28 Weeks

Hello third trimester! And what an eventful one it has been. I had been hoping to be posting about Tyler's wonderful second birthday party this week, but instead I get to update on my crazy trip to the hospital... wait, hospitalS. Yes, plural.

On Friday (as in a week ago) I woke up at 6 am with nausea and some upper stomach pain. I had been feeling a little off and couldn't sleep well the night before, but hadn't thought anything of it until the morning. I tried to wait until the doctors' office opened at 8, but at about 7am and after throwing up decided to call into the midwife on call at the hospital. She figured it was a stomach bug and said to go into the office when it opened at 8 and they'd get me some IV zofran (nausea medicine) and fluids to get me through the initial hump of the bug, and it shouldn't last longer than 24 hours. Well after a painful wait, dropping Tyler off at Grammies, and a sickening ride to Harrisonburg, I sat in the office for an hour getting pumped full of drugs. I was still in pain when I left the office, only felt about 10% better, and threw up on the way home, but the medicine made me sleepy so when I got home I was about to sleep the first half of the day away. They had prescribed me some oral zofran as well so Jordon picked that up for me. I spent the second half of the day in and out of sleep, popping zofran and some Tylenol because I was having actual stomach pain and felt ok by the end of the day. I ate some crackers, drank some gatorade and went to bed.

The next day, Saturday, I woke up sick again, still in pain and still throwing up. This "bug" was NOT going away. By 11 am or so I couldn't stand it anymore so I called into the hospital and the new midwife on call told me to come in to L&D so they could check me out. Since I had a spell like this last pregnancy, which had eventually been diagnosed as reflux, they figured they could treat me for that. So this time Uncle Luke came and picked up Tyler, and Jordon and I were back off to Harrisonburg. I was feeling pretty crappy but actually not quite as bad as I had the day before, but I figured it was good to get checked out. We got there and it was a mad house on the L&D floor (I later found out my midwife delivered NINE babies that day!) so it took forever to see a nurse and then it took them forever to get an IV in me. The first nurses who tried couldn't get a vein because I was so dehydrated and then she had to go into a delivery so I ended up going down for an ultrasound before I had any medication. They wanted to check my gallbladder and organs in that upper stomach area, but the tech also let us get a sneak peek at baby (even in pain, I was excited for this). She was batting her eyelashes (you could see them!), puckering her lips and was "definitely a girl."

I finally got back up to L&D, and after a lot of tries I got an IV of fluids in. Because my midwife was so busy I couldn't get orders for medicine forever, and after pretty much crying and writhing in pain, I finally got some nausea medicine and pain medicine. I felt a lot better after that, so they had me eat and drink a little (cheerios and gingerale). Bad idea. I was back writhing in pain before the hour was up. So at one minute they were planning for me to go home, the next they were moving me into a bigger room to stay the night. I was alternating IV morphine and oral percocet for pain then IV phenergan and oral zofran for nausea, in hopes to move to all the oral medication I could take home with me the next day.

Well long story short, I never felt better. Well, I would start to feel better, then I'd try to eat or drink, and get sick within the hour. I was even throwing up the Popsicle I tried eating. When it was clear I wasn't going home Sunday to be home Monday for Tyler's birthday, I had to make the hard choice of sending Jordon home so my boy could wake up with at least one of his parents on his special day. They came and visited me in the hospital Monday night though, and I got to celebrate a little with him there. They had gotten brownie bites (in lieu of a whole cake) and Tyler sat up on my lap in my bed and indulged. It was so sad though because he held one up to me and said "Mama?" for me to eat one, so I had to pretend to eat a bite and hand it to Jordon to satisfy him. And he gave my IV site a kiss because he thought it was just a "boo-boo."

After Monday the same thing pretty much happened Tuesday and Wednesday. I'd feel a little better then get sick again. I was trying so hard to get myself to the point where I could take the oral drugs and drink on my own so I could go home, but for a few days I was on a morphine pain pump because I just felt that crappy. The GI doctors were called in to consult and even they kind of seemed stumped, mostly because all the tests they'd usually do in my case were inappropriate for pregnant women. Jordon spent the nights and days with Tyler and would come visit me for a couple hours in the evenings, so I was missing both him and Tyler. Jordon said Tyler would say "Mama, sick" or would pick things out of the closet, like my shoes, and say "mama!" which just broke my heart.

