Category: Health

Dad had come to visit but of course I don’t wake up before noon on Sunday, especially now that I’ve got Emmy, so he chilled out with Mom (oooh). They even took a trip to Walmart, where Mom got some yarn to start on a new blanket for Gramma. That’s her hobby of the moment, crocheting. I hope she keeps it up. She’s really good!

Once I was up Dad came in and met Emily. I made him some coffee and we sat for a good hour and a half and I took pictures. I got Mom and Dad in one holding Emily. It’s so strange and nice to have a photo of them together after all these years. The only other picture I have of them together is one of their wedding day.

Dad left and about an hour later Noelia and Andy came to visit. Noelia hadn’t had a chance to see Emily yet so she was excited. They brought gifts for all the kids which was really nice of them. They never want any of the kids to feel left out.

We watched Madagascar 2 and then we—well, not really me since I couldn’t move much—got the kids ready so they could go to Amy’s little boy’s birthday party. I was staying behind with Emily. My incision was still oozing, my boobs still hurt and I was still spending every other hour in the bathroom pumping. I was actually pumping when everyone got back from the party. I came out to say bye to Noey and Andy.

Later that evening, when Mario and I were watching TV in the living room my left arm, feet, hands and face were tingly and hot. I’d never felt like that before, outside of the hospital. It felt like my body did when the anesthesia was wearing off after the tubal and epidural.

When it was time for bed, around 12am, Emily was ready to be up. She wouldn’t let us put her in the bassinet at all when she’d been doing just fine since we brought her home.

During the time that she was awake I had a lot of time to think. It may be the post-partum depression settling in—God I hope not—but at that moment I just felt like a…failure. I started thinking about how I hadn’t potty trained Alaethia yet, how I couldn’t get her to sleep in her room and how I couldn’t even get Emily to sleep in her bassinet that night, when all the other nights she’d been fine. Then I started thinking about all the things that were going wrong, like my incision becoming infected and the weird tingling. What if something happened to me like it did to Mrs. Mendez from work? She almost died when her C-section incision became infected with Staph. And the tingling? I kept thinking of blood clots and organs being cut during the tubal that shouldn’t have been. That’s what I get for watching so much Discovery Health. I even told Mario before he fell asleep, “What if I have deep-vein thrombosis?!” He just rolled his eyes, chuckled and said, “Yes, Dr. Yajaira. Seriously, you really need to quit watching those shows.”

When she finally did fall asleep she woke up at 3am and refused to go back to sleep. I tried everything. Mario got up around 5:30 and offered to stay with her. I was exhausted and silently sobbing from said exhaustion as I rocked her when he got up. His excuse was that he’d fallen asleep early and he was wide awake. I told him I’d be fine. He had to work in the morning and I didn’t. He insisted, so he got her and walked around with her. I remember him doing the same thing with all the other kids, too :). I had an eye open, watching him and he said to go to sleep. I did, for about half an hour. When he was trying to put her back in the bassinet, she’d wake up. Alaethia’d woken up around 4am and was being loud and ready to play. She wouldn’t go to sleep, no matter what threats we threw at her. She finally passed out around 6:30 so Mario moved her to her crib in her room. He told me it was okay, I should just lay Emily in the crook of my arm and sleep with her. So I did…and she let me sleep. So well in fact, that I didn’t hear the alarm go off, or I turned it off and didn’t realize it. Mario was supposed to wake up around 7:30…and when I opened my eyes and looked at the clock it was 9:35!

Fri., Feb. 27th – I woke up with breasts the size of soccer balls and hard as boulders. Putting Emily on the breast was torture, as I’d fallen asleep with her breastfeeding the night before and she’d fallen asleep too, lost the latch and scraped up my nip. Owie. So no relief there.

As reluctant as he was to do so, John took me to get a breast pump. I was in so much pain I couldn’t even pump correctly. My right breast couldn’t get any relief, no matter how much I pumped. And to top it off, I felt like a failure because these huge things would only make half an ounce to an ounce of milk together after an hour to an hour and a half of pumping. That wasn’t even enough to feed her because she drinks anywhere from 2-3 ounces of milk!

