33 Weeks

Ah and another wild week. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up my boring blogs for long, but I'll get to this week's craziness later.

Well some good things that happened this week were my maternity photo shoot with the talented Erin Mahoney and the beginning of Jordon and I's childbirth classes! Saturday, Erin and I (and Jordon... and Tyler) took many a photo highlighting the crazy expansion of my belly... it was definitely fun! Just have to wait until Erin makes some edits to see the final product, but from what I could tell from previewing them, they are awesome!

Monday, Jordon and I had our first childbirth class. We learned all about the anatomy and physiology of labor (yikes!) and some relaxation techniques, and of course all those crazy breathing methods. Next week's class is on natural methods of pain relief, which I am very excited for.

So then on Tuesday, things went downhill for the week. Jordon and I had been watching Taylor that day, and took her to Winchester to run errands, and on the way home (about 5pm) I started to have some Braxton Hicks contractions. So while Jordon went out to play football with some friends, I decided to stay home and rest. Well the contractions didn't get much better, and I started to get some excruciating back pain. When Jordon got home I was on the floor because I couldn't find any comfortable position and was in so much pain. I ate a little bit and decided to try to sleep, but around 11pm decided I was in way too much pain, and was so nauseated at this point, that I could not take it. Jordon called the doctor who told him to bring me into labor and delivery.

On the way to the hospital I just starting feeling worse and worse and threw up a ton. When we were admitted, they decided to get an IV going to give me fluids and nausea medication, but apparently I have the worse veins in the world because it took them 3 times to finally get a vein. They ended up giving me an injection of anti-nausea medicine because I threw up again while they were trying to put the IV in! Once I finally had the IV in, fluids in me and more medication, I was feeling much better, but according to the monitors I was on, I was having pretty consistent contractions. The midwife came in and checked my cervix which had dilated 1 cm, and she also decided to do a test called a fetal fibronectin, which tells you if you're at risk for having the baby within the nest week or two. Thankfully, that came back negative. I was still having consistent contractions though, so they gave me some medicine to stop those.

The next morning, I was feeling much better, my contractions had slowed down a ton, and I was able to keep some toast down, so after much pleading on my part, they let us go home. I was put on bed rest until the following Monday to make sure my contractions wouldn't start back up again. They also sent me home with some Zofran for the nausea. I went home and slept most of the day, until around 6pm when I started to feel sick again! I hadn't eaten or drank anything since I'd been to the hospital, but was still feeling so nauseous. I threw up a ton and then tried to rest some more, but started feeling sick again around 8:30. I took more nausea medication, but then a half hour later threw up again. Jordon and I decided to call the doctor, who told me to come check back into the hotel Rockingham Memorial Hospital.

Back at the hospital, I had to get another IV, and because I was so severely dehydrated, it took 3 different nurses and 7 sticks to finally get the IV in. Not fun. They ended up having one of the baby nurses come in and do it with a smallest needle ever, but it still took her 3 tries to get it. They gave me fluids and more nausea medication, but I still felt so incredibly sick and threw up again. I had some bad stomach cramps, so they decided to give me some intense pain medication, and finally I started to feel better and feel asleep.

I had to have the pain medication every 2 or 3 hours because the pain kept coming back, so they started to suspect gallstones. They decided to do a full abdominal ultrasound to check for those, as well as anything else that could be going on in my other organs. It was crazy because all of my organs are now pushed up under my ribcage, so they had to do all sorts of fancy maneuvering to get images of everything. Fortunately, everything came back clear, which was good news because the midwife told me if it was gallstones, we couldn't do anything about it until after the baby was born, so I'd just have to manage pain/nausea with medication until he was born, then wait 4-6 weeks to have surgery to have them removed.

So all day Thursday I spent on IV pain medication at the hospital, but by 3pm or so I was able to keep down a liquid meal and then I switched to some oral pain medicine, which I'd be able to take at home. I was able to then keep down a "bland" dinner, so they went ahead and discharged me around 9:30 that night (with all sorts of meds to take home). They basically think I just had some sort of bug that caused the contractions and that the acid in my stomach and the vomiting caused the intense pain I was having. I feel a lot better today, but am still slowly catching up on all the sleep I couldn't get because I felt so bad!

I seriously hope labor isn't anything like what I just went through, because I do not think I could manage it pain-med free haha! The good part of all of this was that Tyler did perfect throughout the whole thing... it was like he had no idea anything unusual was going on because his heart rate was steady they whole time, he still moved around as usual, and he showed absolutely no signs of distress. Hopefully he'll behave accordingly when I go into labor!

Me and Jordon always joke about how hard this pregnancy has been for me, and I told him if our next pregnancy is as hard as this one, I'm definitely adopting the rest of our kids!! I guess I am just going to have a ton of crazy stories for my little guy when he gets older, and maybe it will help him appreciate his momma a little extra :-)

Tomorrow I'm having another baby shower with family and am SO excited! I am very thankful I'm feeling better and won't have to post-pone this fun event :-)

And lastly, Jordon and I have some very exciting news. Jordon was offered the position of Head Men's and Women's Tennis Coach at Ferrum College early this week, and officially accepted the job yesterday! I am SO proud that he has worked his way from high school coach to HEAD collegiate coach in just 3 years!! He is just incredible and talented and I think this will be an awesome opportunity for him. We are going to have a crazy summer because we have to plan a move right after our baby comes, but I think this will be the best decision for our family, and I'm so excited to take on this new path God has set out for our lives.

As always, thanks for reading and thanks for praying for us. You all are wonderful :-)