lots of time on my hands

I decided that lying down is a better idea than standing up or sitting, as I suspect it was the increased vertical activity that caused the infection (fluids tend to pool around the incision more easily when standing up).  So today I have a lot of time on my hands to sit and do nothing.  I might get started on my taxes.  Except that all of my papers are back home, while I am sitting here in Vancouver, so even that won't work.

I am reading blogs of infant and toddler loss.  I don't know why I am drawn towards these sad stories, is it because I am trying to find out how a baby might die, in order to avoid it, is it because I want to know how one survives such an ordeal in order to be prepared in case it happens to me... hard to know.   In any case, over the past week, forced to confront my own flesh-and-bloodness again, and the fragility of life and health, I am more appreciative of what this present moment is bringing me: a happy, thriving toddler, a healthy husband, a healthy mother, a healthy father, a healthy brother.  It can all be taken away so fast.  And one day it will.  Just not today, which is why I need to enjoy today while it lasts.

post op infection, again

Last night Emma jumped on my abdomen.  After screaming in pain, I had a look at the incision and realized that the edges were red, warm and swollen.  Infection.  Why not?  It happened with the first TAC, and with the C section as well.  Why would history skip a beat?  So I took some leftover clindamycin that I had prepared just in case, and marked the edges.  Two hours later, the redness was a bit less.  The pain is definitely more today than it was yesterday, but the redness, the heat and the swelling are subsiding.  I am phoning the surgeon today to get more antibiotics,  I hope he does not want to see me as it is one hour to his office and seat belt+abdominal incision=pain.

Post op musings

I am at home, on the third day after my second TAC surgery.  (I don't know how to count the days, so I am assuming that Friday, the day of my surgery, was day 1.  Strictly speaking, in medical terms, that would be day 0, but I like to call it day 1 because it makes me feel like I am healing faster).

Some things are harder at home, like the fact that Emma decided to throw a 3 lb ball straight towards my abdomen, not realizing that I am not looking and would not be able to catch it.  I am also needing to be upright more, since I am going to the kitchen, keeping people company, helping cook mostly with instructions from the armchair, etc.  I am having visitors soon and decided to take a shower as well (that was nice).  So, overall, I am moving a lot more than I was in the hospital, and am hurting more as well. The diclofenac that they were giving me around the clock has caused gastritis symptoms, so I had to stop.  All I have to go on is regular tylenol, and the occasional tylenol no 3 (with codeine) that I have opted not to take much as it causes constipation.  (I can only imagine how much fun constipation+abdominal incision can be).

Sometimes the pain is in my abdomen, sometimes in the diaphragm, sometimes in the shoulders, and sometimes in the whole body.  When that happens, I just lie down and watch cartoons with Emma.  Things are not too bad, because I have a lot of help from my mom and dad, who take Emma when she gets too rowdy and wants to jump on my stomach.

Emma is very adaptable:  she is already treating me with more care and gentleness than she did yesterday.  She is also getting used to the idea of the fact that I cannot pick her up.

The strangest thing that I am noticing is this:  although I had the same exact incision with the c section, I don't remember having any pain after the C section at all!  I got up, lifted my baby (then 7 lb, now 30 lb), walked around with her, etc.  I felt pain in the breasts from the constant breastfeeding, but nothing in the abdomen.  I attribute this to either the spinal or to the novelty of having a much awaited baby.

Overall, the feeling I have about this surgery is "same old thing".  I am taking surgery with a mundane grain of salt at this point.  I know I shouldn't, but am getting to be a veteran at this, and just can't get too excited about it.  My only hope is that someday I can get pregnant again, and that this was not done in vain.  

Going home today

I had a lot more post op pain this time in the first few hours. Fortunately I was drowsy and slept a lot. This morning I woke up feeling ready to go home. My hated catheter is out.  I took off the calf compressors and asked for the IV to be saline locked.  I can move around freely. The hardest part will be not being able to pick up Emma for 4-6 weeks. How will I care for her once I go home in 2 weeks and have no help during the day? Perhaps I can convince my mom to come live with me for a week

Surgery today

I am having my second TAC surgery this morning. I have not had any inclination to blog about it. I have had so many surgeries that it is feeling pretty routine. I will post about my recovery, even if it is brief posts like this one.

