The Lucky One

Ladies, just checking in to share my horror.  (Baby is still an eater and a sleeper, and a little angel.)

I have developed a case of postpartum PUPPP.  It's a skin condition of unknown cause, but the dermatologist said a theory is that I'm having an allergic reaction to cells my baby left in my body.  It's incredibly ugly, so itchy that I have literally scratched parts of my skin off (think bed bugs, if you've ever been so unfortunate, but the itch is everywhere instead of confined to bites), and it's anyone's guess how long it hangs around.

PUPPP usually strikes pregnant women.  Mine didn't hit until one week after delivery; the dermatologist said I'm just "lucky"--postpartum cases are rare, but do happen.

They've got me on a steroid cream that's supposed to help the rash and the itch.  Rash appears to be improving (or at least, it has stopped spreading).  The itch...on and off.

Wish me luck.

Alula

Early Arrival

Ladies, my son was born 6 days early on 3/31!  We are all at home, healthy, and doing well!

Munchkin asked me for the details, so here's the full story...

I went to bed on that Saturday (3/29) as normal.  Just after midnight (3/30) my eyes shot open as I felt a warm flood in the down south region--I believe I said something along the lines of "Oh my God, my water just broke" as I shot up out of the bed.  I managed to not get a lot of it on the bed, and cursed Murphy's Law, because Mr. Borealis and I had just discussed putting towels under the sheet on the bed earlier that evening (we hadn't done it yet).

As I stood there soaking the carpet, Mr. B looked at me in a panic, and said "What?"

I repeated that my water had broken.  I was running the odds, and I knew it was unlikely--85% of women don't rupture the membranes until they are at least at the hospital, and I wasn't having contractions.  I hadn't done anything that would have caused a rupture; I was just lying there asleep.  I was pretty sure I hadn't even rolled over or moved at all, because I was still packed in by pillows, and my fetus wasn't even awake or kicking at the time--I'm pretty sure he didn't even notice. I  had heard a lot of stories of women peeing themselves in bed and thinking that their water was broken, but the amount of fluid far exceeded what my bladder had been able to hold for several months.  That, and as fluid was still rolling down my legs and onto the carpet, I realized I had to pee, which meant my bladder hadn't given up on me.

Mr. B jumped out of bed and started babbling like a madman about how he had plans for the next day, the next week, the car wasn't packed, was I sure, that he needed to put pants on, and finally, what did I need him to do?

I asked him to get me a towel, and then to get me the phone.  He got dressed and I sent him on a mission to pack the car while I phoned in my soggy situation and mopped up.  The hospital I was supposed to deliver in was on divert, so they directed us to drive to the alternate hospital in Denver.

Mr. B came back, I told him the plan, and then asked him to go to the basement and set up the cats with an extra litter box and food for a few days.  I threw a few last minute necessities into a bag, went to the bathroom, and emerged to find my husband standing there with a pale face and the list of "before we go to the hospital" tasks clutched in his shaking hands.  He gave it to me, and then looked at me expectantly.  I read them off to him one at a time as I got dressed and finished getting ready to go to the hospital.

On the bright side, there was absolutely no traffic getting in to Denver at 12:30 a.m.  Some guy pulled up next to us at a stop light when we were almost there and asked if we had a light.  

At the hospital, nurses were initially skeptical that my water had actually broken because I wasn't in labor and I was a week early.  The exam proved them wrong, and we were admitted.  I was told they probably wouldn't let me go longer than 6 hours without pitocin if my labor didn't start naturally.  

My labor didn't start naturally.  And, I was exhausted from being up most of the night (we went to bed at 10, so I really only had about 2 hours of sleep).  Mr. B started to get anxious, and we had made a preset rule that he could call Q if he started freaking out, so that's what he did.  I don't remember what time Q arrived (maybe between 8 and 9 that morning?), but I was able to negotiate to wait on pitocin until noon.

 We started pitocin at noon.  I hated it.  As I told my husband prior to delivery, I'm no stranger to pain, and when I'm in a lot of pain, there are generally two things that happen to relieve the suffering: I pace a lot, and I throw up.  Being on pitocin, they wanted to keep me on a monitor, so my movement was restricted (which I really didn't like).  

I can't say with certainty if things would have been different if I'd had natural contractions instead of pitocin induced ones, but they started coming too quickly and sharply for me to breathe through them.  My preferred method of distancing myself from pain is pacing, and it wasn't at my disposal.  

Now, I had told my husband two things about epidurals prior to labor.  The first thing was that I didn't want one, because I have dislocated knees by not paying enough attention when sitting down in a chair--when I go numb in any part of my body (i.e. when a leg falls asleep), it immediately raises my blood pressure because I worry I'm going to hurt myself and not know it.  The second thing was that I know my limits on pain, and when I'm asking for pain relief, it's because I really NEED pain relief.  I've blown out eardrums, walked on dislocated joints, and once performed an at-home impromptu surgery to remove a toothpick-sized twig from my left foot when I impaled myself between 2 toes walking barefoot in the yard and it didn't work its way out over the following 2 weeks--generally, I like to think of myself as someone with an above average pain tolerance.

