A while later they finally brought Makayla back to my room. The nurse was helping me to use the bathroom when apparently I was losing too much blood. I had no idea what was normal, but I was having a hemorrhage. She didn't say anything about it, just told me she would be right back.
When she came back, she had two doctors and 4 nurses with her. I was immediately scared and did not understand what was happening. They told me I was hemorrhaging because my uterus was not clamping down properly. They also said that the doctor would have to reach into my uterus to remove all the blood clots so that my uterus would clamp down.
While they were telling me this, the nurses were putting two IV ports into my arms. One for morphine and one for a blood transfusion. They gave me the morphine and asked if I felt it yet. I felt nothing, but the doctor said we couldn't wait any longer so she had to proceed. I have never felt anything so painful and I was literally screaming at the top of my lungs and begging her to stop. The worst part was that after she pulled out the clots she said she didn't get them all and had to do it again. Finally they were done and luckily the doctor said my blood loss was borderline so they decided to not give me the transfusion. She said it would take about 3 months for my body to get back to normal and that I might feel very tired for a while.
The doctors all left and all the nurses except for my main nurse too. I was really regretting telling Efe to go home with Mason. I hated being there alone. It was just already such a difficult time with the hard labor, and worrying if Makayla was OK, that I just couldn't deal with this on top of it. I literally just laid there and cried for several hours. My nurse recommended I watch TV for a bit to see if that would calm me down. So I did and I finally started feeling better.
Efe brought Mason to meet his new sister the next day. He was totally smitten with her. My mom came with them because she had come to watch Mason for us. She kept asking if she could hold the baby and Mason told her no because he wanted to hold her all day.
The next day we were checked out of the hospital. They debated keeping me another night because of the blood loss and my blood pressure was still high but I told them I would come in if I felt bad and they decided it would be fine for me to go home.
Unfortunately, a couple days after getting home, my blood pressure was very high. It was even higher than when I was in the hospital before. I had to go back and was readmitted into the hospital for monitoring overnight. I was thankful my mom was there to watch Mason because they would only let Makayla stay in my room if there was an adult there to watch her (since she was no longer a patient).
I was also having horrible headaches that I thought was from my blood pressure, but they later realized it was from the epidural. They were so bad when I would sit or stand, but went away when I laid down. The doctors suggested I drink lots of caffeine, so Efe went and got me a big latte and for the first time since giving birth my headache was much better! I was really excited to be prescribed drinking caffeine because coffee is my favorite thing.
The doctors decided to put me on blood pressure medication and released me from the hospital the next day. I'm still taking the meds, but my blood pressure is slowly dropping. The doctor said it should go down to normal within a few months and then they will wean me from the blood pressure meds.
It was a long and hard journey, but the result was worth it. I was so happy to go home and be out of that place.
