The First 24 Hours

In my experience, the first 24 hours are the most horrible for me physically. It's when the spinal starts to wear off and I feel the sudden rush of pain throughout my whole body and the afterbirth contractions are in full force and I start rethinking the whole baby thing. It's then that I am reminded of just how easy it is to be pregnant...even though I've just wished for the last six weeks that the baby could be born already. Yeah, it's so much easier to be pregnant than to give birth and care for a newborn. So I always say that if I can only get through the first 24 hours, I can get through anything. And this time was no different.

I was into my postpartum room sometime around seven in the morning and I tried my best to sleep, but is always a joke. I don't know how it is with a "normal" delivery, but when you have a c-section you have people checking on you every fiftenn minutes. The afterbith contractions were the worst yet, which was to be expected with this being my fifth baby. They get worse each time because the uterus gets more tired with each birth and has to work hadrer to contract. I had the same nurse that I had with Lauren and Devin, and if you ask me her name I will completely butcher it. She is from Pakistan and her beautiful name starts with an "N". I really love her and was lucky to have her for a thrd time! She really wanted me to get up and walk as soon as I could, but I was sooooooooo tired that I didn't even try until about 2:30 in the afternoon. All I wanted to do was cuddle with my little guy and sleep.

A nurse came into give Garrett his first bath around noon. First she did his footprints, and the whole thing made him VERY mad. And then the bath made him very VERY mad. I finally got up to walk for the first time and it was horrible, as always. You literally lose all diginity when you have two or three ladies hoisting you out of bed and helping you to the bathroom, with blood gushing down your legs the whole time. And then when you finally are able to sit down on the comode, one nurse holds your gown up while one hoses you off and one wipes you all clean. And then comes the fun of de-catheterizing you. But once you are all clean and don't have a hose hanging out of your urethra, well things just seem a little happier.

(This next part is very much TMI, but I wanted to document it for myself.)
I had a problem urinating this time which was totally new to me. I've never had that problem before. Since the catheter had already been removed, it was crucial that I did my business on my own. But oh, how it HURT!! That evening Cody came back up to see me and the baby and I laid in bed in serious pain as my bladder continued to fill up. And the more full it got, the more intense my contractions were. Pure hell is what it felt like. The nurse said that if I couldn't relieve myself by a certain time then I would have to be re-catheterized...this time with no anesthesia. OUCH! Finally around 7:00 that night I got up to give it one more try. I put the handy measuring device in the comode and did my best to get something to come out. And holy cow, my determiniation paid off. I filled it up almost to the one liter mark. I have never felt so good in my life!

The remainder of that first 24 hours wasn't s bad after that. I spent most of the time lying in bed and falling love with my new baby boy.