A trip to the hospital (x2).

a visit from Miles at the hospital

As I mentioned last week, we had a stretch of pretty bad luck there for awhile, medically speaking. All is okay now and we've managed to stay out of the hospital for nearly two weeks now (yessss!). 

Our first trip to the ER was late one Tuesday night after Miles started spitting up blood (a lot of blood) which was absolutely terrifying. So we did what any first-time, panic stricken parents would do -- we called 911 and headed to the hospital where I had just delivered 3 weeks before. Turns out he had ingested the blood from me after a rough breastfeeding session (that kid has a pretty serious latch), and his little tummy had simply rejected it, giving us the scare of our lives. I couldn't believe a small crack produced so much blood but apparently it's quite common and they found him to be in perfect health after examining him (thank you Lord).

The second trip to the ER came just 3 days later after I developed severe abdominal pain (like, worse than labor kind of pain). I am not at all the type to just head to the ER at the first sign of pain (more the grin and bear it type), but since it was after hours, and my doctor recommended I go if it got worse, we decided to take trip number two back to New York Presbyterian Hospital. I could barely walk from the pain but refused to call an ambulance again -- don't want to earn ourselves a reputation in the building of those crazy people who call ambulances every other day :) Thankfully (providentially), a friend had stopped by when all of this started, so she stayed with Miles while Dan and I headed to the hospital. And thank goodness -- the ER was awful that night (no place for a baby). 

The pain only intensified once I got there and by the time I was finally seen, I was in more pain than I've ever been in before. They decided it was most likely postpartum related, so after lots of pain meds and numerous tests (and about 16 hours spent on a bed in the middle of the hallway of the ER), I was finally admitted to my own room on the postpartum floor. It was quiet and clean and had this killer view:  

view of the east river

I spent a total of five days there while they tried to figure out what was wrong with me. Blood work indicated I was definitely fighting an infection of some kind, but the real culprit of the pain was a mystery. Uterine infection, ruptured cyst, passed kidney stone were all theories that were discussed, and some signs of each popped up in the tests they ran, but nothing was conclusive or obvious according to the doctors (who seemed just as frustrated as I was to not be able to conclusively identify the source of such intense pain). In the end, the pain got much better while on antibiotics, and so I was given the green light to go home. It was awful to be away from Miles for that long -- Dan would bring him to see me in the evenings, which was the highlight of my day, but I was sooo glad to finally be heading home.

So thankful to have all of that behind us now. We feel like it really stretched us as first-time parents and our ability to handle stress -- sleepless nights and a fussy baby? No problem! As long as we can stay out of the ER, we're good to go :) Here's hoping for a drama-free (hospital-free) month of October!