The next day, the nurses came in and said that as soon as I could stand up they'd remove the catheter. If I'm being completely honest, I was hoping that time would never come. It hurt SO badly to just lean forward, I couldn't imagine getting out of bed. And I was drinking A LOT of water, like I think 10 times more than my nurse thought, so imagining getting up every 10 minutes was a nightmare.
(And I'm not kidding or exaggerating about how much water I was drinking. They gave me a big cup that says something along the lines of "women's health" on it that they'd fill with ice water and it would stay super cold. They couldn't fill it often enough or fast enough, so Ho'oulu was filling it in our bathroom sink. 😂 One of my nurses asked if I was drinking one or two of them a day, and I was drinking one or two of them an HOUR. No exaggeration. Breast feeding makes you thirsty!)
The first time the nurses came in to help me up, I still couldn't feel my right leg almost at all. That epidural was a real winner on the right side of my body! So they said they would rather wait so I don't fall and hurt myself even more. Catheter stays. Aaaawh yeah. It was short lived though; the catheter came out later that day. I didn't have to go as often as I thought, but getting out of bed was as bad as I had expected. They had me wrap my arms around Ho'oulu's neck and he hoisted me up. I wanted to scream and puke every time, though it got better and better. That means someone also had to help me off the pot as well.
The first time I went was fine. I was so so so so so grateful not to be peeing on stitches, but they used a small bottle to squirt my goodies down instead of wiping anyway, as if I had had a vaginal birth. They also had the awesome, big, mesh granny panties that everyone had told me about, and for which I am still grateful. Those were also loose around the waist, which was my favorite part (I got the bikini battle wound, aka they cut me open perpendicular to my standing body right on my underwear line). This was also my first memory of the body binder, though I think I may have already been wearing it... Again, these memories are a little fuzzy. But the body binder is this thick material with Velcro at the end that c-section patients rap around their bodies to keep the loose skin from jiggling their battle wounds. I honestly think I would have died without it. It is the number one best thing I took home from the hospital, and we even rented the thousand dollar breast pump (yay for awesome insurance covering that!). Okay, maybe those tie because ow, sore boobs.
So anyway, they also put not one but TWO giant pads in my granny panties because yes, I was really bleeding that much. They also put one of these pads across my battle wound underneath the belly binder. This kept anything (including the rough material of the binder) from rubbing or touching the incision. Oh yeah, everyone else calls it an incision. I prefer battle wound.
They also had ice packs to put in the underwear for women who tear, and they gave me one a couple times but I'm not sure why. I did no pushing whatsoever.
Which leads me to my next topic: pooping. Every single person who I talked to about giving birth told me to have lots and lots of stool softener ready at home before I went into labor, my nurse offered me laxatives, my doctor suggested I buy some, the list goes on. My first poop was more of a wet fart, so I thought that maybe since I had a C-section and didn't do any pushing, I may be exempt from that. Now I think that since I hadn't eaten in 48 hours and I was chugging water, pooping in the hospital was a dream and THE poop was just waiting, plotting. (Coming soon: separate blog post entitled THE Poop.)
My mom flew in Tuesday, and I wanted to cry every time I thought about her coming. I am such a Mama's girl (and a Daddy's girl, if I'm being honest) and here I was, a new Mama. I had no idea what I'd put her through (though she was in labor for less than an hour with me and I was almost born in the car, so it wasn't THAT bad haha). My heart was so full and I just wanted her there already!
Unfortunately I was only allowed one guest to sleep over in the hospital. Visiting hours were 24/7 but only one person could sleep. Sounds silly, but I was grateful that my mom could come any time.
Ho'oulu kept asking if I would prefer my mom stay the night, and I was considering it but then Baby got a fever and our whole lives flipped upside down.
They had to draw blood so they could test for a bunch of different types of infections. The first guy who came up from the lab tried to get a vein in her hand, but was unsuccessful and decided not to try again. I was grateful for him because he decided to let an expert take over. Unfortunately, the "expert" wasn't any better. Okay, I get it, babies are tiny and have tiny hands and arms and veins. But surely SOMEBODY in the hospital specializes in babies, right? Someone should be able to draw blood? Nope. They finally had to take her to NICU to get an IV for the fever, and they told us at the time that someone there would draw the blood they needed and we'd be done. I felt sick to my stomach at being away from her, especially while they're poking her and hurting her. When they brought her back, both hands were bruised and completely blue and her heels were COVERED in tiny pokes. She had a little portable IV on one foot, which they wrapped in a diaper to keep her other foot from kicking off.
They had given her formula in case the fever was simply because she was dehydrated, and probably to calm her down after she was screaming all night. I knew she had been screaming because her voice was hoarse, which broke my heart. I wanted to cry the whole day and night.
Apparently someone told Ho'oulu that they would be back to draw blood again because they didn't get it all, but nobody told me. When they came in the middle of the night (4am), I was sure it was a mistake. So I was lying helpless in my bed while they continued poking my baby and she screamed. One of the really nice nurses happened to be walking by and saw that I was getting a little emotional (or maybe a lot emotional, whatever). She stopped in and asked if I was okay, which just made me cry harder. She then went and held Lainey's hand and tried to sooth her till they were done. Then I fed her to calm her down and slept with her on my chest because I never wanted to put her down again.
By morning, Lainey was fine. Her fever had dropped, the IV was working, everything seemed great. They did want to keep us for 48 hours just to be safe and to monitor her, which was okay with me. I was so scared we'd take her home too soon, where we don't have equipment to check her vitals every couple of hours. At the same time I wanted to get her out of here and away from all the needles. That was all very emotionally draining.
So since everything was fine, Ho'oulu was going to go home and do our laundry before my mom saw our disaster of a house haha. My mom stayed the night.
That woman is an angel. If I didn't already know, this night confirmed it. She took baby duty and let me sleep for like 5 hours straight. I didn't realize how badly I'd needed that sleep until I woke up from it. It had been two sleepless nights with an emotional roller coaster, so I was drained. She didn't even let the nurses wake me to give me pain meds, I couldn't believe they listened haha. But like I said, I needed it soooo badly.
When I woke up, I found out how much those drugs were really doing for me. At first, I thought I was fine. My nurse asked if I needed two Percocet, but I was scared it would make me sick (the only times in my life I've taken serious meds I've puked). And besides, I was feeling okay... Lying in my bed not moving. As soon as I started pressing the button the lift my bed to a sitting position, I realized I was not okay. I immediately hit the call button and asked them to tell my nurse I needed two Percocet (I wanted to add, "and stat!" But I figured they wouldn't like that). She brought the two and a Motrin, and it was pretty fast acting. It was fast acting but I had to pee and couldn't get out of bed till it kicked in, so it wasn't fast enough! But I made it, so it actually was fast enough. Ha.
The rest of our stay was thankfully uneventful. We had so many different nurses (we were there for 4 days, each shift is like 4-6 hours), some we loved a lot and some... Well, I'm grateful for their work.
The room service was super great. There was even one night they called to remind me to order dinner before it was too late, which I thought was really sweet. Room service ended at 6:30 whether you had ordered or not, so it was a very sweet gesture... I wish someone would call me and remind me to eat now haha.
