Congratulations! 
I’ll tell Downtown tokyo to expect his arrival any time soon 
Absolute Congratulations to you all.
Congratulations GreenBean. What a perfect Mother’s Day! 
Thank you all!
That hijack ought to go down in Straight Dope history, if I don’t say so myself. How bizarre was that?
Arthur is perfect and adorable and wonderful! I can’t wait for you all to meet him. I’ll take him along to the next NY 'fest. I’ll also get some pictures online soon. People are saying he looks like me. I think he’s awfully handsome, so I’ll take that as a compliment. He has my hands and feet exactly! They look just like miniature versions of my hands and feet. That’s so cool. He was born with a full head of dark hair, but it’s lightening up. We still have hope that he might turn out to be a redhead. He’s starting to smile now!
I love being a mommy, and Jeff loves being a daddy. Spot the Wonderpup has been an excellent big brother, and has had no problems at all adjusting to the arrival of his little brother. Our extended families are thrilled as well. Arthur is the first grandchild/nephew on both sides, so he’s being extensively fussed over by everybody.
Arthur is named for my grandfather Arnold and my uncle Arthur. I hope my Arthur is as kind and intelligent as they were. His middle name, Leo, is for my husband’s great uncle, who was a fighter pilot in WWII. Jeff really looked up to him. I mentioned a couple of times here on the board that we were thinking of naming him James. So how did he end up with Arthur? We had originally wanted to name him Arthur, but we were quite reluctant to give him such an old-fashioned name. We also liked the name James, but it was less meaningful to us. In the end, we decided to wait until after the birth to decide between the two names. Arthur was the unanimous choice. Some people think our name choice is really great. Others say something like “well, he’ll grow into it.” A few say “Arthur? His name is Arthur???” and change the subject really fast. At least he’ll probably be the only one in his class.
In case you’re wondering why I haven’t been on the boards in weeks and weeks–the aftermath of the birth was a bit of an ordeal for me. I am just now getting back on my feet. For anyone who is interested, here are the sordid details. If you don’t want to hear a long and miserable story, you might want to skip it.
The birth was horrible horrible horrible. Come to think of it, I won’t give you any details about the birth itself. You don’t wanna know. Well, you may want to know, but I sure don’t wan’t to think of it. (Arthur came through just fine.)
Unfortunately, the birth wasn’t the worst of it. I went through the post-partum soreness and bleeding (owie owie owie!), but just as that was starting to improve, I found myself having trouble walking and in increasing amounts of pain. It got worse and worse over the next few days. But I was so concerned with Arthur’s well-being (he had jaundice and was losing too much weight, but those issues were resolved within a week), that I didn’t really address the pain issue until I couldn’t walk at all. The pain in my pelvic area was unbelievable, and I could barely move my legs. (I could still move my feet, so I knew I wasn’t paralyzed.). 7 days after the birth, I was back in the emergency room. They diagnosed me with a very bad uterine infection, but couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t walk. They CAT-scanned me, but they didn’t find anything to explain the pelvic pain. They chalked it up to inflammation from the infection, but said they couldn’t really explain how a uterine infection could make me unable to move my legs. I was admitted to the hospital and put on IV antibiotics for 3.5 days.
As bad as the pain was, and as bad as it was not to be able to go to the bathroom on my own, being separated from my baby was far worse. He wasn’t even allowed to come visit. Poor Jeffy had to go back to work by this point and he was beside himself with worry about me. My family once again proved how wonderful they were. They took shifts in taking care of Arthur (and Spot and Jeff) while I was in the hospital, and in the aftermath. It was wonderful not having to worry about the welfare of my baby while I was stuck in the hospital, because I knew he was in very very good hands. The hero of the hour was Uncle Billdo, who became an excellent baby wrangler. He took the night shifts of feeding, changing, etc.
(Interestingly, I found myself in one of the predicaments discussed in the baby formula by prescription thread–unexpected separation from my baby. I had been eagerly following that thread, and all of a sudden I was living in it. Arthur had to have formula while I was in the hospital. I pumped and dumped–I couldn’t give him the expressed milk because I was on heavy drugs. Fortunately, he had no trouble going back to the breast after I got home.)
