Finally Home

Or: I Will Never Joke About Dying During Childbirth Again

Wow. The past three days have been the most amazing three days of my life. Where do I even begin? Perhaps I'll focus on the most traumatic aspect: emergency surgery for the hematoma I was bleeding out from. Labour and delivery went totally fine, besides Kat swallowing some meconium and I didn't get to see her for the first hour of her life. At 9:00pm Tuesday night, a nurse came to expel more blood/clots out of my uterus and I started to bleed and bleed and bleed. There was actually an arc of blood that shot across the room. Yummers.

The nurse called for help with the clean up and they took me into the bathroom. The last thing I remember saying to them was, "I'm sorry, but I can't hear you". They didn't even have time to get my head between my knees before I passed out. It took four nurses and who knows how long to revive me and get me back into bed. I am so thankful that Mike was out buying me Gatorade at the time and that he didn't have to see that. I started to go into a bit of shock and they phoned my doc to come to find where I was bleeding out from.

As I was being transferred from my bed back to the delivery room via wheelchair, I passed out again...this time, Mike was right there and it scared the shit out of him. When I was finally up on the table, he kept tapping my face and making me make eye contact with him and asking if I could hear him. I didn't slip out of consciousness like I did in the bathroom, but I wasn't 100% with it.

The next hour of my life was by far, hands down, no doubt, by a landslide the most PAINFUL hour of my life. I would birth 1000 babies in a row before I would opt to feel that level of pain again. My doc and the on-call surgeon dove down under to try and discover the source of the bleed. I don't remember what they gave me for freezing or pain fillers, but nothing worked. I was sobbing and sobbing and sobbing. The nurses were disgusted with the surgeon for carrying on as long as he did while I was in so much pain. Finally he decided to knock me out. I guess my wracking sobs were starting to distract him torturing me.

So, at midnight I was being wheeled down to the OR. Mike had phoned my parents to come back to the hospital and they were a HUGE source of comfort for Mike. The three of them got to ogle and hold (and feed!) Katelyn while I was in surgery. As they were wheeling me away, Mike didn't like the magnitude of what was going on...it was too fast, too much and he was scared. He grabbed my face in both his hands and made me focus on him. He kept telling me over and over and again that he loved me. I was so far out of it, I think I asked him to keep the car running or something along those lines.

They were supposed to give me a general knock out, but because I had eaten a few bites of sandwich, they opted for a spinal with some sedation. I was worried that wasn't going to be enough to block the pain, but within minutes, I was apparently snoring, much to the amusement of the entire OR staff. The surgery lasted just over 2 hours and they found the source of the bleed - a three centimeter wound far up the vaginal wall (not a scratch, more like a stab wound). The wound would bleed and fill my uterus up with blood, which would then clot together and build up. No wonder I was having stomach pains :-)

I lost a lot of blood. A LOT of blood. Normal hemoglobin numbers hover around 120 (I don't know what that means...I just know it's normal). Mine were sitting right around the 50 mark on Wednesday morning. There was talk of doing a blood transfusion, but my doc wanted to see if my numbers would come up by themselves. When they discharged me this morning, my number was 65. I've got a long ways to go. I am dizzy, nauseous, weak and constantly light headed. Walking is a huge concern for me since I constantly feel like the room is spinning and like I am going to fall down.

On the upside, it means I have to sit. And if I have to sit, it means I get to stare and coo at Katelyn. She is perfection. I might be biased because I am her mom, but she is the most amazing little beautiful angel I have ever seen. I will do more posts over the next week or so about the actual delivery, but I just wanted to get this story out there, so you readers would hopefully understand why I'm not posting twice a day right now :-)

And, of course I have attached pictures. Enjoy your first look at Katelyn Alexandra Taves. Welcome to the world, sweetheart...Mommy is madly in love with you!

Holding Katelyn for the first time...an hour after I delivered her!




















Mike looks like such a creeper, but he couldn't bend down far enough. It's a classic "us" photo though :-)




















Katelyn with Grandma



















Katelyn with Grandpa



















Snug as a bug






















Me, fresh out of ICU at 3:00am...all I wanted to do was hold and cuddle my daughter.





















I love this pompom hat that one of the nurses knitted.






















Can you say Casper much? This was taken this morning as we were being discharged. Can you believe this is me with "my colour back" as the nurses and my doc kept saying?



















A little daddy/daughter bonding time :-)






















This face is Perfection. I have fallen in love so hard.