My trip to the ER

On January 7th when I was home taking care of Lilah, I started to have some moderately painful cramping in my abdomen. It started in the mid afternoon after a nursing session. I didn't think too much of it because I had dealt with some other mild random cramping since the c-section. But the cramping kept getting worse and I just kept feeling more uncomfortable. To make matters worse, we had planned to have Edward's cousin and his girlfriend come up from the Bay to meet Lilah and hang out with us. I was really looking forward to seeing them and having them meet Lilah, but I just didn't feel well.
Around 6 pm our guests arrived, but I had yet to see them. I was still upstairs nursing Lilah, who was having a marathon feeding session. Edward kept coming in to check on me because he could see how uncomfortable I was feeling and he was starting to get worried. I warned him that if I suddenly started hemorrhaging, he was supposed to call 911 without hesitation. (On a side note, my lochia was pretty much over by this point.) The cramping dulled a bit as Lilah finished nursing, so I thought maybe it was just a result of my uterus contracting. But it had been 3 weeks since I had given birth, and I hadn't really felt my uterus contracting much since the hospital stay right after Lilah was born. I needed to use the restroom right after Lilah was done nursing, and I had a feeling that there was going to be some bleeding. Sure enough, when I used the restroom, I actually felt a large clot come out. I then noticed that I had passed what appeared to be a really large clot, or several clots. And the bright red blood I saw was not okay. I immediately made Edward aware of the situation. He thought maybe we should call 911, but I told him no. But given my symptoms, I definitely felt that a trip to the hospital was in order. We then rushed to pack Lilah's diaper bag with supplies and I packed a small bag in case I was admitted. We had to quickly say goodbye to our guests and then we rushed to the hospital where I had given birth to Lilah.
Upon arriving at the hospital (around 8:30 pm), we went straight to the maternity ward, as this was a complication from my c-section. Unfortunately, they told me I had to be seen in the ER. So they brought me a wheelchair and wheeled me down to the ER. Luckily, the staff in the ER saw that we had our 3 week old with us, and they were very sensitive to the fact that we shouldn't be sitting in the waiting room with all of the coughing, hacking, contagious folks! They moved us to a small side room down the hall where we waited for about 1-2 hours before being attended to. At this point I had no cramping at all. Around 10:30 pm an ultrasound was performed on me to make sure that there weren't any remnants of the placenta still inside me. Around 11 pm I was moved to an exam room in the ER and the nurse and doctor came to talk with me about my symptoms. Blood was drawn. I was told that the ultrasound did not find anything suspicious. By this time, I had minimal bleeding, thank goodness. The doctor ended up releasing me without a diagnosis. He said it could have been a random hormonal imbalance. He warned me to come right back to the ER if the cramping and bleeding occur again.
The three of us were discharged from the ER and arrived home after 2 am in the morning. It was a long and exhausting night. I'm so glad they didn't find anything seriously wrong with me. But at the same time, it's frustrating to be sent home without a diagnosis and worrying that it will happen again. To my relief, it has not happened again. It appears to have been a one time occurrence, thank goodness!

That next day, our good friend Leah came by to visit and see Lilah again. We chatted for quite awhile and she held Lilah while I worked on Lilah's birth announcements. It was really nice to see Leah again and I really enjoyed our girl talk time!




Leah holding little Lilah!


On Sunday of that weekend, the 9th, my family came over to celebrate my mom's birthday. Her birthday was that next day, the 10th. My mom and her husband were on their way back from a cross country skiing trip in the mountains, and they stopped by our house for some birthday cake. My sister, brother-in-law and nephew also came over to celebrate. It was very low-key, but it was nice to see everyone again. And of course everyone was anxious to see Lilah again!


Gramma with Kai and Shaun looking at Kai's book.


Uncle Shaun and cousin Kai hanging out at our house, celebrating Gramma's birthday.






Kai was checking out his new cousin!


Recently, my good friend Jamey flew into town to visit with his family in the Bay. He was nice enough to drive all the way up here to visit with me and to meet Lilah. Jamey is one of my really good friends from high school. He has since gone on to graduate from Harvard with his PhD! It was great to see him again, and it was fun for him to meet Lilah!




Lilah and Jamey!