The Day I Blacked Out... and Other PostPartum Revelations

The day Caitlin was born, I blacked out.

I didn't include this in my birth story because it happened about 5 or 6 hours after she was born. Often I even forget it happened because it was the best day of my life and so many other memories surpass that incident.

Here's what happened. I was using the restroom and a nurse was helping me because it was only the 2nd or 3rd time after her birth. There was another nurse in the main room taking some measurements of Caitlin while Jason looked on.

After I had used the bathroom, I remember feeling really exhausted. I told the nurse that I felt tired. I remember thinking that I needed to get back into bed SOON! I stood up and suddenly felt all the blood drain out of my face. The next thing I remember is waking up on the bathroom floor (luckily the nurse caught me) and hearing someone yell "we need help in here!"

I was really confused about what happened. I felt like I had been out for a long time, but it was less than a minute. The nurse from the main room had ran in and put some ammonia under my nose. That brought me to pretty quick. Yuck! I remember looking out of the bathroom and seeing Jason looking down at me. He looked really worried, and that scared me! He later told me that that was the scariest moment of the whole day. He was so afraid that I had some internal bleeding or something. I felt so bad for him!

The nurses helped me back to the bed. There was 3 or 4 of them in my room at this point. They took my blood pressure, and it was pretty low. I drank some juice and began to feel better.

We never found out exactly what it was, but it felt a lot like how I feel after I run the half marathon except to a greater extent. I think my body had just exerted so much energy, that even after eating a big dinner, it was just so depleted. I felt fine after eating some more (which may or may not have included a candy bar and a half) and resting in bed, but I sure did give everyone a scare!

Other Little Known Postpartum Surprises (and not really the good kind of surprise):

1. My stomach shed so much skin. I felt like I was molting. It was revolting, but I guess to be expected after stretching so much!

2. Even after getting mostly back to my pre-pregnancy weight, clothes don't fit quite like before. My dress pants and a couple pair of jeans don't fit, and a couple of my tank tops are too small as well (I'm not TOO sad about that fact).

3. It's truly amazing how many things you can do one-handed: pick up around the house, feed pets, prepare and eat food... the list goes on...

4. So many pads... down there, up there... I don't really remember life without them...

5. Running errands is like a ticking time bomb. Everything has to be done within about a 2 and 1/2 hour block. If you forget the pacifier, you really feel living on the edge (aka playing with fire).

6. Being a working mom is going to require a lot of organization. I tried running what will become my regular weekend schedule once I go back to work, and it was JAM PACKED. I got most everything done, but damn it was BUSY.

However, it's all worth it when you wake up to this little face every morning!