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Monthly Archives: September 2012

As most of you know, I had complications with my incision. The right side felt hot to the touch while still in the hospital. I also felt a hard lump under that side. I mentioned it to doctors and nurses a few times but everyone told me not to worry, that it was most likely scar tissue. We went home without them doing much other than visually checking my incision.

A few days after we came home from the hospital, we realized it wasn’t scar tissue. My incision opened and started to drain in the warm spot with the lump.

The Daddy and I packed up baby and headed to triage. There, the resident stuck a very long cotton swab into my abdomen and swept it side-to-side to make a larger hole. You know what really hurts? Having a fresh incision opened up with a q-tip. The Daddy calmed me down by whispering in my ear and the attending physician held my hand and stroked my arm. Then they pressed on my abdomen to expel the contents of the abscess that had formed underneath my incision. Quite a bit of blood and pus drained out. The spot that had been sore and painful for a week felt better immediately.

Then they delivered the bad news – The Daddy would have to irrigate the wound morning and night, and then using one of the same long cotton swabs, he’d have to pack the hole in my incision with a special gauze tape that looks like a shoelace. This would need to be done until the wound closed. We’d need to irrigate so that infection didn’t pool in the open wound. The packing was to wick out the moisture, for the same reason. With irrigating and packing supplies and a 10-day script for Clindamycin, we were sent on our way.

For about a week, The Daddy did the irrigating and packing. I’m not a very good patient though – I freak out when I feel like I’m not self-sufficient – so I eventually took over. Below the cut is an explanation of the process, and some pictures.

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Tomorrow will be 12 weeks postpartum. My goal was to make one post a week. Considering I haven’t posted in a month…yeah. We’ll call that a fail. I’ve gotten into this bad habit of starting entries in Google Docs and then never returning because it’s either something requiring research/citations (PCOS Awareness Month post), something that ended up too long (c-section recovery post), something that requires more pictures/less modesty (post about recovery complications, incision scar, etc) or something that felt too personal in retrospect (PTSD to C-PTSD shift and body disassociation).

Anyway. Here’s a quick-y throwback to the State of the Uterus posts.

12 Week State of the…I don’t know. Mom? Family? Stuff.

First, the happy.

-The Daddy’s mostly back to work and I’m doing the stay-at-home-mom thing. Sometimes it’s overwhelming, sometimes it’s isolating. Mostly, I love seeing my baby all day, every day without worrying about childcare stuff, job hunting, missing her, etc.
-There are no longer pieces of suture randomly coming out of my vagina. Not gonna lie, that could also go in the “sad” section because it was fun-gross, like a really good nose blow or pimple.
-FSR is growing like a weed. Her lowest weight was 5lbs 11oz and now she’s 13lbs. Kid likes to eat.
-We’re doing that thing that people tend to do when they have kids – we’re entertaining the thought of leaving the city. I would like to stay here forever, but the desire to give my kid a yard with dirt to play in is much more important, and that’s not really an attainable thing in the city. I’m a little sad about the idea of leaving, but I think that if/when it happens, it will be good for us all.
-Tomorrow is mine and The Daddy’s seven year anniversary. Holy shit.
-FSR laughed! A big, real laugh on the 21st. I was tickling her under her chin. Ticklishness! That’s a thing that’s happening! Yesssss.
-It’s almost Halloween, which means ridiculous things like CUPCAKE COSTUMES are on sale. And I buy them. FSR is not sure what to think.

-Friends are having babies! Two this week and more on the way.

So. Yeah. There’s the good stuff. Motherhood and family life in general is great and I love my little girl so much. I would not trade it for the world. Not everything is sunshine and roses, though. Some things are hard. Real hard.

On to the sad/bad:

-PCOS is back full-swing. Oh hello, adult acne! Has it been a year since you left already?! I’m having the worst breakout since…I don’t know when. I literally have zits on top of zits, and cystic acne. It hurts so bad, I want to claw my face off. Hopefully birth control will knock that shit out ASAP.
-SPD, still a thing.
-Baby weight, also still a thing. I decided that 2.5 months of legit disability means that the “9 months on, 9 months off” thing doesn’t apply. I get 11.5 months. May as well round that up to a year. This is bumming me out not because of a number on a scale or size on my pants but because I don’t feel like myself. My body shape changed. My old clothes that fit look different now. I have to re-learn my body, and that’s hard. So. Favorite jeans? I will see you next September. Maybe. I might not see you again at all and if that’s the case, hopefully I will be ok with that over time.
-I feel generally unwell/unhealthy because I’ve been more inactive than I have ever been in my life because of limitations brought on by recovery and complications. It’s seriously so bad, I gave up my initial goal of joining a boxing class and instead have actually been looking into mall walking because air conditioned walking on a flat surface is seriously the only thing that doesn’t sound horribly painful. Oh, god.
-Hole in my abdomen? Still got it.

There you go, folks. That’s where we are right now. I really do want to get on some of those other posts soon, but…yeah. Parenthood. Time constraints. Brain fog. We’ll see how it goes.

Until then, I’ll be over here…doing this.