The whole next week and a half is a blur of pumping. I spent most of my days feeding Emily breast milk from bottles and supplementing with formula when I didn’t make enough. I’d just lock myself in the bathroom with New Moon open on my lap and pumped away. I will always associate New Moon with Emily. I read the first half at my doctor’s appointments, a fourth of it while I was in labor at the hospital and the last fourth while pumping :).

Our income tax refund came in that day and I couldn’t even go anywhere to celebrate, heh. I really wanted to go to Chili’s and Mario said let’s go for it, but I still couldn’t walk around very well. We decided to just stay home. I was quickly feeling cabin fever set in.

I was so exhausted and ready for sleep (while the girls weren’t) and in such immense pain in my back, chest and incision that I just broke down and cried while I was changing Emily’s diaper on the sofa. Mario had no idea what was going on. I just told him the truth: I was tired and in pain. I was so glad it was the weekend and that he was home. He helped me so much that night. He stayed up entertaining a restless Alaethia while I slept with Emily. My incision felt like it would rip apart every time I tried to get out of bed and he saw that, so he volunteered to prepare Emily’s bottles when she’d wake up. He’s such a good husband and daddy.

I woke up with chills again that night. It was so weird. I’d felt hot when I’d first fallen asleep and woke up with my teeth chattering and feeling really uncomfortable, just like the night before. I was worried that my incision had gotten infected or maybe the pain in my right breast was Mastitis.

Sat., Feb. 28th – I woke up to Emily gagging and gasping for air. It was the 3rd time it had happened; the first two were at the hospital and when I asked the nurse about it he said it was something newborns did—along with constant sneezing, which she was doing–because their neurological system was still developing. I don’t remember the other three kiddos doing anything like that, which made me even more paranoid while she slept.

My boobs were still really sore and my incision was really starting to bother me. I noticed that it looked pink around the area and the incision looked weird—nothing like it did just the day before. I even made sure to take a picture, just in case it started to get worse. I’ll spare you the gore.

Mario’s Tia Amelia came by around noon to meet Emily. She held her while she shared some wisdom about taking care of myself and what to do for my aching boobs and so on.

I had a coupon for 10cent prints from Walgreens and had every intention of using it. I’d let all the other good coupons pass me by. So whatever chance I had, I uploaded pictures.

AVOID THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU’RE SQUEAMISH!
Emily woke up around 9:30 or so for a feeding so I prepared one and sat with her on the loveseat in the living room. I couldn’t sit anywhere without feeling this horrible tugging pain in my abdomen, but the weirdest thing happened when I sat there talking to Mario: I felt relief. I told him, “Woah, I suddenly feel really good, Babe. My stomach doesn’t feel that painful pull anymore.” And that’s when I felt my shorts completely wet from the front and something dripping down my thigh. The darn incision had popped open and was oozing all over me. That was the relief and wetness I felt. I was surprised by just how much liquid came out of that tiny bubble. I tried not to panic and called my doctor’s answering service. I get a call much quicker than I thought I would and speak to a doctor who’s on-call since Dr. C. is out of town. He asks me to describe the wound and then tells me to wash it with soap and water, put Neosporin if I want and cover it up with some gauze and tape. If the pain was unbearable, the pus turned green, or I got a fever I should go to the hospital. Great.

I always made fun of Mario’s emergency kit (or as I affectionately call it, his End-of-the-World-Kit) but I was so grateful he had it that night. He had every single thing we needed. He sat me on the sofa and told me not to move and prepared everything, keeping everything as sterile as possible. He washed me up and covered the wound as the doctor suggested. I tell you, I love this man.

This reminds me: everywhere I went I was being asked if I had a C-section, probably because of the way I was walking. I would tell them nope: 4 kids delivered vaginally and then I got the tubal. The ladies would make a face and then say, You poor thing! I hear that’s worse than a C-section! or I had 2 C-sections and the pain was nothing compared to the tubal! Had I known this lovely piece of advice I wouldn’t have done it! When I was doing my research while I was pregnant everyone told me it felt like a little pinch and only hurt for a few days, or that it didn’t hurt at all. I would have seriously rather been on birth control the rest of my life and risk getting pregnant for missing a pill than getting the darn tubal had I known it was going to cause me so many problems.

