The Next 3 Days

We were in the hospital.  We had our beautiful baby.  We were, of course, getting zero sleep.  I don't think I'd slept in over 48 hours.  Dan kept saying I gave birth twice.  I had pushed and I had a c-section.  Every time I almost fell asleep, some pressure cuff would go off.  I had two on my legs to prevent blood clots, and one on my arm for blood pressure monitoring.  Then when I would start to doze off, the baby would need to eat.  Thankfully, she started to latch on, because I didn't have a whole lot of fight left in me for something I'd never done before.  She was eating every hour or so, and she pooped about 8 times the first 24 hours.  All systems were go.  I'm very glad they gave her a bath in our room, so that I could see it.


I was finally allowed to drink water.  They told me to go slow.  I chugged it.  I needed it.  I was later allowed soup, and finally some "pre-approved" food.  I was confined to the bed for the first 24 hours.  I kept begging to be allowed to get up. Eventually they came in to take the catheter out and let me try to get up.  They said that if I felt dizzy at all, to let them know.  (I felt dizzy but kept my mouth shut, I wanted to change a diaper!!!!)  I made the long walk to the bathroom and tried to go pee, to no avail.  I made the long walk back to my bed.  People came to visit and hold the baby.  She slept beautifully while people were there. Of course.

After about four attempts, I was finally able to go pee.  It was shocking how swollen EVERYTHING was.  I mustered up the strength to take a shower.  I don't think I was actually clean, but I felt better.  We posted baby pictures to facebook, and loved on our baby girl.  The more that wires and tubes that were removed the more I felt human again.  We were there a total of four days, and were ready to go home.  I wasn't really in any pain from the surgery.  I was taking some painkillers twice a day, so I was feeling fine.

They came in to remove my staples and put on some steri strips.  The strips were way more comfortable.  I expected the removal of the staples to hurt a little but, but it did not.  I tried putting on my maternity pants that I wore to the hospital, but I couldn't get them over my swollen thighs because of all the IV fluids.  I had to wear some gigantic pajama pants that still barely fit.

We put G in her coming home outfit and we were on our way.  The drive home was terrifying.  Nothing like a newborn in the car to make you feel like everyone is out to get you.