Part 2- Apparently contractions have a purpose.

So, about two hours or so after delivery, the nurses wheeled me over to postpartum, and I got put in the biggest room they had!  Awesome!  My nurse told me to let her know if I passed any "big clots."(TMI.)

It's funny she said that because I definitely didn't remember anyone telling me that last time.  But anyway.  I had a little bit of a headache and the nurses told me it was probably because I hadn't had anything to eat all day, and just encouraged me to rest till my food got there.  I was in the room by myself, Matt was in the nursery with Sam, and our families had gone to get us food and/or back to work, etc.  I layed down to sleep, but I couldn't.

Maybe about 20 minutes after being in postpartum, Matt and Sam came back, and I was finally going to get to feed him and hold him because I hardly had done that!  Two nurses also walked in my room right at the same time as Matt and Sam.  I sat up, and out comes TONS of blood and a huge clot (gross, I know) like the size of a small cantaloupe.

Honestly, if the nurse hadn't said anything, I would have probably not thought much of it - or wouldn't have told anyone right away, but fortunately she was right there, so I told her, casually, thinking it was no big deal.

So she came to check it out, and within about two minutes I probably had 10 nurses in my room.  They were pressing on my stomach, trying to get clots out, paging other nurses, calling my doctor, etc.  Sam's nurse had taken him out of the room and back to the nursery.  Needless to say, I was clueless as to what was happening, scared, and crying - asking Matt, who had a very concerned look on his face, to please hold my hand.

They started giving me all sorts of medicine - more pitocin to make my uterus contract more, some prostaglandins (also used to induce labor) that make bleeding stop, a shot in my leg that hurt REALLY bad, plus some other stuff via IV (and lucky me, I had TWO IVs, not one).  They also gave me some sort of pain killer that they told me would make me "loopy." A combination of the medicines and the blood loss made me start shaking uncontrollably.  It was weird to feel completely out of control of my body.  I could not stop shaking.  I could not do anything for myself.  I was thinking at best I would pass out, or I would need a blood transfusion, or I might be getting a hysterectomy, or at worst, I could die.  Later Matt told me that a surgical team was outside the door in case they needed to do an emergency hysterectomy.  While I was still shaking they wheeled me back to labor and delivery so they could pay more attention to me there. (Note, I lost my huge postpartum room.)

During that whole mess I was doing the only thing I knew to do, which was praying and thinking about Jesus.  One, I was praying that he'd heal my body, but that more importantly he'd heal my heart so that He was all I wanted.  Two, as I thought about why this was happening, I heard Jesus saying, "Because I love you." Everything He does, He does because He loves us.  So, even though I was shaking, crying, and asking the nurses tons of questions, I was feeling His peace because I knew He was present.

Eventually they gave me some drug to stop shaking, and within a few minutes of getting back to labor and delivery I had mostly stopped bleeding.  They kept me there to take my blood count and make sure I didn't need a transfusion.  Fortunately, I DID take my prenatal vitamins during my pregnancy, so my blood count was good to begin with and I didn't end up needing a blood transfusion.  But, since I am me, I figured that I must have done something wrong to make this happen, so I kept asking my doctor and the nurses what I did to make this happen, and my doctor said I was telling too many lies. (Ha ha.)  I think God is just trying to nail it in my head that I am not as in control as I think I am...

Anyway, apparently when you have a fast and easy delivery combined with a big baby, and your uterus doesn't have to contract as much, it can cause hemorrhaging, which is what happened to me.  The doc told me that if I decided to have another baby, then next time they will start me on the medicines to stop bleeding immediately after delivery - your risk for this increases with each pregnancy.  I told my doctor that I just wanted him to earn his paycheck, you know, since it took him like five minutes to deliver baby Sam.

After all that mess was over, I was still pretty darn loopy, which not gonna lie, was quite fun.  My family members, at least, were enjoying me without a filter.  Unfortunately, I wrote an e-mail to some of my friends telling them what happened while I was in that loopy state, and when I woke up the next morning and re-read it, I was a little bit embarrassed. (I mean, I already share TMI on my blog without being loopy, so you can imagine me on drugs writing an e-mail to my friends.)

The next morning my doctor said, "Not to alarm you, but what happened to you is why women die during childbirth - they bleed to death."  I had already figured that... Anyway, that's the "drama" you were waiting on.  Thankfully, the nurses were AWESOME and they did such a good job, and all turned out well and I'm still here to tell you about it. :)

My dad started getting all teary-eyed thinking about it, and I told him he wasn't allowed to do that.  Because for real, let's just be thankful that what could have been bad is good and let's not concern ourselves with what could have happened.  My hormones, emotions and lack of sleep can't handle anything else besides being thankful right now anyway. :)