Thursday, January 27, 2011

Three Months PostPartum

My precious baby girl was three months old yesterday.  I can't believe it has already been three months.  After she was born, I posted my birth story but I really haven't posted anything about how my recovery process has gone.  So here it goes...
Recovery has been a little difficult.  I may give away too much information so read on with caution.
Reading back over my birth story, I realize that I left out some of the details.  The reason I had such horrible back labor is because my dear Emy was posterior (her face was facing my abdomen instead of my spine) but no one realized this until toward the end of my labor.  Well because of the induction and constant monitoring, my movement was restricted and it was difficult to get her to turn.  Emy staying in the posterior position ended up doing some internal damage to me.  It took them about twenty minutes to stitch me up and most of it was internal because I only had a small episiotomy.
I thought I was healing nicely up until about three weeks postpartum, I started to hurt again which I knew wasn't normal.  At that point I made an appointment with my OB but had to see a nurse practitioner.  I will never see that nurse practitioner ever again.  She told me that I had a granuloma where my sutures had been.  For those who don't know what a granuloma is, instead of my sutures healing the way they were supposed to, my body formed tissue around them (the granuloma) so that when the sutures dissolved, the granuloma was left behind which kept me from healing.  Well she didn't bother to do anything for it.  Just sent me on my way.
At my normal six week postpartum appointment with my OB, she treated the granuloma for the first time and I was told to come back if it didn't get better.  I let about five weeks go by before I went back and was treated again.  At that appointment my OB said she wanted to see me again in two weeks.  Well that follow up appointment was yesterday and the granuloma had to be treated for a third time.  We're hoping that this third treatment will take care of it but I have another follow up appointment in four weeks to be sure.
I asked what caused all of this and she said that I had a bad reaction to the sutures.  I asked what the chances were of this happening again when we have another child and she said it will depend on whether I tear again.  Apparently 50% of women delivering their second babies tear so its a 50/50 chance.  She said that we could try a different type of suture the next time but I would have to be more careful because they would dissolve away faster.  However, we don't plan to have another child for at least a few years so there is plenty of time to hopefully fully heal.  We'll just have to see what happens next time.  I definitely plan to try for a natural labor when we have other children and may even switch from my OB to a midwife.  Only time will tell.
Thanks for reading this crazy long post.  I figured it was time for an update and had no idea it would be this long.  Other than my physical troubles, things are going well and I feel blessed to be a mother.  Every second, whether pain or pleasure, has been worth it.

No comments: