A few posts back I mentioned being duly warned by the nurses about the charming plethora of possible side effects from Magnesium Sulfate. I was told I'd be on the IV for a full 24 hours after birth to minimize the effects of the preeclampsia. Rest assured; as soon as I counted myself out of the woods, it exacted its revenge in a big way.
After drifting in and out of consciousness through the morning hours and the heel pricking of our newborn and the constant BP monitoring/fundal "massages," I begin to feel that something isn't quite right. My left arm, the one with all the IV tubing, is beginning to ache like a mofo and that doesn't seem normal to me. I mention it to each nurse I come in contact with. They pretty much all have the same reaction: "huh. that's strange." And...that's it. No one really does anything because you don't mess with the mag hook-up on a preeclampsic new mother. The discomfort intensifies as the day progresses.
My parents return in the late morning and are champion baby handlers, which, due to my increasing pain level, I gratefully encourage. By lunch time, I can barely lift my daughter, the veins in my left arm are so ablaze. I know I need to eat some real food to counteract the meds so I request a legit solid-food lunch and am graciously allowed to order from the extensive kitchen menu. I request chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese and lots and lots of delicious processed iced tea (the kind that comes lemony sweet in little cardboard cartons, just like in elementary school.) By 2:00 PM, I sound like I have a raging cold, I'm so congested and out of it. This mag sulfate has got to go. I beg the new nurse at shift change to please, please, please take me off the juice. She says she'll check with the doctor on rotation.
Another hour or so goes by. My dad is getting pissed. You don't want to be the person who neglects basics of patient care in a hospital under my father's watch. I've seen the results. I am almost in tears, my arm hurts so bad. It feels like my muscles have been replaced by frozen steel rods and I can barely make a fist. Finally, a nurse I haven't seen before appears and says that I'm having a very delayed reaction to the mag sulfate (no shit) and that since I've been on it for almost 20 hours, Dr. Lagaduva says I can come off. THANKS SO MUCH. Unfortunately, they have to take out all the lines of the IV and reinstall the hep-lock thingy because my tubing is bent so that's a swell time.
...Speaking of swell, dang, those blog posts I read about post c-section swelling weren't kidding. Section mamas really do get the shaft when it comes to feeling/looking your best post-birth. Because of all the IV fluids, your arms, face, legs, cankles, everything looks like you're wearing a fat suit and this can last for seriously weeks. Ugh. Weeks? My feet look like Princess Fiona's in ogre form. But tonight I get to move around once they take my catheter out so that should help, right? Nope. Not so much. Movement is fine but is does squat for the seemingly permanent edema.
What I do get to experience as we wait to move to our proper postpartum quarters is the dreaded lochia flow. That diaper is coming off and its contents have to go somewhere (aka the bathroom floor) so yay! Let's get this done before dinner, please.
The very sweet young nurse who sounds like she's from Lownggg I-land returns and helps me hobble to the bathroom. I say hobble because of the foley still stuck between my legs: my pain level is totally fine, even freshly off the morphine, and I can miraculously stand up straight. I do realize that the incision itself will be numb for quite some time, months even, but the uterus has been sliced open and that is what will dully throb later on. It's nothing I can't handle, though.
We get to the bathroom, she instructs me to squat, and then all hell breaks loose as a crimson tide gushes out of me. It's hard not to wonder why they can't just suction it all up in the OR but apparently this is a mild amount of blood compared to those who give birth vaginally. I do see some of the infamous golf-ball sized clots. Woof. Just...no. A tiny person came out of me but I do not need to see uterine tissue that is as big as my baby's foot just lying there on the tile. To her credit, the nurse doesn't bat an eye. She gives me a peri bottle which I use to, um, clean myself up because I can't yet shower. I am given those glorious disposable maternity underpants which resemble cheesecloth in the unflattering cut of boy shorts. There is no discernible crotch or waistline but they are pretty handy. I'm armed with about four packs of humongous maxi pads and told that we'll be able to move rooms after 8:00 PM.
Time to eat! bahaha. How anyone escapes the birth experience with a shred of modesty intact, I do not know. But writing this weeks later, I can say that the whole postpartum amnesia thing is very real. I remember vivid snippets, yes, but nothing seems as intense as it probably did in the moment and that, my friends, is how women convince themselves to have more than one child. You conveniently forget the unpleasantness and focus on the new life you've brought into the world and immediately think, "hell yes, I'd do this again" no matter how traumatic your pregnancy was.
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