Even after that ordeal I finished uploading my pictures at 11:20pm and, with 10 minutes to spare before the deadline of 11:59pm, I entered the order for 316 pictures for $32. Woo! Pictures always make me feel worlds better.

Mary’d kept Alaethia overnight, so we had a pretty easy night only concentrating on Emily. Mario, bless him, woke up at least twice during the night to help me with Emily. I got up when the alarm went off for Mario to get ready for work and made him some breakfast; eggs over easy and toast…with Emily in my arms the whole time. I still couldn’t walk too well; the darn incision hurt like hell and of course I couldn’t bend so it took, like, 5 whole minutes to slowly reach down and grab the pan handle from the oven drawer while holding Emily in my other arm. Mario ate, then left to work.

I was up since 8am and I didn’t end up eating breakfast till 10:40. All my kids have always cried or gotten hungry when I’m about to eat, and Emily was no different. That’s how they kept Mama skinny LOL. I had to pop her on my boob so she could breastfeed in order for me to eat breakfast. Mary had stayed home and had Alaethia with her (the boys were at school).

John took me to my appointment around 1pm. It was the first time he’s ever driven my Equinox. He was being kind of evil, relishing in the fact that I was in pain and couldn’t really hurt him from the back seat since it hurt to move. He kept threatening to go really fast over the bumps and dips and I threatened him right back, letting him know he’d be really sorry when I could run after him. As always, my dear brother can’t do anything for me out of the kindness of his heart, so I had to bribe him with tacos from El Pato. I got myself some lunch from there, too. I felt guilty and texted Mario–because we have perfectly good food I could cook at home—but he said no one would let me cook anyway and I deserved to treat myself. Aww :).

It was only the first full day at home and I was already starting to feel desperate; I couldn’t even wash dishes or anything without someone scolding me and shooing me back to the living room. I had to admit that I love my family. I don’t know what I would have done without Mom, Mary and Sonia (who picks the boys up from school for me every day till I can drive again).

I was really worried that I wasn’t making enough milk. Emily would feed for 1-2 hours straight and her tummy was still grumbling. I tried manually expressing to no avail. Thank goodness I still had some of those bottles they send you off with at the hospital. She was fine after she drank one. Mary, Yazmin and I went to H-E-B that night to get some formula and a few groceries we needed. They made me use one of those little electric carts LOL. I felt funny, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk through the store.

Jorge, Maggie, their boys, Adan, Aide and Belle came to visit that night. I couldn’t really move all that much and had to keep asking Mom to please heat up my Rice Sock for the pain in my abdomen and back and my chest was beginning to feel really full, but I enjoyed the company. Alaethia and Belle entertained each other with the toys in Alaethia’s room and Emily was just a gem, snuggled up on my chest for a while and then slept peacefully in her bassinet.

When it was finally night time and Alaethia, who still refuses to sleep in her room in her daybed, was with us, it was a challenge. She was up and about, ready to play at 12am. Then, when Emily woke up around 4am, Alaethia was awake and quite loud too. At least Emily was sleeping in her bassinet. She was asleep most of the day and slept till around 1am. I breastfed her from 11:40-1am, and she was still desperate for more food. I felt awful, and kind of useless really. You’d think these big ol’ things would make the total of an 8oz. bottle.

Then she woke up around 3am and was up till 5 or so. I had figured I was going to have to start learning the shows that are on at that time, like I did when Eenan was a newborn, but I turned the TV off after a while. I didn’t want her thinking it was ok to be up. Even though she had that weird gap of awakeness, she still let me sleep for 2-3 hours between feedings. Not that I could sleep very much anyway. I couldn’t sleep; I felt paranoid that she’d stop breathing or something scary like that. And then the pain! The pain made it so damn hard to get on the bed, and even harder to get comfortable to sleep.