adamt
01-05-2010, 12:13 PM
well amy asked me about my "third arrow"....
so just thought I would put it in a new post, cause a few others wanted to be updated as well.
Like some of you knew, my wife was low on amniotic fluid and our baby was breech. Long story short, we had the baby on nov 5th and just got "home" from the hospital last thursday.
Now a short recap. My wife had the perfect delivery just like our other two. The baby was breech but she still wanted to deliver naturally so we went to the university of iowa hospitals in iowa city and delivered there. It went off without a hitch, 10 hours of labor, 10 minutes of pushing----just about four pushes, and baby was out perfect. We were quite the celebrities to all the residents there, who had never seen a breech birth and might never again.
We had a little girl.... Emma Lynnae Todd, 7.1 lbs, 19 " long.
Emma was full term but had week lungs. Possibly because of sitting upright in there with low fluid, And it was pretty iffy on the start but U of I has the best NICU in the state so she was in good hands and she pulled through. My wife recovered perfectly and was discharged and we stayed down at the hospital for a week with Emma in the NICU. After a week we came home(about an hour and a half away from the hospital).
Well as Emma was getting better Jill-my wife- was getting worse, she was strongly encouraged to get an epidural just in case they had to do some major stuff during her delivery, like a crash c section, or push the baby back up in her, or make a major epesiotomy or something, which of course didn't happen. But when they did it to her they knicked something they weren't supposed to and after a few days she started getting a severe headache, called a spinal migraine. Well they wanted to do a procedure called a blood patch, but while waiting for the doctor, jill developed a fever and chills, possibly pain induced, but possibly a sign of infection, so the doctor said maybe they didn't suggest a blood patch now, so my wife just had to suffer through it. After a while her neck started getting stiff, so we told them about it like they told us to, and long story short there, we were in an exam room all night once again, with no sleep, getting tested for menningitis, which culminated with an MRI. They said it was likely to be negative, but wanted to do a spinal tap, and I said no. We'll just wait to see. And she got better.
Being breech, as with most all other breech babies, especially girls, Emma had a dsplastic hip, which meant it just didn't grow into it's socket right, so she got put in a pavlik harness. It restrains her leg movement. So her hip can develop. It would have happened even with a c-section, it just happens with breech babies. We had a ten day checkup for that so we went back down to iowa city three days after we got home and waited two hours for the doctor to give us a 3 minute exam. But good news, he couldn't even get Emma's hip to pop out, so that just meant another four and a hlaf weeks in a harness just as precaution. But should be just fine. Well as the doctor came in to do the exam, like i said we had been in the waiting room for about two hours, and we had gotten up at about five theat morning to get down there early, but as the doctor came in my wife excused herself, the doctor did the exam and my wife cam back in and was at the point of tears, and said, "I'm bleeding", I didn't think much of it, and was a bit confused, since it all happened so fast, then she said, I thought I was peeing or something and couldn't stop it, but it wasn't pee, it was blood. Then that's when I noticed it on her jeans.
So we just went right upstairs, six floors straight up from ortho to the labor delivery unit and got seen by her doctors. At first they said it's just your period coming back, then my wife said, no it's not. And they did an ultrasound and found she had something left in her. So we had my parents come get our baby and we had to wait until 9:00 that night to get a D and C. That was alot of waiting for that day!!! And those chairs at the hospital weren't exactly lazyboys.