Luckily, the medicine I was on made me so sleepy I was pretty much in and out of sleep all day. Finally on Wednesday they decided they'd go ahead and do a CAT scan. Usually it's not recommended for pregnant women because it's essentially an Xray, but my midwife assured me she's recommended it to other pregnant women when necessary and the radiation was one time and not a super high dose, and that the benefits of finding out what was wrong outweighed the risks (at this point I hadn't eaten in about 6 days). The nurse came in with this HUGE water bottle of contrast I was supposed to drink for the scan and I started bawling. I was SO sick and couldn't imagine even drinking a normal water bottle full of liquid (heck, I wouldn't be on IV fluids if I could keep that much water down!). I drank about half, the nurse finally told me it'd have to do, then prayed to God I wouldn't throw it up before the scan. Jordon got back to the hospital and went down with me for the scan. They put a lead apron over some of my belly but I could feel baby girl at my ribs so I knew a little of her would have to be in the picture since that's where they were imaging.

After the scan the techs were flabbergasted because of the picture they got of baby. She was completely folded in half, both her head and feet up at my ribs... a "little gymnast" they kept saying. I guess they don't scan many pregnant women because they even had us pop in the back and look at the scan which is typically a no-no. It was pretty cool, despite how crappy I felt. We got back up to the room, and 15 minutes later I threw up everythingggggg in my stomach. Ugh. It was disgusting. I felt terrible. They thought they same some tiny gallstones in the scan, and maybe a partial obstruction of my upper intestine, but the contrast wasn't great because I hadn't drank enough of it and in the end they decided it was best to send me to UVA for further evaluation. Thank goodness Jordon was there with me! We were suppose to leave for our annual camping/family reunion trip that day and had decided to send Tyler ahead with Jordon's parents and catch up when we got out of the hospital (hoping it'd be later on Wednesday), so Jordon was prepared to spend the night with me. So I was transported via ambulance (my first and hopefully LAST ambulance ride ever) and Jordon followed right behind.

We got to UVA around 9:30 or 10 pm and had doctors in and out of the room until 1 am. They did a quick ultrasound of baby, who was looking good, although still in her breech gymnast position, so of course they freaked me out more warning me that if, in the case of an emergency, they had to deliver her, they'd have to do a c-section and all the risks, etc etc. But she was high up in my belly and I had dilated at all, so I wasn't too worried about that. I was more worried about having to get tests done that had the potential to harm the baby and how they would treat whatever I had and if that treatment could hurt the baby.

I finally got to sleep at 1 am and woke up feeling better. They had started me on complete restriction of food or drink the night before when I left RMH (I couldn't even have water for my dry mouth... I had to use a wet cotton swab to dampen my mouth... yuck) and I think that's what finally did it. I had another ultrasound at about 6am on Thursday and by mid-day I had a diagnosis (sort of). From what they and the doctors at RMH saw, it looked like I had something in my gallbladder (small stones or maybe just some "sludge") that clogged my pancreas and made it flare up... so acute pancreatitis. I had an enzyme in my blood that had slowly elevated to very high levels over the week, and while they initially thought it was just from vomiting so much, paired with the fact that I was getting better when not eating, and the junk in my gallbladder, they concluded it was from the pancreatitis.

So on Thursday afternoon, I felt much better and was STARVING, they finally let me eat. It was amazing. I hadn't eaten a real meal since the previous Thursday. The baby kicked like crazy, I mean the most she has ever moved, after I ate that first time. She was hungry! And after 24 hours of observation, and no more pain and vomiting, I was discharged today. I was SO ready to get home after being gone nearly a week! I weighed myself at home and it looks like I lost about 5-7 lbs while sick. And my arms look like I'm a drug addict after 4 IV sites (one at the doctor's office, one at RMH , one at UVA (the one from RMH had clogged/or blown or something after being in so long), and one failed site from my first day at RMH) and 6 blood draws.

 I'm feeling much better in the stomach department, but I am feeling weak from a week of not eating and pretty much being in bed all day. I took it very slow today once I got home (my biggest excursion was to get ice cream in the afternoon and putting away some laundry) and took a couple naps. We are heading to Ferrum tomorrow to spend the day with family and pick up Tyler (who I miss SO SO much) and then hopefully getting back to normal life next week. I think we'll try to have Tyler's birthday party next weekend (since it was postponed due to my ill-timed illness) and he had his big 2-year-old doctor appointment next week as well. I'll have my glucose screening at my appointment on Tuesday, so we'll have a busy week!

Anyway, I am so glad to be home and feeling better. We were very lucky to have already moved back to the are when this happened because I would have been out-of-luck to be far away from my midwives and hospital if this had happened in Ferrum, and we were so very lucky to have our family here to help watch Tyler... knowing your baby is being well cared for while you are sick and can't care them yourself is priceless! Plus although Jordon was great staying with Tyler most of the time I was in Harrisonburg, I would have been so depressed and homesick if he hadn't been able to travel to UVA with me. God is good, even when times seem rough. And lastly, on Monday Jordon officially accepted a job as the new assistant men's tennis coach as JMU! Moving on up to division 1! So all in all, life is good.