In so much pain.

[vhal_x]

I gave birth on the 1st May, so just under three weeks ago now. Afterwards I was feeling great basically from the get go, which I was pleasantly surprised about.

However, in the past few days, my bleeding (which had reduced to just pinky - brown discharge mostly) has gotten heavier, and returned to bright red this morning, and I've also been having these AWFUL contraction like cramps in my upper abdomen, which are so painful that I lose my breath during the pains (these pains last for about 30 mins when it happens) and can't talk, my body practically vibrates and I pretty much just shut down.

No matter which position I sit, or if I take painkillers, the pain won't budge - I just have to ride it out.

My OH has been very worried about me when this happens, as my MIL experienced a very similar thing after giving birth to her youngest, and it turned out that there was still placenta inside her just rotting away (and she only found this out 17 days post partum, so the time line is very similar to how I'm feeling too).

I have phoned maternity assessment and explained all of this to them (after refusing to for the past few days to my OH as I don't like to cause a fuss) but they told me it's normal? I sure as he'll did not experience this with the birth of my son.

Any advice? I don't want to just leave it if I need treatment, especially since the pain is unbearable x

 

[MindUtopia]

The bleeding you describe sounds totally normal and yes, usually it comes back heavy again towards the 4 ish week mark for many women before it goes away completely. I would say the pain though doesn't sound normal. Actually, my initial guess would be that it could be something totally unrelated to birth. At this point, your uterus should be about the size of a walnut well down in your pelvis. Though you can always have referred pain (pain not in the sight of the injury or infection), the fact it's in your upper abdomen makes me think about other things like a kidney infection, appendicitis, or even a lung infection. I actually had something very similar (not after birth) where I was literally getting spasming pains in my upper abdomen that made my whole body shiver and contract (contractions in labour were a breeze in comparison!). It turned out I had pneumonia and it was pain from fluid building up around my lungs. Have you been sick at all? Fever? Anything else unusual that wouldn't necessarily be related to giving birth? In my case, when I had pneumonia, I had a cough but no fever or other obvious signs of being sick, just horrible, horrible pain. If you truly don't feel well, I wouldn't mess around. Take yourself to A&E.