After Delivery, In The Recovery Room

After I had Elise and our 2 hours in the labor and delivery room was over, one nurse pushed Elise in a bassinet, one nurse pushed me in a wheelchair, and Husband pushed a cart with our bags to the recovery room, where we would stay for the rest of our hospital visit.

On the way to the recovery room, I got to push a little button that plays a lullaby song throughout the hospital, to let everyone know that a baby's been born. My baby. My Elise.

We got to the room and the nurses left, but shortly thereafter another nurse came in. A very pretty lady, I remember that. She took my blood pressure, heart rate, etc. Talked to me for a while. I remember her saying, "Oh, good. You didn't get an epidural. Your recovery will be quicker. You'll be able to get up and move around sooner and that will make your recovery time shorter. Plus you wont have headaches or back aches or anything like that from the epidural. Good for you."

She told me that the next time I have to go to the bathroom to ring for a nurse and she would come in and help me. "Oh, I think I'm okay. I don't need any help." She asked, "You aren't wobbly on your feet?" I said no. But then she said that they need to measure how much I pee again anyway, so I have to call for a nurse no matter whether I need help or not. "I'll just try to pee now," I said. Might as well get it over with. They only needed two measurements-- one of which they'd already gotten in the labor and delivery room-- and I didn't see the point in dragging the process out.

I peed in front of yet another stranger and let her measure my pee, write the measurement down, and dump the pee from the measuring container into the toilet. Gross.

When I got back into bed, the nurse "massaged" my uterus. Then she lifted my gown, pulled down my underwear and looked at the pad that I was wearing to see how much blood had come out. Over the course of the next few days, I would have a lot of people looking into my underwear. It's kind of weird. They want to see how much you're bleeding, to make sure it's a normal amount, I guess.

The nurse felt my ankles and then pushed my toes back toward my leg, asking if I felt any pain when she did that. I think she was testing to see if I was having any dangerous blood clots from my uterus. I didn't have any pain.

Then the nurse told me to face away from her on my side so that she could see if I have any hemorrhoids. So the pretty nurse looked at my butt hole. There is nothing left even remotely private for a lady who has just had a baby.

After I was thoroughly examined, I fed Elise. The nurse helped me get her latched to my breast. This required her to touch my boobs a bit. Like I said, nothing is left private.

I asked the nurse if she could remove the IV from my arm. It was still very uncomfortable. She told me that I'd have to leave it in for 24 hours. They were going to take more blood from me and see if I need any antibiotics. If I did need some, they would just have to run another IV, so we might as well leave the one that they've already inserted in my arm. (It turned out that I did need antibiotics.) I was disappointed. I really wanted the IV out.

After Elise ate and the nurse left, I asked Husband to set his watch alarm to go off in two hours, so that I could feed the baby. And thus began the never ending cycle of breastfeeding. And lack of sleep.