Anyways, a d&c is where they scrape and suck out the uterus. Which they did, and it immediately fixed the problem. They got out, a mini placenta or lobe, that was up there, and there was no way of knowing it was up there because the placenta that came out was in fact whole. But it totally solved the problem, immediately. She was just sore from the operation. But we left the hospital at four and got home at 5:30, 24.5 hours after we had left. We went to bed but my wife was developing more and more severe pain in here rib area, while she was on heavy pain meds, so two hours after we got home we went to our local hospital that sent us back to iowa city. Jill via ambulance. They checked everything out down there, and said she looked decent and no major problems or anything, but they just didn't know what was wrong. After a day of testing and heavy pain killers the pain started subsiding. They wouldn't let us come home, because they didn't want me driving, because it had been a while since we slept, so they unfolded me a cot in her room and we both slept. We got discharged the next morning, and an old doctor came by to discharge us and said something to the effect of sorry, but to be honest I think someone did something to one of your ribs as they were moving you back and forth from the operating table. I don't think your rib is broke jsut severly sprained. So we came home and it too passed. One other theory they had, was that it was a blub, a pocket of air that young women have in their muscles that occasionally explode, causing that specific pain, but those are usually random, and it would have been pretty crazy to have happened at that exact point in time.
Well we came home and about a week later... i think... I know it was thanksgiving day, jill started having severe pain in her belly. Also a low grade fever, so we went to our local ER, and they said she had a backed up colon, Jill said I don't think so, but they said, yes, drink this super strong laxative and you'll be fine, so home we come with laxative and two hours later, jill is throwing it up, getting a higher fever and worse pain, so we go back to our local er which does an ultrasound and says there is something on her uterus.
So back in the ambulance and back to iowa city she goes. This time I took off a head of the ambulance and beat them there!! But she was in such terrible pain she had to be on morphine in the ambulance.
By now they are getting to know us pretty good down here, and they have found out that my wife, who is VERY soft spoken, pretty well only says anything when it is pretty bad, so they had seen us alot, but instead of thinking we were hypochondriacs, they had learned to take my wife serious. They did a ct scan and found a pocket of stuff between her uterus and bladder, preliminary test showed it was staph aureus, so they started treating her for mrsa, with vanco, flagyl, and zosyn. Which to sum up for the common people, She had a staph infection causing an abscess in her belly that they started using the really heavy antibiotics on fearing it may be a resistant strain.
Turns out it wasn't mrsa, it was just normal staph aureus, and started her on nafcillin. Then did a procedure and put a tube into her belly to drain out the fluid. After 12 days in the hospital, they thought she was getting better. They took the drain out and sent her home on oral antibiotic.
A week later, she started getting a fever again, so we just went straight to iowa city and skipped the ambulance ride. The OB's said they were kinda expecting us back, because in their opinion the doctors in charge of draining the abscess took the drain out way too early. And no amount or kind of antibiotic, let alone oral is going to penetrate and clear up a staph abscess.
So ANOTHER week in the hospital. I never missed a night during this whole ordeal. I slept on that @%%$ vinyl couch thingy right beside her every night, and I missed very very few days, one of the very few days I missed was just to come home and get emma, who was/is doing great, and take her down there to her appointments. Which just so happens, she turned six weeks and got her harness off with a clean bill of health for her hip while my wife was admitted, so after the appointment emma and momma got to bond a while, before I brought her back home. So that was two full round trips to the hospital that day. Well they put a PICC in Jill and another drain and sent her home, after a week and I administered her nafcillin via her PICC, which is a more permanent IV that goes in a vein alot closer to her heart. After ten days at home on a PICC and with her drain, we went down last thursday and got the PICC out and the drain out. Hopefully for good this time.
She's feeling better than ever right now and we think all is going to be okay. We had to deal with some daunting possiblities through it that never came about, like hysterectomies, asherman syndrome, fistuals, and losing some of her bowels, but those seem to be not going to happen right now. So we are very grateful for that.
Well the girls are getting up so I need to be wrapping it up.
Needless to say that is why I haven't been posting. We kinda skipped the holidays this year, so it certainly doesn't seem to be the new year yet. And I highly recommend not having to live off of hospital food. It is just as expensive as hardees and half the flavor, unless you count crap as a flavor. But the thing is, parking is so expensive i couldn't possibly afford to leave the hospital everyday to eat, 15 dollars a day to park!!! That's alot for a rural simpleton like me. And man can those @^@$%& chairs mess up a back when you sleep on themfor five weeks!
