Who Knew?

My daughter was colicky. Four words that sum up months and months of inconsolable screaming, non-sleeping, horrible nursing hell.

This boy eats, sleeps, poops, and pees in an orderly fashion. You can put him down. Now, we still have a grandmother living with us until I'm back on my feet, but the difference in infants is already stunning. I had no idea. I just hope it persists. (Fervently.)

Bottlefeeding rocks. Guilt free, of course. No one, not even the hospital lactation consultants, can fault you when your milk never comes in due to a rare and life-threatening delivery complication. Apparently my body prioritizes attempting to heal my kidneys (currently full of dead cells) over sending milk to my breasts. And so, ANYONE can do the night feelings!! I thought I'd miss the bonding, but it turns out holding the baby and peering into his eyes while holding his bottle is every bit as good. Again, who knew?

I'm still a bit of a mess. Everything hurts. I have bruises the likes of which I didn't think possible. I can't eat and sleeping is a bit hit or miss. I burst into tears at the drop of a hat. I'm not sure how much is normal postpartum hormones and how much is post-trauma stress. Dr. Favorite has told us we're getting counseling, and I cannot disagree. How we will schedule this is in remains a mystery, but we'll have to find the time.

D is doing much better now that Mommy is home. My poor abandoned baby girl. I feel so guilty.

Renal failure is not a walk in the park. I have a persistent taste in my mouth that defies description. It's nasty. I don't want to eat, nor can I eat much on my current low potassium and low sodium diet. The silver lining is that I'm already back at my pre-pregnancy weight. I lost 56 pounds in 8 days. A lot of that was retained fluids. But still.

Next up is my followup with the nephrologist on Thursday. Please let my kidney function return.

Delivery

I don't know how many of you are still checking in on me, but I thought I'd throw out a quick update. More details will hopefully follow at a distant future date in which my life resumes some semblance of normalcy.

I went in for an induction at 39 weeks. All proceeded normally for about three hours until the membrane rupture brought on an extremely rare and serious complication of delivery called an amniotic fluid embolism. I am never going to google that term myself, but feel free. Anyway, thorough several very fortunate turns of luck, and a lot of extremely competent medical care, both the baby and I survived his delivery via emergency c-section. Baby boy is now thriving and was discharged from the hospital after 3 or 4 days. My memories of the last 11 days are a little hazy, but I have worked my way out of the ICU and through another week in another unit of the hospital, and am now discharged for outpatient treatment for acute renal failure. There is much reason to hope that my kidneys are currently starting to regain some normal function. I am undergoing dialysis while we wait to see what happens. But, I am home, I have a healthy baby boy, and strict instructions to never again attempt another pregnancy. I am done.

Whew.

January 14, 2008
20 inches
8 pounds, 15 ounces