My arrival time was 6 am (ouch) and I got here at 5:50 am. Waiting to get in to the main admissions desk. I woke Emma up to say goodbye, she will be staying with my mom. I brought just a few things:  hair brush, face stuff including some make up, phone charger, a house robe and thick socks, and three pairs of very high cut underwear, that I had to buy especially for this occasion since none of my usual thong sets goes above the incision line.

I am wearing Lululemon pants which I do not normally wear in the city but should be stretchy and comfortable afterwards.

I feel very relaxed and optimistic. I am looking forward to having completed this step of the journey and going back home to my baby. 

I am cooking, and I am moving. And I am having surgery.

I am cooking like crazy lately.  I have started in November, when we got back from holidays.  We ate very well, in excellent restaurants, fresh food (South Africa has better climate than Canada) and when I returned I wanted to continue exploring new tastes.  I dusted off my Thermomix cookbooks, and started  there, but then I got a pressure cooker as a Christmas gift, and I learned a whole bunch of recipes by reading three books on the pressure cooking techniques of yore, and lately I have sunk deep into French cooking, in particular by following blogs of French ladies who post recipes of what they are cooking for dinner, as well as reading for education from the classics, like Julia Child's books.

I am eating very well.  We all are.  We sit down for all three meals, (MrH joining us for dinner on weeknights, for the rest it is just Emma and I).  We don't eat running around, we don't snack in the car or anywhere other than the meals at the kitchen table (and I guess the snack at the babysitter's at four-five pm).  Emma eats extremely well, probably because I let her get hungry before the meals.  She eats broccoli, chicken, a bit of fish, vegetable soups (all kinds: pumpkin, cabbage, leek), and of course she enjoys our decadent deserts.  This weekend I made a lemon tart, it was almost 100% butter by weight I swear, but oh so good, and Emma had about a fourth of it, despite it's relative tartness, which I thought would have deterred her (hoped...more for me, haha).

I have read an excellent book that inspired me to be more strict with mealtimes and meal rituals, I think it was called "French kids eat everything" or something along those lines.  I can only highly recommend it.  The old European ways are so comforting and ritualistic, I love sticking to them, even to the relatively late dinner time which allows me to cook after I come home from work, and to even sneak in some speed shopping for missing ingredients if I need to.

The latest news is that I am having the cerclage replaced transabdominally at the end of February in Vancouver.  I am not looking forward to the surgery again.  It feels like I am putting my body through a lot again, and it was nice having a brief break from all the operations.  But I guess it has to be done, or risk losing the third pregnancy like I did the first.

We are moving at the end of March to another town, and I have mixed feelings about it.  This is the town in which I have lost Adrian, and every time I drive past the funeral home I remember seeing the smoke go up when he was cremated.  Perhaps leaving is better, but I feel like I identify so much with my pain that I need to live close to where the streets and the buildings remind me of my trauma, or else I am lost.  Weird, eh?

I have fixed the comments section so hopefully will get less spam.  The amount of spam that I got lately was disgusting.  Hopefully the increased security settings won't deter actual readers from commenting.

Adrian's three year anniversary

Today is Jan 2, the third anniversary since Adrian was stillborn.  I don't have time for a long post, Emma is watching "your baby can read" on youtube while I am typing...

What better way to celebrate his lovely little life than to enjoy Emma and the motherhood that his death made possible?  Adrian's death made it possible to find out that I had incompetent cervix, and to get a cerclage, which allowed Emma to be born at term.  This is complex, and I know that it does not explain Adrian's death.  I don't try to explain it anymore, I just accept it.  But thinking of it in the bigger concept of the following three years, it helps to place it in a more meaningful context.

Usually when I celebrate someone's death anniversary, on that day I make a food that they would have liked, and offer it it my family reminding them of that person.  With Adrian, I have nothing to go by.  So little of him is left: his ashes in the urn, the memory of his movements, his little limp body etched in my mind, in particular his thin vulnerable neck that I remember so well.  Too little.  Certainly not enough to guess what he would have liked to eat.  So I will light a candle for him during dinner and we will say a prayer, but it feels like it is too little.  I wish I had the time to sit and meditate, perhaps I can ask the babysitter to spend an extra half an hour with Emma so that I can sit and feel his presence.

What do you guys do to commemorate your stillborn child's day?