Friday, September 18, 2015

After Birth

For the first time in over a month I have a moment to sit down and write again.  Thank you preschool!

Two kids is BUSY to say the least.

But here we go, the long awaited story about what happened after the birth of little Baby Noah.

He came out without a hitch.  No problems whatsoever. 

After Noah was out and we snuggled for a few minutes in the tub just relishing in the fact that I was DONE I really wanted out of that pool and into bed.

A few short steps to the bedroom and after getting all cozy in bed it was time to birth the placenta.  An often forgotten fact of birth, the placenta has to come out too!

Placenta also came out without any problems, one quick tug during a contraction and out it came.  Fully intact, no obvious missing pieces.

For the next few hours the midwives cleaned the birth tub, let us have some new family time with baby and intermittently checked on me and my bleeding and baby latch etc etc.

I was doing really well for awhile.  I was having large gushes of blood WHICH WERE DISGUSTING and one of the pluses for both drugs and a hospital birth, you don't feel the blood gush because you're numb AND someone whisks it away for you probably before you even notice it, but that was to be expected as there is a certain amount of blood that has to come out.  Nothing abnormal.

I got up to pee once with the help of my midwife and passed a huge disgusting clot, but again, nothing abnormal.

But then, somewhere around the 3 hour mark, right when the midwives were packing up and getting ready to leave, my midwife came in to give my uterus one last quick massage and after one too many huge gushes of blood....I passed the fuck out.

One minute I'm sitting there holding my baby saying I feel a little funny and the next I'm flat on my back with my midwife asking me weird questions like what's your name and where are you, etc etc.  And instead of a baby in my arms my mom is in the corner holding him looking absolutely petrified.

Needless to say I scared the crap out of her and husband.  They watched me turn white as a ghost and my eyes roll back in my head and basically drop my baby.

After it was all said and done and I was stable again (after a shot of pitocin in my thigh) my midwife assured me that I had not lost too much blood and I was not hemorrhaging (my single greatest fear when it comes to home birth) but that I had just lost all the blood one normally loses during the birth, the birth of the placenta and afterward, all at once instead of in 3 segregated events causing a huge drop in blood pressure.

When you have a baby a certain amount of blood usually comes out with the baby, Noah came out really clean...and so was my tub water...


Next you birth the placenta and again, there's usually a certain amount of blood that comes out with the placenta.  My placenta basically came out by itself with no blood.

Then comes the uterine massage where all the rest of the blood comes out over the course of a few hours (and days).  So all mine came at this point, all at once, huge huge gushes of blood, over and over and clearly it was too much and out I went.

My midwife examined the placenta thoroughly, twice, to confirm that it was in fact intact and I didn't have some retaining pieces in there causing me to continue to bleed.  She also reexamined all the blood that had come out (ew!) and assured me that there was NOT an abnormal amount of blood...it just came out too fast and all at once.

Regardless of this reassurance I was now scared to get out of bed, especially after my midwife left.  So basically I stayed in the exact same position all night (so uncomfortable!!!).  In the morning when I finally couldn't stand it any longer and I had to move AND PEE!  I got up, made it to the bathroom, and out come 3 HUGE absolutely disgusting clots, WAY BIGGER than the egg size they tell you to be wary of. 

So back to bed I went, sore, tired and very very scared that my uterus wasn't doing what it was supposed to and I was going to bleed to death because I chose to have a homebirth instead of go to the hospital.  By the way this was right at the mark that I left the hospital with Jett, I stayed for 12 hours and this was about 12 hours after I had Noah, so all this shit I was dealing with was probably pretty normal, I was just numb the first time and had a catheter to pee and didn't have to get up for awhile, etc etc. so I had no idea that the first 12 hours were this awful!!!

Anyway, back to bed I went, midwife was called (she was already coming by later, they always come on Day 1, but I called her anyway to tell her about the clots) and I tried to rest.

So so grateful I had all my family around at this point, Jett was with my mom and we didn't have to worry about him at all and everyone brought us food!

When my midwife came by she brought along some sort of drug that for the life of me I can't remember what it's called but it's similar to pitocin except in pill form.  Basically makes your uterus clamp down hard to help stop bleeding.  So she brought this pill, set it on my bedside table and said, this is if you start feeling really shitty, I think you'll be fine at this point, but just in case I'm leaving it here.

And there it sat.  I felt fine all day (other than the incredible soreness one normally feels after giving birth) no lightheadedness, no abnormal cramping, just generally felt like crap because I just had a baby.

But then comes the night.  That night at about 2:00am I started nursing Noah and instead of the normal cramping/contraction one has when one nurses right after giving birth to help the uterus contract back down, I had this really awful continual cramp that wasn't doing what it was supposed to be doing to my uterus.  Instead of amping up like a contraction, coming to a peak and then going away it just amped up about halfway AND WOULDN'T GO AWAY.  So for a half hour I was dealing with this pretty intense cramping, I started shivering, crying and shaking like a leaf.  After a call to my midwife she told me to pee (full bladder can cause problems for the uterus trying to clamp down) and then take the pill she had left. 

The pill did what it was supposed to and the cramping finally amplified like a contraction and then went away.  BUT HOLY FUCK!  Again...thought I was dying and I was stupid for having a homebirth.  But at the same time, I would have already been home from a hospital birth and what the fuck would I have done if I didn't have a midwife to call???  Go to the hospital with our newborn at 3am???  So, I'm actually pleased I had a midwife to call and tell me what to do and that left me drugs, but in the moment it was really scary.

From that point on, basically 30 hours after birth I was fine (except hemorrhoids of course!!!).  The amount of blood I bled from then to 4 weeks when it stopped officially was so minimal as to only need a pad for a few days and then a pantiliner for 2 weeks.  I passed no other clots other than those huge huge huge ones in the beginning.  It was like my body got rid of it all in the first 36 hours.  

So...there you have it.  Birth...it's not for the faint of heart!

2 comments:

  1. Phew! That's crazy, but totally makes sense. My tub water was WAY bloody (I birthed and delivered the placenta in there), but I didn't lose as much during the GOD AWFUL massage part. I did pass some gnarly clots, but I actually passed bigger ones after my hospital birth. They're more likely to get huge when you lay in one place and don't move b/c the blood pools and clots in your uterus and then all slides out when you get up to pee. EW. TMI fact, sorry. :)

    At any rate, I'm so glad you had a provider to call when it got scary for you - it sounds like you were wonderfully supported for this entire birth experience! Yay!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is so scary!!! I'm glad you had someone to call too... that is definitely a plus. I had to call the nurse line once with my bleeding afterward, but that isn't as reassuring as someone coming to see you and check on you. I'm glad everything turned out ok!! xo

    ReplyDelete