At some point that afternoon, I asked for an epidural.  

From that point on, the labor got much easier.  At some point, I rolled over and heard a loud pop from somewhere in my lower half, but didn't think much of it at the time (more on that later).

By about 8:30 p.m. that night (Sunday, 3/30), the doctor declared that I was fully dilated and effaced and ready to push.  I pushed from 9 to 10 and made absolutely no progress, so they had me rest for an hour.  Later, Mr. Borealis would speculate that they had me start pushing too early; I speculate that I could have really used the aid of gravity to get the ball rolling, but maybe that's just the desire to pace talking.  

We started pushing again at 11.  I made a little progress (could see the head in the mirror), but couldn't seem to get the head past the pelvis.  I'm pretty sure my nurse was getting pissy and 2 of my 3 doctors were getting impatient, but the Kaiser doctor was the only one that seemed to matter.  They kept trotting him in every few hours to ask if we could do a cesarean yet, he would look at the monitor and say that both my and the fetus's stats looked good, and that I could keep pushing if I wanted to.  So I kept pushing, and kept making zero progress while I b*tched about not being able to be upright and on my feet because I was sure it would help (and my nurse kept b*tching at me that "the baby isn't just going to fall out" like I wasn't trying, which kind of makes me think she totally misunderstood why I wanted to be on my feet in the first place).

Some hours in, I'm starving, sleep deprived, and seriously frustrated because I can't get vertical and I'm attached to a bag of my own pee.  I start asking what my options are, because there has to be something else I can try after making so little progress.  The doctors recommend turning off the epidural completely so that I can feel the contractions and where to push (feeling where to push had been an issue).  

Thirty minutes after turning off the epidural, I have pain in my left hip so excruciating that I can't even focus on the contractions.  And I mean that--the contractions were bad, but every time I even jostled that hip a little, I got a twinge in the joint like nothing I have ever felt before.  And even when I wasn't moving, the throbbing pain was so strong I having trouble figuring out when contractions were starting and stopping, and I started to panic.  I was sure I had done something to my hip, I voiced this concern to the nurse (who pretty much brushed it off), and I asked to have the epidural turned back on so that I could keep pushing.  After asking 3 times, Mr. Borealis went to lift my leg to support me while pushing and I had a stabbing pain so severe that I refused to push until the epidural was turned back on.  The nurse rolled her eyes at me, and Q exchanged some words with her in the hall.  The Kaiser doctor was trotted back in, told the nurse to manage my pain, epidural came back on and I continued pushing.

The baby's head was turned slightly, which may have been part of the issue.  (Too bad I couldn't assume any of the standing postures I learned in class to try and correct that...)

By 5 a.m., I still hadn't made enough progress.  The Kaiser doctor told me that all the stats were still looking good, but my water had been broken too long, and he was worried that we were approaching a point where chances of infection or fetal distress and emergency cesarean increased.  I said I would take any assist before a cesarean.  

This was an educated decision for me.  Babies and moms who have an assist generally have faster recoveries, better outcomes, and higher apgar scores than those who opt for cesarean.  I opted to go with a vacuum assist to avoid an episiotomy and tearing (much more common with forceps), and the potential facial nerve damage to the baby.

I'm pretty sure watching the vacuum assist almost broke Q.  I'm pretty sure seeing the amount of blood from tearing and damage did break Mr. B.

Baby was born at 5:32 a.m. on 3/31, at 8lbs 0.01oz and 19.5".  It took 3 doctors quite a while (15 minutes?  Q, were you more aware of time?) to stitch up my damage, and all the while I listened to them discussing where things were supposed to go together like I was too damaged for the fixes to be immediately apparent.  Baby had a bruise on his head for about a week, but now his vacuum spot is completely gone.  I couldn't walk without supporting myself on something for about 48 hours due to the pain in my hip, and I had to have a catheter in for 24 hours after delivery because I was too swollen and damaged to pee by myself.  

My hip still isn't 100%.  I get the twinge every time I sit on it wrong and lean forward, and sometimes when I step on it wrong.  I'm still not sure what that's about.  But my stitches are healing up great, I'm only 2 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight as of today, and we are both so in love with our baby.  

He's been very easy since delivery.  He had a brief bout of jaundice, but loved the lights so it corrected quickly.  He sleeps and eats great, and generally isn't very fussy--when he's crying, it's because there's a problem.  Fix the problem and he quiets and goes back to sleep; perfect nap and writing/gaming buddy!  Knock on wood that this continues!

Alula