and closer, I had my "bloody show" (gross shit by the way) and come ten-ish, Ed proceeded to get us ready to go to the hospital.

We get to Kaiser at ten til 11 and the nurse asks me to get into that gaudy robe and get ready to get checked to see how dilated I am.  Turns out that I was still 3 cm dilated (no change from the check-up I had on Thursday), so they said to walk around for an hour up and down the halls to see if we could get things crackin'.  An hour later (midnight), I dilated to 4 cm, so they admitted me and got the IV started. Let me just say that I HATE needles and of course, my luck, the nurse ends up hitting a valve in my vein on my arm, making the area on my arm swell, consequently having to do it AGAIN on the other arm.  It was pretty painful.

So ideally, you're supposed to dilate about 1 cm every hour at least until you get to 10 cm and your cervix is 100% effaced (when it's real thin and soft ready for push time). In Claudia's world, this would be too easy and it wouldn't make for a great story, so of course, it wasn't until 4:30am when I got checked again that I was (wait for it...) 5 cm dilated. At this point they broke my water (feels like you're peeing yourself but you can't control it). At 7:30am they came around to check again and I was (wait for it again...) 6cm dilated. Come 10:30 am they came around yet again to see how I was progressing and I was at...yep 7cm dilated. Now, as you can see, the labor was progressing ever so slowly, and with them rupturing the amniotic sac, they needed to speed things up. Mind you, at this point I was tolerating the labor pains rather well, doing my breathing (didn't take the Lamaze class).

Of course, to speed things up they throw in our beloved friend pitocin to crank things up and boy did it! All of a sudden the tolerable pain became excruciating pain. I tried to keep my cool by using the birthing ball (a very big exercise ball) but to my dismay the pain was getting stronger and stronger to the point that I needed some pain meds. So, I got some stuff through my IV and it just dulled the pain and made me feel heavy and sleepy. All I remember while the meds were working was that when a contraction came I moaned a bit and then i dozed off but could hear what people were saying in the room. About an hour later, when the meds were wearing off, the midwife came in and told us that at this rate it would be another ten hours till we got to 10 cm so she suggested getting the epidural. Please remember that I HATE needles and I did see some youtube videos on getting an epidural that were pretty traumatic. I really did not want to get it but Ed executive decisioned me and the not so tolerable pain swayed me to agree to it.

So before epidural this is what I looked like (courtesy of Ed)

So, it turns out that they prepped me for the epidural procedure. I had to sit on both butt cheeks (I know, you're thinking well no shit sherlock), hug a pillow and arch my back like a cat, all while I was going through contractions. So the epidural person injected a numbing solution that felt like a bee sting (never been stung by a bee in my life, so now if I ever do, I'm assuming it feels like that felt lol) and then did the catheter thingy that would feed the numbing stuff for the epidural. However, as she was doing the procedure, she noticed that I was NOT sitting on both butt cheeks, SO... they had to start the procedure all over again, this time, making sure I was sitting on both my butt cheeks. It kinda sucked that not only did I get poked twice for the IV, but I had to get poked twice for the epidural!

This is me after getting the epidural...

So after they epidural it seemed as though nothing was happening...felt no pain. They increased the pitocin and things got sped up.

After that all I remember is Ed telling me to rest up, then the midwife telling me that it was time to push and then it was GO time!

All that pushing got us this!

Lily Jean DeLaO was born at 16:06 (4:06 pm) measuring 20 inches and weighing a whopping 7 pounds 3 ounces. 

After the delivery it turns out that both Lily and I had a fever which was attributed to the stress during the pushing part. Her temperature was at 102 and mine was at 101.  I was even asked during labor if I had any cardiac problems. Turns out the reason they asked was because my pulse was racing at over 150 bpm so it was cause for concern.  They monitored our temperatures closely and within a few hours our temperatures were back to normal. However, there was concern for Lily's temperature because they wanted to eliminate any infection she would have.  

