Postpartum Craziness

Everything seemed great after delivery at 4:50 pm. I was starving since I had not eaten since the night before. We ordered pizza and enjoyed sweet, newborn snuggles. Later into the evening I started having some cramping...almost contraction like. The nurses kept saying that this was normal and that it is usually worse since it was my second baby. They tried to get me up to use the restroom and I almost passed out. No way I was going to make it. The pain progressively got worse to the point of being completely unbearable. Pain meds did nothing to put a dent in what I was feeling. My blood pressure kept dropping to 70/40 (I think) and on several occasions throughout the night I had large almost explosion like gushes of blood coming from, well, you can guess where. Tmi. After the second gush and blood pressure drop several nurses came in quickly and were saying "code zero" (whatever that means) and were on the phone with the Doctor. At this point the doctor said to give me some stronger pain meds which still didn't do much. It was the most excruciating pain I've ever felt...all night long. The doctor came in around 5:30 and joked about how she had been bragging about how easy my delivery had gone...what had happened?!  She did an ultrasound and then ordered a ct scan. By this point, I was pretty doped up and could barely keep my eyes open. I could still feel the pain. At this point they determined that they saw some blood clots in my uterus and they needed to do a dnc. However, to add to the problems, when they did my blood tests early in pregnancy I didn't have any antibodies in my blood, but sometime during my pregnancy had developed an antibody. They didn't have a blood match and didn't want to proceed in case I lost a lot of blood during the procedure. So, they felt it best to transfer me to musc where they have better resources to handle the situation. Into the ambulance I went leaving our sweet baby behind. Honestly, I was in so much pain and out of it/practically unconscious that I wasn't too phased at the time.  It was a whirlwind upon our arrival at musc. So many doctors and residents in and out of the pre-operating (I think) room that I was in with my parents and Jimmy. I don't really remember feeling very scared, but I do remember everyone crying a lot. They were reading the scans with different teams of people and kept coming in with different game plans. It was evident that it was much more severe than a dnc. The surgeon came in one of the last times and said that he was 75% sure they were going to have to do a full hysterectomy.  This is certainly not something anyone wants to hear. I remember feeling so thankful we had two healthy babies and that there were other avenues for us to have another baby/child if it's something our hearts desired. They were still trying to find a blood match throughout this time. I was definitely going to need blood as my hemoglobin was at 5.2. Finally, they said we need to go to surgery now!  I have no concept of time throughout this day, but I think this all happened really quickly. I remember the anesthesiologist explaining to me what was going to happen and the next thing I remember was waking up, trying to pull some type of tubing/mask out of my mouth/off my face and seeing my friend Jordan who was working at musc that day.  The surgery lasted about 2ish hours. I was happy to find out that they were able to save my uterus. Basically, from what I understand, there had been a rupture/hemorrhage of the utero ovarian vein which caused a lot of internal bleeding.  They said I lost close to 2/3 of my blood. They had to take the vein, my right ovary and my right Fallopian tube.  They said my fertility should be about 80% of what it was previously. I have a large vertical incision in the middle of my stomach...the largest the surgeon said he could have done. I spent that night in the surgical trauma icu which I don't remember much of. Jimmy brought me some soup that I was able to eat even though I had no appetite. I tried to pump that night knowing I needed to since breastfeeding was going to be even more of a challenge for us. The next day we were moved to the regular postpartum floor where we spent the next two nights. Haines was released from East Cooper and was able to join us downtown. Little angel took right back to breastfeeding like a champ...hallelujah!  I received one last blood transfusion the night before coming home. Every day since has been a little bit better. My mom was here until yesterday and was such a blessing. She pretty much took care of Charlie Banks, laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc. We wouldn't have made it without her. My mom left yesterday and Jimmys mom has been a blessing as well. She came over this morning to get Charlie Banks up, fed and ready for school. I'm slowly getting more energy everyday and am on the mend. Other than the healing from labor, healing from surgery, severe weakness from loss of blood, my only complaints are some menopausal symptoms from losing some lady parts. Talk about heat flashes...holy moly!  We are so happy to be home with our happy, (almost) healthy family of 4!  Sorry for the long post, but I know I will want to remember as much as possible about this traumatic experience down the road.