the time I thought I got lice in a hospital

The first month of so after Mia was born was such a blur. I was awful at blogging and besides that, I haven't written anything down. I was reading through Mia's birth story and realized I left so much out. The things I left out may not matter to anyone else, or be exciting to read about, but they are things that I don't want to forget for various reasons. So I'm going to be adding little excerpts of our time spent in the hospital :)
If you want to play catch up, read the birth story here. Today I'm adding to the part where they gave me antibiotics and told us to sleep.

I haven't shared a lot of our first pictures of Mia, so bare with me!

When the nurse gave me the antibiotic she told me to call her if I got itchy or if.... something about my tongue. I can't remember exactly what she said, but if something happened to my tongue, let her know. She left the room and I settled in (as well as you can settle with an overdue baby inside your body) when my head started to itch. I scratched without thinking about it. My head started to itch more, I scratched again, and then it started burning. All the sudden my head was on fire and I wanted to scratch my hair off. My first thoughts... Oh my gosh I totally caught lice from a freakin' hospital?! (It was way past my bed time and clearly the excitement of having a baby kept me from thinking clearly, ha!) I started to panic until I realized that the itching/burning was creeping down the back of my neck as well as my chest. I remembered what the nurse told me and wondered if this was the itching she was talking about. I tried to get Eric's attention to see if he thought I should call the nurse in, but he was out cold. I didn't want to wake him, and I didn't want to be a bother to the nurse, so I just sat there in misery wondering what I should do. (Don't worry, next time I won't hesitate to be "a bother" I still can't believe I didn't react sooner!) After about 10 minutes of the burning/itching slowly spreading throughout my body, I decided I really had to pee. The nurse told me to let her know so that she could show me how to unhook from the monitor. I buzzed her and apologized profusely for bothering her, but I had to use the bathroom. And oh yeah.... my body is kind of on fire. She ran in and checked me over and was muttering how weird this was. Usually if this is a reaction to the antibiotic, it happens within seconds of receiving it. I kind of hung my head in shame and admitted that I'd been miserable for the last 10 minutes but in my head I was thinking... why didn't you spell it out for me?! If I'd realized the itching was a reaction to the meds, I would have called her instantly (I should have caught on, but you know, I just wasn't thinking clearly at that point)!

She told me to use the bathroom and she'd call my doctor. I walk in the bathroom and look at my arms and chest and they were bright red and covered in hives. Oh my lanta! I'm such an idiot, ha ha! When I was finished the nurse brought me benedryl. As she is administering it she says, "I've never given a woman in labor benedryl, so I don't know what to expect." Ummm... okay? Not really what I wanted to hear! But I trusted my doctor and figured if he said it was okay, then it would be okay! The burning/itching finally subsided and I was ready to get some sleep, just in time for my contractions to kick it up a few notches....

Goodness... she was so precious and tiny!