So now we were going to get transfered to the recovery room. They checked to see if I had feeling back in my legs after epidural. I did but they still felt fuzzy. They put in another catheter (I had a catheter during epidural) to empty out my bladder after Lily was out and boy was it full! she emptied out about a liter of pee! Well, they put me in a wheelchair, Lily was in a plastic bassinet thingy and Ed hauled our stuff.  It took us probably about ten minutes to get to our new room and get settled in. Well, as the nurse was helping me get out of the wheelchair into the bed, a HUGE gush of liquid come out of my nether regions! Now, obviously it couldn't be my water breaking..again...since I just had the child so the other logical explanation was that it was pee. Yea. I gone pissed myself. And I did it again and again for the time I was in the hospital (til Wednesday the 13th). I was told every time that this was "normal" after a vaginal delivery and that it would get better as the days go by. Also, to accompany my bladder problem, it was very difficult to walk to the restroom which was like three feet away. My muscles around my pelvic area were shot! So in moving slower than a slug, I never quite made it to the toilet to empty my bladder. My pee happened to want to meet the floor by my bed almost every time. It got so bad to the point I asked if there was something other than the meshy undies and two sanitary napkins I was using that I could have that would hold all the urine I was expelling. So they brought some oversized blue diapers...big blues.  This helped some but I still had accidents. Oh, did I mention that while in bed I really didn't get the urge to pee? Oh yea...no urge. I had to force myself to get out of bed about every two hours just because I knew if I didn't the gush would be bigger than if I waited longer.

Well, come Wednesday evening we were discharged. Lily still had her case of jaundice which was going to be treated with a bili blanket (UV contraption to help redirect the bilirubin to her poop) at home and I still had a bad case of the gushes. The nurse still reassured me it was normal and that it will get better in a few days and proceeded to give me the next appointments for both Lily and myself. We had to go to the wellness appointment the next day on Thursday (the 14th).

So, our first night home was welcomed by my sister Veronica and Armando with some hearty dinner. After eating, my sister and Mando watched Lily. That gave Ed and I time to take a shower and get settled in at home. It was a bitch getting into the tub to shower, hard to lift my legs into it. Standing was no joke either as everything was swollen to the power of 10 and felt enormously heavy down there. Our first night was pretty tough with Lily. She woke up about every two hours to eat and with me not making any milk we had to supplement with that stupid little tube that was ever so frustrating for me as well as for Ed. It seemed as though the night was not long enough because it was already time to get up and get ready for our appointments. 

I called my mom and asked if she and dad could accompany us to the doctors since I was still in no position to walk well and I was still using diapers for the urine leakage and was no help to Ed. So they came over and we got everything ready to head out. We got to Kaiser, checked in and went to the waiting area for Lily's appointment. I, of course was in a wheelchair holding the car seat while being maneuvered around. While in the waiting room, there were other couples with babies who had a wellness appointment as well. What got to me was that there was no other mom in there that was in a wheelchair. It seemed as though they were perfectly ok pushing out their kid and were fully functional walking around with their little bundle of joy. So I felt like a loser because, here I was, in a wheelchair, not being able to walk, and to top things off I piss myself every time I get up – which I did, in the waiting room, as I got up to attempt to make it to the bathroom before an accident. So, I soiled myself in front of strangers, my husband (not that he hadn't seen this from me the past few days), kid, and mother. So I lost it and broke down into tears. Ed takes me to the bathroom to get cleaned up, we come back, and my accident is still in the waiting room... waiting to be cleaned up. Well, we head into Lily's appointment with the doctor; they undress her, weigh her, and check her for any change in her jaundice. Turns out that we still had to keep her on that bili blanket for a few more days (we wouldn't be able to take her off it until Sunday the 16th). Then the doctor asks if we had any questions. I bring up my accident issue and she replies by telling us that the appointment I had was not to see how I was doing, but to see how Lily's doing, and see the lactation specialist because I was having issues with my milks. 

So I go to the next room to see the lactation specialist, sit in the cushiony chair and she asks how breastfeeding is going. I tell her the kid latches on, sucks like a fiend, but no milk comes out. Then she says that we need to supplement using a bigger contraption to hold more formula, but still stick a little tube in her mouth while making her latch on. Mind you, these lactation specialists brutalize your boobs like no other, man! So she "shows" me how easy it is to use this tube and hold it close to my nipple while making the kid latch on... yea... easy when there are four hands doing it all, but she was saying I should be able to do all that on my own... while holding Lily! I was upset, not to mention not emotionally unstable, but I was trying to hold it together. So the appointment was over and she scheduled another lactation appointment for the following Tuesday (19th). Meanwhile, Ed had checked me into Urgent Care per the doctor's suggestion to see if I wanted to get the bladder issue addressed. Well, I get up from her cushiony chair and of course...another accident...and the lactation specialist looks at me in disbelief. All I wanted to tell her was,"See! This is why I'm probably not making any milk! My body has bigger issues to worry about right now!" But I just walked out, head down, back to the wheelchair to get wheeled to urgent care. 