So, the infection got cleared up, but I still couldn’t walk. If I was sufficiently doped up on Percocet, I could hobble on crutches. I could barely make any movements at all that involved my pelvis. Obviously, I couldn’t care for my baby independently at all. Family and friends came to help me, fortunately. It was also very hard to breastfeed, since the act of sitting up was an excruciating ordeal, and I couldn’t lie on my side at all. I’m proud to say that I managed to do it, in spite of that obstacle.
By the next Sunday (14 days after the birth, 5 days after I was released from my second hospital stay), things weren’t getting much better. I went back to the emergency room. The pain was mostly in my left hip by that point. The doctor didn’t see anything on the X-ray. She waggled my left leg for a few seconds, and didn’t even bother to compare the pain & range of motion to my right leg. She refused to examine me further. She gave me a “diagnosis” of post-partum tendinitis. (Post-partum tendinitis??? WTF?) She told me that it would go away on its own, but that it would take 3 months! She also gave me a sheet of instructions that said a) to walk as much as possible, and b) to rest the affected area. :rolleyes: So I wasn’t any better off than before.
I decided that maybe an orthopedist could help me. After all, neither my obstetricians nor the emergency-room doc could figure out what was wrong with me. I had an appointment with my obstetrician the next day, so I asked her about seeing an orthopedist. She asked me what for, given that there was nothing he could do about the tendinitis. I told her that I didn’t think it was tendinitis. She said that she didn’t know what else it could possibly be. I said I wanted to see an orthopedist anyway. Well, she said she’d make a call…and told me I could go see a guy in the same building right away! Yay! (We pay big bucks for our “traditional plan” health insurance, and it’s times like these that it really pays off–I didn’t have to bother with referrals or anything.)
The orthopedist took one look at me and said “you have a separated pelvis.” Then he did an X-ray and an examination to confirm the diagnosis. The X-ray showed the separation very clearly. In the birth, the two sides of the pelvis had been pushed apart. (There are some ligaments right at the front, which is where the separation is.) Apparently, I have a narrow pelvis. Who woulda thunk? The fact that the pain was mostly in my left hip was simply a matter of referred pain. The orthopedist was the first doctor that seemed to understand how painful the condition was, and that was very refreshing. The other doctors seemed to discount the pain because they didn’t understand it. He said that it would get better, but unfortunately it would just take time and there was nothing I could do to help move the process along. He said that I should see a marked improvement in less than 3 weeks. I was much relieved to finally know what was wrong with me and to have some sort of a time frame as to when I could expect improvement. And now it is 3 weeks later. I still have some pain, and I still can’t lie on my side, and I still waddle like a duck, but I am doing much much much better. I am able to take care of Arthur (and myself!) and I’m getting out and about a bit. I suppose I have a long way to go before I am fully recovered, but things are tolerable at this point.
What I can’t figure out is this: if this condition is common enough that the orthopedist managed to diagnose me before he even examined me, why didn’t my obstetricians even consider it as a possibility? (I saw 4 different obstetricians from the practice over the course of the ordeal.) And I had had a CAT-scan and an X-ray. Why didn’t anyone notice the large pelvic separation? At my first emergency room visit, there were 2 things wrong with me–a uterine infection and a separated pelvis. They diagnosed the uterine infection easily, but that didn’t explain all of my symptoms (the pain). Why didn’t they consider that there might be something else wrong with me? I suppose that this whole tale shows that we have to be our own advocates when it comes to our medical care. The thing that scares me is that sometimes we are in a position where we are unable to advocate for ourselves.
Hammy: Thanks for the poem. Jeff is already referring to Arthur as “my own little psychology experiment.”
ShibbOleth: Now that’s a scary scenario. At least I didn’t name him after the place where he was conceived!
Uke: Yer a nasty, nasty man! But I suppose I’m equally nasty. I wouldn’t have known what you were talking about if I hadn’t read Rosemary’s Baby while I was in the throes of late pregnancy. :eek:
Heapie: Let’s make sure the next NYC dopefest is at a time and place where we both can come with the kidlets. Or we’ll come up and visit if you want–after all, we’re bourgeois suburban folk, so we have a car and everything. I’d love to see the campus.
