My daughter was born, as was my son, by c-section. After staying the three days after delivery, they released us both on a Friday morning. I was back at the hospital within 12 hours with a temperature of 103. Of course, the doctor and others suspected an infection. For a week, they plied me with high-potency antibiotics through an IV. As I was breastfeeding, they were limited on where they could put the IV, though, as behind the elbows was not an option, and the strength of the antibiotics caused the IVs to fail after no more than 24 hours, more often less than that. After a week of playing "Where can we put the IV now," I was a basket case. They even *mentioned* having to change the IV again, and I would immediately burst out in tears. Never mind the fact that, since she had been released, my daughter could stay in my room but could not go to the nursery to give me any kind of break. Finally, the doctor ordered an ultrasound...and discovered a pocket of blood where the wall of my uterus had ruptured. After draining it, the temperature went away and, two weeks after delivery, I finally went home.

At my first follow-up visit, the doctor did apologize for assuming the more common cause of a temperature post-partum. Somehow, though, it seemed to ring hollow for me. I later moved and had another doctor and, when I told him what had happened after delivery, he told me that he'd heard of things like that happening, so it wasn't totally uncommon and not really preventable. That, for some reason, made me feel better than the doctor who had "caused" it.

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"Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don't, and believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, then let it, and if you have to wait for what you really want, take the time because nobody said that life would be easy. They just promised it would be worth it." ~ Unknown author