In urgent care I have to get out of the wheelchair for my weight. I really hoped I didn't have an accident doing that, and luckily I didn't... Not because I was getting control over my bladder, but I had just emptied my all over the waiting room upstairs AND the lactation room! What else could be in there?! Then we went to the exam room, and one of the nurses comes in and asks me if I could go to the bathroom for a urine sample. I just about lost it again and told her that there was no way I would make it to the bathroom to pee in that cup. If she wanted a sample I would have to do it in the room. So with Ed's help, he collected drips of pee in the cup, and a few minutes later (quite a few later) the PA comes in to tell us that I have a bladder infection and this could be the reason why I cannot hold my urine or have the urge to pee. So he prescribes some antibiotics and rest and said if this still persists after a week I should schedule an appointment with OB/GYN for Tuesday (19th).

Well, with all this going on mom and dad offered us to spend a few days with them at their house while I got better. This was very helpful for us as Ed and I had extra hands caring for Lily, and I got some bedrest. As the days went by though, there was really no change in my symptoms, even after taking antibiotics, so Ed scheduled the appointment with the OB for Tuesday afternoon. 

I skipped the stupid lactation appointment (they could suck my left boob), went to the OB where they made me empty my bladder then proceeded to stick a catheter into my urethra to check for any blockage that might be leaving urine in there but all was clear. The doctor comes in shortly and proceeds to tell me that what I have is severe incontinence which affects 1 in 3 women after vaginal delivery. There really isn't anything medically that could be done besides me trying to restrengthen my pelvic muscles by doing Kegel exercises (darn Kegel's). She informed us that this could last days, weeks, months or it could be something I have to live with. As far as surgery is concerned, it would be an option after a year of suffering from this. So of course, I lose it as she's telling us all of this because I'm thinking that this is gonna suck balls, especially when going back to work (yea...I'm thinking about work...), because I can't stand the idea of wearing diapers and having accidents in front of my students, that would just really suck. So, she said to do 30 kegel exercises every hour and every time I used the pot. She also said that I needed to push myself to walk more, as this would help with strengthening the pelvic muscles. She discouraged bed rest at this point.

Going back home there was at least a plan and a goal: 30 Kegels every hour, more walking around the house, less laying down. So now the 28th (Thursday) I've downgraded from diapers to sanitary napkins (the fat ones that hold more stuff), I haven't had a gushing accident for a whole week, I leak little bits at a time but I still don't have the urge to go pee. I am walking around more at home. I think I'm almost ready to take a quick walk outside the house, perhaps go to a store or something, maybe walk the dog for her pee and poo. I guess it is progress. I'm still not 100%, but I am getting better. I'm in better spirits, although I have had moments in my days when I break down and cry a bit, but I guess I can blame it on the hormones...

I do want to take a minute to add... 

I don't think my recovery would have made the progress it has made without Ed. My, oh my, this man has done so much for me, not only during the pregnancy, but these last two weeks post partum. He was my nutritionist during the pregnancy, my emotional support system throughout the labor process, my coach during the delivery part, he cleaned up my accidents in the hospital and at home every time they happened during my recovery. He cooked me three meals a day while at home, made bottles for Lily, sanitized bottles and nipples, brought me the stuff to pump out breastmilk, did the dishes, changed Lily's diapers, walked her around the house when she got fussy, fed her so I could sleep some, has done the laundry, kept the house clean...I mean, there isn't anything he didn't do while I have been recovering. I'm sure he has felt overwhelmed with changes a baby brings, not to mention having to do everything at home on top of it. He has been great and I am very fortunate to have him in my life as my husband and best friend, and now as a dad to Lily. We are both lucky gals :)

Well, I hope I didn't bore you with such a long post. I'll keep you posted on my bladder progress in a few months, or at least before I start work. I hope things get better by then! Oh...and I still don't get the urge to pee...oh and pooping is a bitch!

Thanks for reading!