I know it isn't a boomer tale, but that should update those of you that want to know. :) We joke now when someone complains about what they got for Christmas, that anything is better than a staph infection!!!!
so just thought I would put it in a new post, cause a few others wanted to be updated as well.
Like some of you knew, my wife was low on amniotic fluid and our baby was breech. Long story short, we had the baby on nov 5th and just got "home" from the hospital last thursday.
Now a short recap. My wife had the perfect delivery just like our other two. The baby was breech but she still wanted to deliver naturally so we went to the university of iowa hospitals in iowa city and delivered there. It went off without a hitch, 10 hours of labor, 10 minutes of pushing----just about four pushes, and baby was out perfect. We were quite the celebrities to all the residents there, who had never seen a breech birth and might never again.
We had a little girl.... Emma Lynnae Todd, 7.1 lbs, 19 " long.
Emma was full term but had week lungs. Possibly because of sitting upright in there with low fluid, And it was pretty iffy on the start but U of I has the best NICU in the state so she was in good hands and she pulled through. My wife recovered perfectly and was discharged and we stayed down at the hospital for a week with Emma in the NICU. After a week we came home(about an hour and a half away from the hospital).
Well as Emma was getting better Jill-my wife- was getting worse, she was strongly encouraged to get an epidural just in case they had to do some major stuff during her delivery, like a crash c section, or push the baby back up in her, or make a major epesiotomy or something, which of course didn't happen. But when they did it to her they knicked something they weren't supposed to and after a few days she started getting a severe headache, called a spinal migraine. Well they wanted to do a procedure called a blood patch, but while waiting for the doctor, jill developed a fever and chills, possibly pain induced, but possibly a sign of infection, so the doctor said maybe they didn't suggest a blood patch now, so my wife just had to suffer through it. After a while her neck started getting stiff, so we told them about it like they told us to, and long story short there, we were in an exam room all night once again, with no sleep, getting tested for menningitis, which culminated with an MRI. They said it was likely to be negative, but wanted to do a spinal tap, and I said no. We'll just wait to see. And she got better.
Being breech, as with most all other breech babies, especially girls, Emma had a dsplastic hip, which meant it just didn't grow into it's socket right, so she got put in a pavlik harness. It restrains her leg movement. So her hip can develop. It would have happened even with a c-section, it just happens with breech babies. We had a ten day checkup for that so we went back down to iowa city three days after we got home and waited two hours for the doctor to give us a 3 minute exam. But good news, he couldn't even get Emma's hip to pop out, so that just meant another four and a hlaf weeks in a harness just as precaution. But should be just fine. Well as the doctor came in to do the exam, like i said we had been in the waiting room for about two hours, and we had gotten up at about five theat morning to get down there early, but as the doctor came in my wife excused herself, the doctor did the exam and my wife cam back in and was at the point of tears, and said, "I'm bleeding", I didn't think much of it, and was a bit confused, since it all happened so fast, then she said, I thought I was peeing or something and couldn't stop it, but it wasn't pee, it was blood. Then that's when I noticed it on her jeans.
So we just went right upstairs, six floors straight up from ortho to the labor delivery unit and got seen by her doctors. At first they said it's just your period coming back, then my wife said, no it's not. And they did an ultrasound and found she had something left in her. So we had my parents come get our baby and we had to wait until 9:00 that night to get a D and C. That was alot of waiting for that day!!! And those chairs at the hospital weren't exactly lazyboys.
Anyways, a d&c is where they scrape and suck out the uterus. Which they did, and it immediately fixed the problem. They got out, a mini placenta or lobe, that was up there, and there was no way of knowing it was up there because the placenta that came out was in fact whole. But it totally solved the problem, immediately. She was just sore from the operation. But we left the hospital at four and got home at 5:30, 24.5 hours after we had left. We went to bed but my wife was developing more and more severe pain in here rib area, while she was on heavy pain meds, so two hours after we got home we went to our local hospital that sent us back to iowa city. Jill via ambulance. They checked everything out down there, and said she looked decent and no major problems or anything, but they just didn't know what was wrong. After a day of testing and heavy pain killers the pain started subsiding. They wouldn't let us come home, because they didn't want me driving, because it had been a while since we slept, so they unfolded me a cot in her room and we both slept. We got discharged the next morning, and an old doctor came by to discharge us and said something to the effect of sorry, but to be honest I think someone did something to one of your ribs as they were moving you back and forth from the operating table. I don't think your rib is broke jsut severly sprained. So we came home and it too passed. One other theory they had, was that it was a blub, a pocket of air that young women have in their muscles that occasionally explode, causing that specific pain, but those are usually random, and it would have been pretty crazy to have happened at that exact point in time.
