Post Partum: Week 1

Waist: 37.5 inches
Weight: 138 lbs

Aches & Pains: back spasms, abdominal incision pain, upper back and neck

Recap since Thursday: Was discharged from the hospital on Friday and I was glad to get home, except for the lack of pain killers. Once the pain killer wore off I started experiencing all new levels of pain. Thus the back spasms and stomach muscle contractions started to wear on me.

After getting settled onto the house, I managed to climb the stairs and ate a wonderful chicken dinner that Monica had prepared for us. I was pretty tired so I went back down stairs after the meal. I've been camping out on the couch in the TV room as it is centrally located to the bathroom and bedroom. I'm trying to keep all of my necessities within arm's reach.

I tried to keep ahead of the pain cycle by taking tylenol, but it didn't work very well. With the use of some lidocaine pain patches on my back and a heating pad, I was able to sleep through the night with waking once to feed Elijah.

Saturday: Waking up wasn't too awful. I took a hot shower and ate some breakfast and felt well enough for Doug, Finn and Monica to go out for a couple of hours. Of course after they left, Elijah started crying and wouldn't settle down. He was hungry and not getting enough milk. My nipples were in such bad shape with blisters and callouses on them that he couldn't get enough to eat, so I had to give him some formula and he ate so much of it. But, at least he settled down and took a long nap.

12:30 I felt an enormous swelling in my breasts and yes the Milk Maid had arrived in full force! I was engorged and immediatel retreated to the shower for hot compresses and massaging to remedy the situation. Afterwards, I fed Elijah, but my breasts were so huge he could hardly latch on. Once he did get a good latch he drank heartily, but not enough to ease my pain.

Doug came home around 2:00 p.m. and he was able to watch the baby while I took another hot bath to ease my pain. It didn't really work and Doug gave me Tylenol to ease my pain. It took the edge off, but I had a terribly painful evening and a long, long night. Eli woke up often to eat and I screamed several times when putting him on the breast. I got a few hours sleep, but was not rested

Sunday: I woke up to excruciating pain. I felt pain everywhere. In my back, legs, knees, hands were tingling and the abdominal pain was very bad. I had forgotten to take the Ibuprophen during the night and I was paying for it. Even my once luxurious long hot bath didn't help me at all. Doug had to come and rescue me from the shower and assist me with getting dressed. I was so miserable that nothing worked to ease my pain. Finally more pain reliever and a heating pad took the edge off.

After a couple of hours I was able to rest and Doug left the house to take Finn to get a haircut. While he was gone I tried to get up and walk around to ease the abdominal pain, but my breasts were so engorged that I started to use the breast pump and take more meds. It didn't give me any relief because my nipples were so damaged from days of improper latching that I now had callouses, cracks and clogged ducts and the milk had no way of escaping.

I retreated to the bathroom for another hot shower and in my desperation I squeezed, massaged and tried to remove the blockages, but I was in so much pain. When Doug returned from his outing I asked him to immediately go rent a hospital grade breast pump in order for me to pump out the milk. He didn't think that it would help me, but he left anyway.

While he was gone, I tried using my regular pump and managed to remove about two ounces which did give me enough relief to get Elijah to latch on and drink more milk.
Finally, several tylenol eased my pain I was able to take a nap.

When I woke up about two hours later, Doug's errand of mercy was evident with the breast pump on the floor before me. I immediately pumped several ounces of milk and Elijah was able to start drinking and he did a really good job. Fortunately, the rest of the day went pretty well and I was feeling better.

Monday: Doug woke me up at 9:00 a.m. and I started to pump a bit and feed Elijah.
Doug brought me a great breakfast with some really good Chai tea and I was feeling better, but my breasts were sooo tender. Fortunately, they weren't rock hard and I was able to soften them up during a hot shower.

At 11:00 a.m. we left the house for the hospital to have my staples removed and to have Elijah's first well baby appointment. The staples were really bothering me because they pull on the skin and it hurts in about 20 different places all at once. Not to mention that they get caught on my clothing and pull even more. It's not fun.

Sally, my nurse, removed the staples and I felt immediate relief from the grabbing and pulling of the metal staples on my skin and I could start to relax. Then she started to examine Elijah.

Elijah was still jaundiced, but not enough for alarm so, she finished the examination and gave us some suggestions on how to improve his condition. More feedings and sit near a sunny window. Sitting by the sunny window I could definitely do, but the increased feedings, that would be a challenge.

I told Sally about all of my feeding challenges and my actions to remedy the situation. And guess what? I was doing all the wrong things.

1. Extra pumping only increases your milk supply and encourages further engourgement. Remedy: increase feedings to 10-12 per day.

2. Do not try to remove blockages on the nipple as it further damages the skin.
Remedy: leave breast milk on the nipples as the white blood cells help speed healing and use lots of lanolin.

3. Engourgement remediation is most successful with hot packs before feeding, massage during feeding, and cold packs after feeding. And once again lots of feedings helps to balance the milk production.

4. Pain reliever: ibuprophen helps to reduce pain and swelling of breasts so use it.
She also asked me how much pain killer I was using and I told her that I was not using any. She asked me why not and I told her that the pain from the abdominal gas was too much for me to bear so, I stopped the day I left the hospital.

5. Sleep. Sally said that I needed to take a nap every day to keep up my strength and personal happiness. Yeah! Doctors orders.

Sally told me to use a lower dose of percacet and that the abdominal pain would not be so great. Also, regular use of pain reliever and ibuprophen would ease my pain.

Armed with all that advice and helpful tid bits, Doug escorted me home and the rest of the day went much better. I felt better because I was wearing regular clothes and the pain management was going well and Elijah was nursing very well. I tried to move around more and was feeling better.

Doug was anxious to get out of the house, so he and Monica went on a bike ride for a couple of hours of sightseeing in Seattle and Elijah slept in the warm glow of reflected sunlight for about three hours. During that time, I made a few business phone calls and spoke with my mother and brother. I should have taken a nap, but I really wanted to get some things done and I was very tired when everyone returned home.

Time with Finnegan: Since I was feeling better, I met Finnegan at the door when he came home from school and he was so happy to see me that he immediately squealed, "Mommy, ommy, ommy!" It was the greatest thing in the world for me to hear. He threw his arms up for me to carry him, but I couldn't do it. So I stooped down and gave him a big hug. His cheerful expressions and happy little face almost made me cry because I have missed his touch for so many days.

We took advantage of the moment and played with playdoh at the table while he ate dinner and I ate some really good leftovers. Unfortunately, at 7:30 p.m. I was exhausted and needed to take a nap. I fed Eli and snuggled into a warm bed and slept until 9:00 p.m.

I woke up because I could hear Finnegan at my door crying for my attention and I came out to join him. He was so beautiful, running around in his footed pajamas with his teddy bear in his arms. I sat down on the couch and we hugged and kissed and snuggled until he felt better. I kept telling him that I loved him and that he was a wonderful big brother. We talked about Eli and named all of his little parts and Finnegan showered me with lots of affection which I just loved.

In those moments my heart was so filled with joy. It was heaven to sit on the couch wrapped in the arms of my little boy and all the pain and agony of the previous days was wiped from my mind as we enjoyed the simple pleasure of being together.