Grady's Birth Story - Part 3

(There aren't really pictures to go along with this post (and I'm sure you'll be glad after you read what it's about...ha ha ha), so I'm going to just post a few shots before and after down below.)

Another issue after Grady's birth as far as recovery goes was the recovery from the episiotomy/tearing. Like I said, I had a pretty good 3rd degree tear/cut. When they were taking FOREVER to sew me up (and I had Grady right at shift change, so the other midwife for the next shift was there too...they were both sitting side by side at my bottom working on me), I had asked them how things were going. They very honestly said, "We're doing the best we can." Ahh, comforting. :-)

At around 7 weeks postpartum, I called my midwife (the original midwife who was on vacation when Grady was born) asking if I should still be hurting...the same as I did the 2nd week. She said no...I should be all healed up, to come on in. So, I went in and she didn't really want to go in to look (with a speculum), so she just felt a bit and said that she felt what seemed to be stitches. She said that I had to have lots of stitches and probably what it was was the stitches that Suzanne had used...apparently some different kind of stitching line that is used sometime that took longer to dissolve. She guessed that was what it was and told me that if it wasn't better soon, to of course come back.

Well, around 11 weeks it still wasn't better (I was being really limited in what I could do activity wise...there was a constant burning/pain there...not fun). Anyhoo, I went back, but this time I saw Suzanne thinking that she could give me some insight since she was the one who was there and did it. She checked me...as in with the speculum. Turns out, I had lots of granulation tissue. Basically what happens is that you heal, but you just keep on producing tissue past the point of just what's needed for the healing process. So, you have all this extra, really vascular tissue on top of what has healed (hence what Connie, the original midwife, had felt and thought were remaining stitches). No wonder I was hurting...all that vascular stuff that wasn't supposed to be there. So, I had to make an appt. and go back to see the doctor who worked there so that he could put silver nitrate on it (burn it off). Yes, loads of fun. By the way, Suzanne said she'd never seen it intra-vaginally before. I'm a weirdo.

I was hoping that would do the trick, but no...sometimes it takes more than one "treatment" and of course I had to go for a 2nd treatment. But, thankfully, after that, the granulation tissue was gone.

Unfortunately that didn't fix everything though. I always had some pain. I found out why when I started seeing my midwife that delivered Hadley. She said that it was just a poor job of stitching. Totally not blaming the midwives who stitched me up here...I truly am sure they did their best (some people just aren't gifted in the stitching area...I'm sure my 2nd midwife, a gifted stitcher, would've done it just fine). Joel said he didn't know how they were going to mend me though...from the looks of things he didn't think it was possible. Apparently some pretty bad tearing...and then of course the episiotomy (which I would never allow now). I had torn on the sides (at 4 o'clock and 6 o'clock) and then they had cut me down the middle. But, the problem was that in some places I was really tight and some places really loose. What would fix it?...either a miracle from God or tearing back open while having another baby and being re-stitched properly. The 2nd thing happened...and luckily for me not very long after Grady was born. :-)

Grady was (is) a joy and delight and these physical problems paled in comparison to having him around of course. Even though it was our first birth, we should've/could've been more prepared and probably avoided some of those things. But, just thought I'd share because that was a part of the whole story. It was a very different birth and recovery than we were hoping for, but for one thing, gave us great insight into what we wanted to do differently. We're thankful for that. And...of course we had a gorgeous, healthy little fun boy. Super duper thankful for that, no matter what the circumstances surrounding it.

Another pic of the weekend we found out we were having Grady. On the way back from Las Vegas, we took a tour of the Hoover Dam (and called some relatives to tell them we were preggie...we called Joel's Grandpa from the Hoover Dam...he thought that was cool).
If you haven't ever had pregnancy pictures done, I highly recommend. It was so much fun!! And, great mementos (we bought a CD of them unedited and this is the way I'm posting them...unedited/un-photo shopped). This was about 6 weeks before I had Grady.



We had this hanging in our apartment. We would just put Grady in this sometimes and let him swing/hang. We got this swing chair on our honeymoon in Honduras.
And here he is now. He LOVES this place, in his swing chair. Sometimes he's really quiet and I go to see what he's doing. He's just sitting in this chair, pondering the issues of life I guess. Love this boy.