Peter had his hand on my head and I told him to go see the baby and make sure he was OK. But he just looked down at me from the chair he sat on next to me and told me he wasn't going to leave me. Then he told me not to leave him and began sobbing. What did that mean?
I didn't know it at the time, but my husband was looking at a pool of blood collecting on the floor by the doctor's feet and he could see there was something wrong. I was hemorrhaging from three different places and they couldn't stop the bleeding. Apparently my body got so used to the pitocin, it wouldn’t work to make the uterus contract like it should after giving birth. I kept feeling like I was slipping from consciousness but I was too afraid to let that overtake me, so I tried talking:
"What is happening?"
"What’s wrong?"
"I need to be done now."
"You have to close me up now."
"I can’t stay awake."
“I’m going to throw up.”
Nobody answered me, but staff started buzzing around my head and my body, sticking me with needles in both arms. I felt a burning pain run through my arm and I screamed in pain. Suddenly they brought our new son (that we had decided to name Sean) to my husband. The baby didn't look the way I thought he would, but I'd never seen a baby only a few minutes old before. His hands were enormous. They were chalk white, with long skinny fingers, just like my husband's. I thought I would miss seeing him grow up. I almost felt too weak to talk.
"Kiss the baby for me," I whispered to Peter. He did not do it and through his tears, gave our son back to the nurse. He was rejecting the baby. It was the only thing on my mind. "You have to go hug him. Kiss him. He needs love," I said. Peter said, "No, you need love. Please stay awake. I will not leave you."
I kept coming in and out of consciousness, but they finally got the bleeding to stop and had to start a blood transfusion. Unfortunately, they didn’t have my blood type on hand, so it had to be brought from a nearby hospital. They wheeled me into the recovery room with Peter and Sean in his little wheeled bassinet.
The doctor told Peter if I started bleeding again, they would have to take my uterus out. In my foggy mind, I thought maybe they already did. "DO I HAVE MY UTERUS?!" I demanded. Nobody answered right away. The doctor then said, "You still have everything you came in with, we just have to watch you closely." “Well,” I thought, “at least we had one child.”
I asked to hold the baby, but they told me I couldn't until I recovered. I asked Peter to pick him up and bring him to me, but he wouldn't. Peter didn't seem to be acknowledging Sean at all. As the transfusion started, I began to get my mind back. I needed to be strong for my boys. I was going to make it and my baby was healthy.
My husband was traumatized. He sobbed by my bedside, shaking his head. "This is it. No more kids," he promised. I told him I'd be OK and that we were all going to be fine. We were lucky to have this baby, happy and healthy. I finally talked him into calling our family and telling them the baby was here. Then I asked him to take pictures of Sean and he did.
Baby steps.
We stayed together in the recovery room for five or six hours and 24 hours after we walked into the hospital, I was finally brought to the postpartum room and allowed to sleep. I hadn't held my son and my husband wouldn't, but I knew we'd get through it.
The next few days of recovery were tough physically, but it created a great bonding opportunity for all of us. Since I couldn't do much with the baby except hold him when I was in bed, Peter learned how to do everything. He fed him, changed diapers, swaddled him and slept with him. Peter wouldn't let the nurses do anything to help me or the baby that he could do himself. After feeling so out of control during the birth, all he wanted was to feel in control of our well-being.
For as long as I live, I will never forget him helping me shower the first time I could get out of bed and take a few steps. I could barely stand on my own, I had a catheter, an IV, a drainage tube coming out of the C-section incision and, of course, I was bleeding from having the baby. I was a total mess and all of my bodily fluids were out in the open for the world to see. With total patience, love and acceptance, he got in the shower with me. He gave me a sponge bath and helped me wash my hair. Never once did he give any indication of discomfort with the state my body was in, even though I know he'd never seen anything like it and it wasn’t pretty. I'll love him forever for that. And for being such a great father. In eight weeks, my body recovered and I think that Peter had recovered as well. He is OK with having more kids, but after that delivery, we're back down to just two or three.
