Yesterday morning at about 5:00am I woke up hemoraging. I won't go into details here, but let me just say that it was one of the most terrifying experiences both Brent and I have ever had. We quickly called our absolutely wonderful neighbor Melissa, Laura's sunbeam teacher, to come over, and we were on our way to the hospital within 5 minutes. On the way to the hospital, with Brent driving just a little over the speed limit, I called my mom and she was at my house by 9:30am. What would I have done without wonderful Christ-like women?
At the ER the staff wasn't as concerned about my bleeding to death as I was, which really helped calm our nerves, and I was set up on an IV with pitocin to make my uterus contract and morphine for the pain. And like most ER visits we spent the next few hours watching 'Pet Star' and 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' while we waited for an ultrasound.
The ultrasound confirmed what my doctor suspected: I had a retained piece of placenta still inside my uterus, making the uterus unable to contract. So at about 11:30am I went under general anesthesia and had a D&C performed to remove the lingering piece.
Everything went well and I was back in a maternity recovery room within the hour. I spent the rest of the afternoon recouperating and was able to come home at about 5:30pm. 12 hours in the hospital, I feel so lucky for modern medicine. I'll be under the weather for a couple of weeks, but I'm already feeling better this morning. The girls have been amazingly resilient and have loved having Grandma here again. Also Ryan did wonderfully with a bottle while I was gone, although when I got home he wasn't thrilled with having to nurse until this morning. Poor Brent was up most of the night with him.
So long story short, I'm glad I'm not a pioneer, and I want all of my friends to be aware that this complication can happen. So either call me and ask about my symptoms, get informed on the web, and talk to your doctor if you're pregnant. Here's a link that talks a little bit more about it.
