Beautifully written. You captured the new parents' emotions perfectly.
One question, though -- fluids pooled in the legs? What's that from? (I'm assuming you know.)
Thank you, Annie.
The fluids come from two places. The first is the natural swelling of a woman's legs/feet/ankles as the pregnancy progresses. (No one ever gave me a medical term for it.) It can also become worse with preeclampsia. The second is from the IV fluids. With a C-section, they sort of flood your body with fluids (not sure if they do this with a vaginal birth, as I have not had one). So it just sort of adds to the water retention your body already has. It can take up to two weeks for the everything to get back to normal.
My feet swelled at 32 weeks and stayed swollen up until I delivered at 38 weeks. Then, with the IV fluids, my legs swelled up so badly that I could only bend my knees about half their normal range of motion. (It made for some fun stairway navigation once I came home - all the bedrooms and showers are on the second floor.)
