Mom0810, thanks for your constant words of encouragement and support, it really does help (me at least).
To clue-in the birth details, at about 4 months pregnant we made the "mistake" of deciding to go to my parents (11 hour flight from our current home) for Christmas, in hindsight that was a really bad move, but at the time we had no idea and all the Doctors said it was fine to do it. During our stay my wife basically stayed on our home local time, just couldn't shift time zones, she was also having some, what she said were cramping sensations, in hind-sight probably early contractions or something, but at the time, she just felt a bit ill but didn't feel anything was wrong enough to worry about going to a doctors.
Rest of the pregnancy was fine, except 2 days before my wife was supposed to finish work, her waters broke (a month before we'd expected it, and yes, we were completely and utterly unprepared for this, we'd been planning to spend the month before the birth getting all the final things in place, while we had most of the shopping done, none of the clothes were washed, we didn't have a bag ready for the hospital, etc etc).
It was fairly quickly determind that they would have to use some drugs since my wife wasn't dilated at all, I can't recall the drug name, had a narcotic drug (names escape me) after about 10-12 hours of being in labor went to the epidural, and after about 15 hours the doctors determind that something was wrong (when my wife rolled onto one side the babys heart-beat would drop dramatically) so went to C-Section. As it turned out the little guy had wrapped the umbilical cord around his neck, so had she gone to a vaginal delivery it probably would have strangled him (which was happened to my mother and, what would have been, my older sister).
Despite being a month early, baby was healthy, 6lbs 3oz, 19.5 inchs (and given my wife is only 5'1" if he had gone full term I think it would have been C-section just because of size contraints) no complications, lungs were fine, didn't even goto NICU (although, maybe my wife would have actually felt better had he gone to NICU)
While he was fine, he refused to feed, and after about 3 days did start having to goto formula (until my wife started pumping). Hind-sight being the wonderful tool that it is, I think even then the problems were starting (and once this is all over, I plan to try to do something to help make sure that people are aware of the whole potential for PPD/stuff) my wife was utterly convinced that if he had formula (for more than the very occasional meal) he was going to be, in essence, brain damaged, she was convinced it would kill him.
Not sure what more there is to add, I think PTSD could definitely be part of it. The hospital has, almost completely, changed around her meds (dropped her to 100mg of Seroquel, started her on Lamictal) but she also seems much better at taking medication there, last two nights she's taken sleeping pills (where at home she would resist taking sleeping pills, even if she couldn't sleep at all). The Doctors there have also said that while it COULD be Bipolar (I or II) it could also just be PPD, I think right now it's tricky because she has these shaky feelings in the morning, and sometimes during the day, and these are what are driving most of the depression/anxiety (at least right now, and as I've said before, and would say again, it wouldn't surprise me if when those feelings went away, something else took there place). Anyway, she's going to lots of therapy classes, from seeing her yesterday she seems okay, not great, but okay, also sounds (from what she said of the classes) like they feel she is resistant to the diagnosis, they keep drilling it into her that Bipolar is something actually everyone has, just whether they get really high and low, or "normal range" high and lows.
Anyway, as you said, I'm getting a little relief, at least I'm not sitting at work wondering how she is doing and what is going to be waiting for me when I get home.
To clue-in the birth details, at about 4 months pregnant we made the "mistake" of deciding to go to my parents (11 hour flight from our current home) for Christmas, in hindsight that was a really bad move, but at the time we had no idea and all the Doctors said it was fine to do it. During our stay my wife basically stayed on our home local time, just couldn't shift time zones, she was also having some, what she said were cramping sensations, in hind-sight probably early contractions or something, but at the time, she just felt a bit ill but didn't feel anything was wrong enough to worry about going to a doctors.
Rest of the pregnancy was fine, except 2 days before my wife was supposed to finish work, her waters broke (a month before we'd expected it, and yes, we were completely and utterly unprepared for this, we'd been planning to spend the month before the birth getting all the final things in place, while we had most of the shopping done, none of the clothes were washed, we didn't have a bag ready for the hospital, etc etc).
It was fairly quickly determind that they would have to use some drugs since my wife wasn't dilated at all, I can't recall the drug name, had a narcotic drug (names escape me) after about 10-12 hours of being in labor went to the epidural, and after about 15 hours the doctors determind that something was wrong (when my wife rolled onto one side the babys heart-beat would drop dramatically) so went to C-Section. As it turned out the little guy had wrapped the umbilical cord around his neck, so had she gone to a vaginal delivery it probably would have strangled him (which was happened to my mother and, what would have been, my older sister).
Despite being a month early, baby was healthy, 6lbs 3oz, 19.5 inchs (and given my wife is only 5'1" if he had gone full term I think it would have been C-section just because of size contraints) no complications, lungs were fine, didn't even goto NICU (although, maybe my wife would have actually felt better had he gone to NICU)
While he was fine, he refused to feed, and after about 3 days did start having to goto formula (until my wife started pumping). Hind-sight being the wonderful tool that it is, I think even then the problems were starting (and once this is all over, I plan to try to do something to help make sure that people are aware of the whole potential for PPD/stuff) my wife was utterly convinced that if he had formula (for more than the very occasional meal) he was going to be, in essence, brain damaged, she was convinced it would kill him.
Not sure what more there is to add, I think PTSD could definitely be part of it. The hospital has, almost completely, changed around her meds (dropped her to 100mg of Seroquel, started her on Lamictal) but she also seems much better at taking medication there, last two nights she's taken sleeping pills (where at home she would resist taking sleeping pills, even if she couldn't sleep at all). The Doctors there have also said that while it COULD be Bipolar (I or II) it could also just be PPD, I think right now it's tricky because she has these shaky feelings in the morning, and sometimes during the day, and these are what are driving most of the depression/anxiety (at least right now, and as I've said before, and would say again, it wouldn't surprise me if when those feelings went away, something else took there place). Anyway, she's going to lots of therapy classes, from seeing her yesterday she seems okay, not great, but okay, also sounds (from what she said of the classes) like they feel she is resistant to the diagnosis, they keep drilling it into her that Bipolar is something actually everyone has, just whether they get really high and low, or "normal range" high and lows.
Anyway, as you said, I'm getting a little relief, at least I'm not sitting at work wondering how she is doing and what is going to be waiting for me when I get home.