Well we came home and about a week later... i think... I know it was thanksgiving day, jill started having severe pain in her belly. Also a low grade fever, so we went to our local ER, and they said she had a backed up colon, Jill said I don't think so, but they said, yes, drink this super strong laxative and you'll be fine, so home we come with laxative and two hours later, jill is throwing it up, getting a higher fever and worse pain, so we go back to our local er which does an ultrasound and says there is something on her uterus.
So back in the ambulance and back to iowa city she goes. This time I took off a head of the ambulance and beat them there!! But she was in such terrible pain she had to be on morphine in the ambulance.
By now they are getting to know us pretty good down here, and they have found out that my wife, who is VERY soft spoken, pretty well only says anything when it is pretty bad, so they had seen us alot, but instead of thinking we were hypochondriacs, they had learned to take my wife serious. They did a ct scan and found a pocket of stuff between her uterus and bladder, preliminary test showed it was staph aureus, so they started treating her for mrsa, with vanco, flagyl, and zosyn. Which to sum up for the common people, She had a staph infection causing an abscess in her belly that they started using the really heavy antibiotics on fearing it may be a resistant strain.
Turns out it wasn't mrsa, it was just normal staph aureus, and started her on nafcillin. Then did a procedure and put a tube into her belly to drain out the fluid. After 12 days in the hospital, they thought she was getting better. They took the drain out and sent her home on oral antibiotic.
A week later, she started getting a fever again, so we just went straight to iowa city and skipped the ambulance ride. The OB's said they were kinda expecting us back, because in their opinion the doctors in charge of draining the abscess took the drain out way too early. And no amount or kind of antibiotic, let alone oral is going to penetrate and clear up a staph abscess.
So ANOTHER week in the hospital. I never missed a night during this whole ordeal. I slept on that @%%$ vinyl couch thingy right beside her every night, and I missed very very few days, one of the very few days I missed was just to come home and get emma, who was/is doing great, and take her down there to her appointments. Which just so happens, she turned six weeks and got her harness off with a clean bill of health for her hip while my wife was admitted, so after the appointment emma and momma got to bond a while, before I brought her back home. So that was two full round trips to the hospital that day. Well they put a PICC in Jill and another drain and sent her home, after a week and I administered her nafcillin via her PICC, which is a more permanent IV that goes in a vein alot closer to her heart. After ten days at home on a PICC and with her drain, we went down last thursday and got the PICC out and the drain out. Hopefully for good this time.
She's feeling better than ever right now and we think all is going to be okay. We had to deal with some daunting possiblities through it that never came about, like hysterectomies, asherman syndrome, fistuals, and losing some of her bowels, but those seem to be not going to happen right now. So we are very grateful for that.
Well the girls are getting up so I need to be wrapping it up.
Needless to say that is why I haven't been posting. We kinda skipped the holidays this year, so it certainly doesn't seem to be the new year yet. And I highly recommend not having to live off of hospital food. It is just as expensive as hardees and half the flavor, unless you count crap as a flavor. But the thing is, parking is so expensive i couldn't possibly afford to leave the hospital everyday to eat, 15 dollars a day to park!!! That's alot for a rural simpleton like me. And man can those @^@$%& chairs mess up a back when you sleep on themfor five weeks!
I know it isn't a boomer tale, but that should update those of you that want to know. :) We joke now when someone complains about what they got for Christmas, that anything is better than a staph infection!!!!