Aside to Billy Rubin: You have the unusual honor of being the Doper I Thought About Most[sup]TM[/sup] in the week after Arthur’s birth. Why? Well, Arthur developed a case of jaundice after his birth. (This is a very common and easily treatable condition.) Jaundice is caused, of course, by high levels of bilirubin in the blood. So we had to treat him with phototherapy and have him tested daily for a week. All anybody talked about all week was Billy Rubin, Billy Rubin, Billy Rubin…
Congrats, Green Bean and OverEngineer! I think Arthur is an amazing name - the child is bound to be a successful adult with a name like that.
Glad to hear everything is going well, and I wish you much happiness (and relief from pain).
“You have a separated pelvis” is the first thing I thought when you described your symptoms, and I have absolutely no medical training. It’s ridiculous that your doctors didn’t recognize your problem and neglected to comprehend your pain. Congratulations on the birth of your son and I’m very glad you are feeling better.
Good god. Well, I am GLAD you insisted on seeing an orthopedist.
Unfortunately, get used to this phenomenon of doctors making up their mind without listening to you. I have found that my instincts as a mother aren’t really well-respected. Luckily I’ve had a really healthy kid and haven’t been the doctor with him much, but I still run into this attitude that there can’t be anything wrong with my child unless a doctor spots something wrong in 30 seconds and feels it’s a medically worthy illness. It’s like I just found him in the woods five minutes before the doctor visit and have no idea what he’s like when he’s well vs. healthy. Heh.
My favorite is the fever thing. If I took him in because he had a high fever, and while waiting to get into the clinic I gave him tylenol, then he didn’t have a fever anymore… and they acted like I lied or didn’t know how to read a thermometer. So once I tried it the other way (no medicine) and the doctor thought I was a moron for not treating the fever with anything. ARGH!
On a brighter note, I think it’s cool that Billdo went into service as the Uncle-on-call.
Man Green Bean that’s quite an ordeal! I’m glad to hear that everything’s getting back to normal, well, with the exception of being a new mom. Very happy to hear that Arthur went back on breast without trouble. That loosing-too-much-weight-in-the-first-week thing is breastfeeding. For some reason health care professionals can’t wait for the milk to come in. I had to beat the formula bearing nurses away from Tristan. When he had those pink uric acid crystal they fed him without asking me first. They made me sign a paper to keep him off of formula. Grrrrr. My mother is a breatfeeding consultant and she was furious when she found out.
Jesus Greenie!
Did I ever tell you the story of when I had cellulitis in my leg and the triage nurse insisted that I must have gotten drunk the night before, banged my foot and promptly forgot about it?
It didn’t matter how many times I told him that I was not drunk, had not been drunk the night before (it was a Wednesday, for goodness sakes!) and that whatever was wrong with my foot, it sure looked infected. He didn’t listen to me and my treatment was delayed almost 20 hours because of him.
Soooo. . . . Are we gonna get to see the little guy? I mean, once you can walk and stuff.
Pictures! Pictures!
Congrats Green Bean! I wondered why I hadn’t gotten an e-mail from you.
That really sucks about the separated pelvis. I’m glad you finally got it diagnosed. I have a narrow pelvis too. I ended up with an emergency c-section though.
Happy healing and welcome Arthur!
i also thought separated pelvis from your pain description. it is somewhat common in multiples, not so much in singles. i’m glad you kept pushing to get answers. separated pelvis can also happen with gymnastics and ballet.
i hope y’all are all doing well now and sleeping through the night.
does spot the wonder dog fetch diapers and the ilk?
Update: I went for my follow-up at the orthopedist today. He told me that he contacted my obstetrician both by phone and by letter (!) to explain the diagnosis, and I suppose to find out why she didn’t figure it out herself. He said that she said that she thought that a separated pelvis was only possible given certain conditions. He explained to her that it was a possibility in any “traumatic birth.” I’m pleased that he followed up that way, and I’m happy that the obstetrician was educated about this.
rc–Spot is fetching diapers, but not in a good way. He fetches them out of the garbage can and brings them to his den! (where’s that barfing smiley?)
icky poo!