Hello everyone! Thank you for all of your love and phone calls during our big hiccup! Wanted to check in with everyone and let you know that as of today all three of us are doing great! Joe has been the best nurse ever - I'm very lucky to have had him around.
Before I tell you what happened, here's the newest picture of Little Rosey from Saturday. The heartbeat was still going strong and it seems to have grown a few millimeters!
So our adventure began on Friday night. Thursday and Friday at work my stomach had been feeling a little funky but I had no doubts it was just morning sickness. Our friend, Tommy, was in town this weekend from Chicago and we had plans to head to Vancouver, Canada Saturday morning. So Friday after work we met up with some other friends at a restaurant near my office. I was feeling really cramped and couldn't really figure out what all the feelings were and decided to go home and rest while they hung out in the restaurant. From the time I arrived home and when they arrived home an our or so later I had decided I never wanted to be pregnant again! These were by far the worst pains I had ever felt. I won't deny feelings of fear that God was taking our grain of rice up to heaven in those very moments, but to be honest, I thought I'd be heading there with it if the pain didn't let up!
I called my mom and my doula Michelle and was just trying to figure out anything that would provide relief. Finally I called the doctor and got the "ok" to take some ibuprofen. Throughout the night the cramps definitely relieved quite a bit but new symptoms of fever, sweating, chills, vomiting were attacking all night long. By morning I was feeling much better but decided to give the doctor a call just to be sure.
Here are where the many blessings begin. I truly feel so lucky. The on-call doctor was Dr. Jokki. He's 69 years old and prior to being an OBGYN worked for NASA. He said Apollo 13 was what sent him in search of a new career. He was heading to the hospital that morning and told me I should just come in and get checked out.
The main fears for us and those in the ER were miscarriage, dehydration, flu and urinary tract infection. One by one they sought to cross everything off the list. They gave me an IV which did make me feel so much better. Then they took us up for an ultrasound and when we all saw the heartbeat you could even see the relief in the doctor's eyes. I'd never been pushed around a hospital on a bed on wheels - it makes you feel like a queen! Joe and I are working on buying one for our apartment!
We headed back down to the ER and before landing in our room the ER doctor, Dr. Luu said that he wanted to send us back up for another ultrasound to make sure it wasn't the appendix. Usually they do a cat scan to evaluate the appendix and often finding it in an ultrasound can be difficult, but because I was pregnant, ultrasound it was. It hurt like hell.
We weren't back in our room for 30 seconds until Dr. Luu came in and said it was appendicitis and that they would operate in one hour. I felt relieved and terrified of the risks that having surgery at 6 weeks puts on the baby. However, had they not found it, it would have been a much worse situation. Even Dr. Luu said he was so glad that he didn't send us home.
The drugs came quickly after that and the first thing I remember is talking the ear off a woman named Jean in the recovery room. I told her all about how my Grandma's name was Jean and my mother-in-law's middle name was Jean and what a beautiful name that was.
I could not be more thankful for the doctors God sent to us that day. They were thorough and caring and pre-cautious and were as worried as we were for everything to go perfectly.
Then there was of course Joe. How lucky am I. That guy can handle anything...and did because looking back I was only about 40% coherent for any of this! Anyways, I could go on and on but we are so thankful. And last but not least, we couldn't be more thankful for all of you - thank you for all of your love and concern, we feel very close to home having all of you on our side!
Small warning that some of these photos may not do well for a weak stomach, but wanted to show you the photos our surgeon sent us home with!
This was my apendix.
There's Little Rosey's home!
The removal.
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