Surgery

So neither Will or I have posted on here about this and to be honest I am not really sure why. I guess somewhere in the back of my head until about two days before I went under the knife I was hoping the Dr. was going to tell me it was all fixed and I didn’t need to have this surgery.br /Unfortunately that was not the case, so let me back up a bit and tell the story from the beginning.

When I was in my last trimester of pregnancy little Miss Ainsleigh showing her soon to be very independent attitute decided that she was rather comfortable being transverse (laying across instead of up and down). As she got bigger my hips and belly had to stretch to accomodate her, when she finally decided to drop her head down to be born she had stretched me out pretty good and dropped very hard, which made for a pretty easy delivery last June.

At the time I didn’t care because I was so in love with her that my comfort level seemed normal or not a big deal. Fast forward to this May (yes almost a year later) when I was still very uncomfortable and was having a very hard time with pretty much everything because my hips, back and pelvic floor were not cooperating with me.

So off I went to see my OB/GYN who referred me to a physical therapist who specialized in the pelvis, with in about 30-60 minutes the PT discovered that my pubis symphysis was seperated, so I was immediately taken to get x-rays.

The x-ray showed a 7.6mm seperation in my pubis symphysis (which is supposed to be 0-1mm), uh oh not good right.

Right then and there the search began for a Dr. in the DC area who knew enough about this incredibly rare post-partum condition that had an immediate opening, it took me a couple of days but I finally found Dr. Hymes who has been amazing. He is a very funny but caring man (he also went to med school in San Fran) and he has reassured me through out this past four months that he is going to help me and that Will and I can still have another child.

So in June we tried a steroid injection which didn’t seem to do anything and by the time I left for California we had a surgery date.

I would come home early from taking care of my Nana (who had spinal fusion surgery in June) to have my own surgery. We lined up people to come help us with Ainsleigh and the house since I was going to be unable to do much of anything (my parents are truly amazing people and I am so grateful they have been able to come out and help).

So last Friday (August 7) was the big day, Will and I arrived at the hospital at 6:30am and I was wheeled away at about 8:10am to have my pubis symphysis fused together. The operation lasted almost 3 hours, and during this time the dr. took a small piece of bone from my hip to fill in the space between my pubic bones, cleared out all the scar tissue, ligaments, etc between my pubic bones and then inserted the piece of hip bone. To keep them all together he put a metal plate in and screwed my pelvis back together. I have two incision, one is called a low c-section incision which goes across my bikini line and the other is on my right hip. I have 33 staples closing everything up.

I stayed in the hospital for two nights and got to come home on Sunday, a day earlier than planned. I am on crutches because I can’t put a lot of weight on my right leg due to the hip incision.

Will took the entire week off and has been a great caretaker. My mom got in on Saturday and she and Will have been sharing household and Ainsleigh duties. My dad will arrive in another week and stay until September. I get to hang out in bed a lot of the day but have tried to make it downstairs at least once a day.

I have big plans to try and go back to work next week, but probably won’t be going back full time for another week after that, but I am way too excited about my new job to stay away much longer.

So that’s the story of my surgery….

embefore I stop writing, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has sent their get well wishes, my mom’s group for all the support and amazing stack of gift cards and of course my fabulous husband and parents!!!/embr /emI pray that I will recover quickly and can get back to being a mommy because I have missed playing with my little girl so much./em