Round Two

Early Saturday morning, 7:52 am to be exact, Zoey Elizabeth Bayani entered our lives. The c-section experience this time around was a million times better than the first. It wasn't that Isabel's c-section was bad or anything but I was not mentally prepared and was very scared. This time, although I was still scared (still major surgery!) I was mentally there. The team that performed the operation was beyond excellent so I had my full trust in them.

Then came the hard part...

After the c-section was done and I did a little time in the recovery room, I was taken to my room at the Mother and Baby area. At first it seemed like everything was going well. I was taking Morphine every 20 minutes or so to control the pain though an IV injection. Then around noon, my pain started to intensify. I wasn't sure if it was the Morphine not working or if the pain was just growing. I notified the nurse on duty who reassurred me that the Morphine should be working as I was taking it frequently enough. I told her that it wasn't working and I couldn't feel it working at all. The pain was growing into my chest and my shoulders at this point. They decided to hook me up to an automatic Morphine machine (I'm sure that's not the technical term) that would release doses which I could control. I was hoping that would help... Machine set up... waited... NOT WORKING! I was hoping that the machine was broken or something but nope, I had been taking large amounts of Morphine with no results. I'm only 5' tall weighing 117 lbs so all that Morphine should have seriously knocked me out. I was SO frustrated. All the way up to this point, I had been calm and collected, trying to breathe through my pain but when the machine ended up not working, I started to melt down. By the time 6pm rolled around I was absolutely unglued and completely upset. I was in so much pain that I couldn't breathe or speak. It was so frustrating trying to answer questions from nurses and doctors because I couldn't communicate effectively. At the same time, all the drugs running through my system made my hearing sensitive. It sounded like everyone was talking 100 times louder than normal and it was all muffled. My head was going to explode. No one could find out what was wrong. My doctor was baffled and called in other doctors/specialist to help but no one could figure out what was going on. They thought it could be internal bleeding since my surgery was tougher than normal but my bloodwork was fine. By this time I had a fever so they thought it could have been an infection inside the stomach.... In the end my doctor concluded that she would have to perform a 2nd surgery to go in and find out where the problem was. I would have to have an epidural and be completely knocked out. Surgery was the last option that Ben and I had wanted so it scared the hell out of us. As they prepped me for surgery, my doctor made a few more calls and another surgeon told her that I should receive a CT scan before I go under. I already had the epidural placed which is totally painful so I didn't care what happened at this point. After the scan they didn't see anything wrong so surgery take off the plate. Since the epidural was alleviating my pain, they used that to control the pain and for 24 hours I couldn't eat, drink, or move at all. Sunday was a total blur, totally drugged up. By Monday I was still under a lot of narcotics but feeling better and was encouraged to walk. The doctors final conclusion (they're still not sure) was that my intestines had a kink in it and was blocked during the surgery so nothing could get through my system. It just kept ballooning which escalated the pain. I am still not sure what went on but I know it was serious. Ben was really upset throughout the process but remained strong for me. I could tell he was getting angry at everyone for not figuring out what was wrong. Till now, he thinks that there were 3-4 different things going on with me at the same time which made it hard for the doctors to treat me. Ben says that he has never seen me in that state of pain before. All the nurses on the floor were notified of my condition so as I'm in recovery, they've all been extremely sensitive to my needs. My picture of what went on is still really fuzzy so I'm not sure if I caught all the details but all in all, I have a perfectly healthy little girl so I'm grateful for that. OMG to Ben because I really lost it and he was there 100% for me. I have never believed so hard in my marriage vows as I did this weekend! Now I need to just get better and return the care to my wonderful family.