Baby Girl is Here!

First off...Hi, Aunty R!  Thanks for continuing to come here to check on me despite my horrid lack of updates.

I just realized that the last time I updated this blog was before Baby was even born and she is now 4 months old!  Wow, where did the time go?!

I was induced at 39 weeks at the suggestion of the MFM.  Baby was full-term and healthy and they didn't want to risk me having a flare that late in pregnancy.  Because I was induced, I stayed a night in the hospital to help ripen my cervix with Cervidil then got Pitocin  through an IV to start inducing labor.  It was a slow start and after 16 hours, I was only at 2 cm.  I was lying in bed thinking that nothing is happening when I felt a pop and a surge of pain...my first real contraction.  From there everything went quickly.  I was having contractions every minute or two and after about 10 of them, I asked for an epidural.  That came and the hardest part was trying to keep still while having contractions.  Soon after the epidural, I fell asleep.  A couple hours later, I woke up and was at 10 cm.  We waited another hour or so to let the labor progress naturally and called my parents to come down to the hospital.  After almost 4 hours of pushing, Baby Girl K was born!  Despite being long, I'm lucky to have had a very smooth labor and delivery and pretty easy recovery.  Baby was small, but healthy, and we instantly fell in love with her!

The first month with a newborn was tough.  My body was still recovering from childbirth, breastfeeding was a challenge, and sleep was limited.  My lupus began to flare.  The joint pain and the fatigue made it even more difficult to deal with a baby that wanted to constantly be carried and fed.  When I went to see Rheumy, the lab results confirmed that the lupus was active.  Because I am breastfeeding, it is preferable not to take steroids, but a small dose would be okay.  I opted not to take any Prednisone and instead manage the pain by taking NSAIDs like Aleve or Ibuprofen.

In the second and third months, I was starting to get the hang of things...until I was hit with mastitis (infection of the breast tissue) twice, which later turned into an abscess.  Mastitis is often caused by a clogged milk duct or when milk is not fully drained from the breast.  Based on the location of my blockage, I believe mine was caused by the elastic band of my nursing tank being too tight.  Mastitis is awful.  In addition to the tender pain in the breast, you get flu-like symptoms including fever, chills, and body ache.  The worst part is feeling horrible and still having to take care of a baby who needs to be fed every 2-3 hours.  Mastitis is treated orally with antibiotics.  I am allergic to penicillin, so I was given Clindamycin for my first bout with mastitis, and I ended up breaking out in a rash.  For my second bout with mastitis, the doctor wasn't sure what to give me and ended up giving me Ciprofloxacin.

After I finished ten days of antibiotics, I still wasn't feeling better and the tender spot on my breast was getting bigger and more sore.  I went to the doctor and she immediately sent me to a surgeon because she suspected that it had turned into an abscess.  An abscess is a pocket full of pus.  Once it forms, the antibiotics are not able to get to it and it must be drained either through a needle or with surgery.  As soon as the surgeon saw me, he knew it was a huge abscess and suggested we do an Incision and Drainage (I&D) under general anesthesia rather than in the office under local anesthesia as he was originally thinking of doing.  I've talked to others who have done it under local anesthesia and they said it was the worst pain of their life -- way worse than childbirth -- and they were crying the whole time.  So, when the doctor suggested general anesthesia, I was relieved.  I went into surgery the next day and got about 5 oz of fluid drained.  The one inch incision needed to heal from the inside-out and would take several weeks to close up.  One concern that I had was that several milk ducts were cut in the process and so milk would leak out of the incision if I were to breastfeed.  The surgeon actually suggested that I stop breastfeeding so that the milk ducts and incision could heal.  I didn't want to stop breastfeeding, so I continued but had to deal with the messiness of leaking milk.  Two months later, I'm finally all healed up and still successfully breastfeeding.

So, with all of these physical stressors to the body, my lupus continued to flare.  I went back to work last month and got put on a big project that is adding additional mental stress.  Baby, Daddy, and I are currently all suffering from a cold, so I know my immune system is out of whack.  My joint pain has been getting worse, and I had trouble walking a couple days last week because it was so bad.  I saw Rheumy a couple days ago and he said I can take a low dose of Prednisone if it continues to be bad, but I'm still trying to go without it.  I find that the best "cure" for me is getting a lot of sleep.  Luckily, Baby is a great sleeper (*knock on wood*), so I have been able to get a good amount of sleep and feel better now.

Despite all the health issues above, I am doing okay.  My body has gone through A LOT this past year and is hopefully on the road to recovery now.  When things get tough, all I have to do is look at my sweet baby girl to know that it's all worth it.

- a little lupie -