Delivery Day: The Rest of the Story

Mom spent the first night with me to let Clif go home to take care of the pets and get one more night of good sleep.  To help get my blood pressure back under control they put me on a magnesium drip which meant I was restricted to the bed until they discontinued the drip.  I don't have enough words for how thankful I was to have mom's support that first night.

The next morning we finished magnesium early and I was transferred from the labor and delivery wing to my room in postpartum.  The room looked the same but the feel of the wing was just different.  I can't put my finger on it, exactly, but I didn't feel as comfortable there.  I'm sure a lot of it had to do with the fact that I suddenly had a tiny new human to take care of in there with me and while there would be nurses on hand if I needed, nothing could replace having mom or Clif in there with me.

My nurse came in around midnight to take Flynn away for his car seat challenge since he was so small and I tried to settle in for some uninterrupted sleep.  Earlier in the evening I'd noticed that my lip had swollen which has become a fairly standard allergic reaction for me and is mostly just a mild inconvenience.  Not long after I'd laid down to get some sleep I started to notice a second of my strange swelling responses seemed to be kicking in.  My uvula feels swollen and, while luckily doesn't compromise my airway, the potential is there.  In the meantime it makes me gag when I try to talk and makes swallowing anything a great challenge.  As I noticed increasing difficulty in managing the swelling in my throat I noticed my hands starting to swell, particularly in the areas where I'd been all but manhandling myself in various efforts to encourage Flynn to nurse.  The lip I could have dealt with but now I was trying to deal with all three of my strange swelling reactions, two of which were developing into the worst case I'd yet experienced of each.

I broke down and called my nurse who was just on her way back with Flynn from his challenge.  When she got to my room I tried to explain what was going on as best as I could and told her that while I usually can handle the situation, I was starting to have some trouble.  She called the OB on duty to check in on me, unfortunately all he could suggest was a dose of Lasix to draw off water and Benadryl for the allergy.  I knew neither of those solutions would work but I was too tired and feeling too poorly to say so.  The Benadryl hit and I fell deeply asleep sitting up in bed with my hands cradled in my lap.

The next morning my throat was only marginally better but my hands had tripled in size, swelling in all of my fingers, through the palm of my hand and part way up my wrist.  This, as can be imagined, was very concerning to my nurses.  They started to try calling Clif to have him come in as soon as he could while working on transferring me back to the labor and delivery wing.  I was still sufficiently groggy from the Benadryl and made scant little unnecessary movement while I was shifted to a new bed and re-fitted with a catheter while concerned nurses buzzed around trying to figure out what to do with me.  By now the next OB was on the clock and she came to inform me she had made the decision to send me to ICU where they were equipped to handle me if something got worse and my airway closed.  I tried to assure her that, while ultimately I would do what she wanted, my throat was starting to feel better and just needed more time.  She was adamant and I couldn't blame her for being concerned.

I was wheeled in my bed upstairs to ICU and transferred into my personal bay to be hooked up to leads, BP cuff, IV of more magnesium and finger monitor.  A few doctors and nurses came through to get my story and try to determine what was going on with me.  Zyrtec, Pepcid and a steroid were ordered to try to get my swelling under control, otherwise I was left to sleep off the remainder of my Benadryl hangover.  There was a lot of sleeping.  Later in the evening they finally brought a breast pump to me with instructions to pump and dump as they weren't sure if the medications I was on would be harmful to Flynn or not.  My hands, however, were still so swollen I couldn't manage by myself and had to rely on my nurses to pump for me.  The good news was by that point my Give-A-Darn meter was truly broken and I couldn't care less about feeling slightly akin to a dairy cow.

I spent a full day and night in ICU before my swelling reduced enough to be transferred back to postpartum.  We had been due to be discharged that day (Tuesday) but were thinking they'd want to keep us one more day due to the unexpected set back.  On towards late afternoon/early evening I was feeling fairly well except for a growing anxiety about spending another night alone in the hospital.  Clif and I started pushing to be discharged.  Luckily Dr. Kula determined that while she was still concerned about my blood pressure, she knew me well enough to know I'd do much better if I wasn't in a stressful situation and agreed to discharge us if I continued to monitor my pressure at home.  By dinner time we were on our way home at last, an event full of mixed emotion for me, predominantly thankful to be on our way back to some semblance of normality.  Well, as normal as life with a new baby could be.