Living in a very small town in rural West Virginia, Hattie had extremely limited birthing options. With only one hospital to choose from within a 75 mile radius and no birth centers or midwives, the decision was already made for her but she was thankful for the few options she was actually able to choose from. Her sweet husband Tyler is always supportive and was the best caregiver/ helpmate through the entire pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum.
Shortly into her first pregnancy, Hattie developed severe gallbladder issues that could not be resolved until after baby was born. Between that and “morning sickness” that lasted all day throughout her entire pregnancy, she lost a total of 23 lbs from her original pre-pregnancy weight.
Hattie had two precipitous labors with both of her sweet baby boys; with the first being only two and a half hours long and the second being one hour and fifteen minutes long from start to finish. Things got intense QUICKLY with both labors and she felt she was not being taken seriously by the medical team at the local hospital either time. Once they realized these were not ordinary labors, panic ensued among the nurses until the doctor finally arrived minutes before the babies were born. In both labors, the doctor barely made it to the delivery which was very nerve wracking for everyone involved in both cases.
About 5 weeks after her first son was born, Hattie had a cholecystectomy which affected her milk production significantly. She pushed through with nursing until four months postpartum and finally realized it would be best for both her and baby to switch to formula completely. Hattie is currently still exclusively nursing her second son at six months old and is very thankful that things are going so well this time.
Small town living with very little birthing options, Hattie developed severe gallbladder issues with her first pregnancy but needed up have an extremely fast labor and delivery. After a cholecystectomy at 5 weeks postpartum, their nursing struggles unfortunately came to an end. When she got pregnant with her second baby, she knew she needed to be prepared in case this labor would be similar to the first. It did end up being even FASTER than the first but nursing is going well this time around and continues to this day.
BabyCube
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I just listened to this story and I had the exact same postpartum experience with high blood pressure and feeling off. It was at a week postpartum and was 159/118. Never got an explanation either and my midwives didn’t seem overly concerned when it went down after 24 hrs. So weird!
I just finished this episode and my first thought about the PP fever and high BP remained my of my midwife explaining what she called a milk fever. She told us to expect a fever spike around the time my milk came in and to keep an eye on it but to not worry that it goes away quickly.