Recovery Setbacks

So after Jordan was born I was on cloud 9.  I had come through my fourth delivery, epidural free, but induced this time, and delivering my largest baby yet.  I was recovering well, and had taken some of the pain medication prescribed by the doctor.  I could tell that when I did take it I had a pain level of 0 and could really keep up with all of my little boys.  Jordan was nursing great, and I had had my mom here with me for two weeks. 

The day that she and my dad left to go home(Jordan was exactly two weeks old), a most unexpected and scary thing happened. I had a slight uterine prolapse.  I called my doctor, and though the nurse I talked to was very concerned, the doctor said he'd see me at my 6 week appt, and that it might start to correct itself as I continued to heal from giving birth.  And also to REST, REST, REST and do Kegel exercises.  I thought it was dying and the end of the world.  I had googled this...never a great idea as that will just freak you out.  Thus started me resting a lot with my feet up, and lots of Kegel exercises.  Basically I was afraid to do anything for the next 4 weeks because I was afraid that my insides were going to fall out.

This did have one small silver lining though.  It made me slow down, and enjoy the time I got with just my little one.  Well, at this same time, we had Jordan's 2 week checkup, and it turns out he still wasn't even back up to his birth weight.  He weighed 7lbs, 6 ounces, just like he had on his 2 day check up.  But he had gained an inch in height!  I thought I could tell because he wasn't so chubby anymore.  I wasn't worried because he was eating every three hours, was sleeping great, and had a wet diaper every time he ate (wasn't over flowing), and a little poopy too(also never had a blowout diaper).  Besides, he was bigger than all three of our other kids. Nathan begged to please pump one time to see how much milk I was making for him, and we'd feed him that with a bottle.  I was against it.  He was nursing, and I didn't want to mess that up.  Well, I did finally do it...and low a behold, I think I was making barely 2 ounces of milk...from both sides combined.  This was very different from the other babies.  So we fed him that through a bottle, and he seemed to want more.  We supplemented with some formula, and he gobbled that up.  Now I felt lots of guilt.  He was starving and not growing, and I didn't even know!  Well maybe not starving, but not growing because I wasn't making enough milk.  So I started pumping, and trying to get my production up, and tried nursing without a breast shield as well. After he had had just a couple of bottles to supplement nursing, he wouldn't latch great again.  (He was already having a little trouble with that, but this just made it worse.  I finally got him to latch and nurse without a shield once...)  He was making a clucking noise every time, so I knew that his latch was wrong.  It was also just about unbearably painful without a breast shield.  But with a shield he wasn't eating efficiently, and my milk supply was tanking. After two terrible days of trying to fix his latch, it getting worse, me crying and hitting a pillow next to me while he was eating...we (I) gave up trying to nurse.  I decided to pump exclusively.  Well, this not eating well also was probably part of the problem of my uterus not contracting back down.  Both of these setbacks were related.  With pumping it was helping my uterus to shrink back, but boy is it a pain (figuratively and literally).

But I felt so deflated with both of them.  Then, to make it even a little worse, I had an umbilical hernia.  I had to wait though to get it checked out.  The hernia was severe enough that Dr. Housel suggested I get it fixed now...even if we might have another baby in a few years.  And either way we met our deductible for the year, so now was the time to get it fixed.

So, I did see my doctor at the end of September, and my prolapse has retracted significantly that I don't need surgery...at least for now.  I need to keep doing kegal exercises, and probably for the rest of my life, but his exact words were "You won't ever be the same after having four babies, but you aren't in any danger of your innards just falling out".

The hernia is going to be repaired in November, and then another 6 weeks of not lifting anything over 10 pounds.  In other words, nothing but the baby.  I think that is just what I need to try to help my prolapse problem, and still rest and take it easier.

Jordan is such a good little guy...I am so grateful and blessed that he is so good because this recovery has been harder and scarier than anything yet.