I have been so blessed to have four children and really not have hardly any complications at all.
With Seth, I had a pretty great pregnancy… I only got sick once and I was just real swollen at the end. His delivery went well, but he was a very large baby and that caused a little bit longer of a recovery for me, as well as I had to go on bed rest after his delivery, because I will still very swollen and had some minor post eclampsia with high blood pressure. But it was just for a week, and everything went away.
With Levi, it was an easy pregnancy, and my easiest delivery. Afterwards, the only complications were that he had thrush (which seemed to never go away) and I got mastitis.
With KP, I was sick as a dog. I also got these strange cramps which we still do not know what the cause was…they think my uterus was possibly twisted??? So because of the cramps I was on bed rest a good bit of the latter part of the pregnancy. Her delivery was easy except that I had some sort of strange reaction to the epidural. But delivery was easy and we had no complications afterwards.
With Joel, the pregnancy was pretty easy. I only got sick once, while eating at a mexican restaurant. There is nothing like vomiting in a public bathroom! The delivery was very easy, much like Levi’s.
However after this birth, I was showing signs of post delivery issues like Seth’s. I was very swollen, but this time I was having trouble breathing. I guess in my pride, I did not want to go to the Dr. for them just to say, this is normal after delivery…even though I had never experienced the tough breathing.
I had been home almost a week, and the breathing continued to get worse each day it seemed. I woke up in the middle of the night and I was really struggling to catch my breath, and my chest was hurting a little bit. It was at this point I knew something was wrong. I had to sleep elevated the rest of the night, and when we woke up I told Scott I needed to go to the Dr.
When I called my Dr., they told me I needed to go straight to the ER. So we started to get a little concerned.
We went to the ER in Murfreesboro, and they diagnosed me with having fluid around my heart and in my lungs. It can be a very serious, but they said we had caught it early enough…but this is the sort of diagnosis that leads to heart disease and heart attacks.
I spent two nights in the hospital as they worked to drain as much fluid out of my body as possible. I was placed on a limited sodium intake as well as fluids for a few weeks.
They believe this is pregnancy related and I should be back to normal after a few months.