Saturday morning I woke up with horrible pain radiating from the right side of my back, around my side and over my belly, about half way to my belly button. I figured it was pregnancy pains - stretching of ligaments and muscles and all, and tried to re-situate myself in bed. To no avail. At 1:30 the pain was worrying me and I couldn't get baby boy to move around in my belly (I know he was sleeping, it was 1am! but there was a little worry in my head that he wasn't moving). So I stood up and moved around, bent over and put my head on the bed, trying to move him around and get him off my spine, but it wasn't working. I went downstairs and hopped on Baby Center (a website I trust for most things baby related) and found many moms complaining of the same/similar pain that I was having. For some, different positions alleviated the pain, others said that a hot compress and/or massage worked. So I grabbed my hot/cold compress out of the freezer, de-thawed it and nuked it to make it hot, took it back upstairs and had hubby press it to my back where it was hurting. No immediate relief, but I figured it would take a minute, so I laid back down and had him hold the hot pack and massage the sore areas. Nothing was working and it hurt so bad I was in tears. At 2:00 I called the OB that was on call, told him what was going on and he told me to come in to the hospital.
At 2:30 I was in a triage room on the maternity floor, having given a urine sample and answered a bazillion questions (Among the strange ones: When was your last period? Seriously?! Forever ago, I don't remember! Do you attend church? Yes. What's the name of it? Freedom House Church ) and also dressed in a very stylish pink maternity* hospital gown. I was hooked up to the contraction monitor and the baby's heart monitor as well.(*maternity= two big slits up top for nursing,
I was rocking back and fourth on the bed from the pain, I would sit back and it would start hurting my back (and my rear, that bed was HARD) so I would sit up but then my hips would start aching, so I would sit back - endless cycle. Around 3:30 after checking my urine sample she said there was something in it that the dipstick couldn't tell her, so she sent it to the lab and, knowing that and seeing that I was having some mild contractions, said the Dr. wanted a renal ultrasound. Around 4:00 the ultrasound tech. came in and poked and prodded until she found my kidneys - now located under my rib cage in case you were wondering - took all the pictures she needed and took off.
Around 5:00am we heard a thump..... thump.... thump.... on the baby's heart monitor. His first hiccups! This boy kicks, rolls, tumbles and punches, but has never had hiccups before. It was so neat to be able to feel them and hear them through the heart monitor! It brought the biggest smile to both of our faces and for a brief moment I forgot about the horrible pain I was in.
Dr. came in around 5:30, said there was blood in my urine and my right kidney was dilated. This could mean a kidney infection and/or kidney stones. He didn't think it was an infection because I didn't have a fever, but they would check me in, get me on antibiotics just in case (and because a stone can cause an infection) and give me some meds to help with the pain. He also checked my cervix just to be sure the pain wasn't causing me to go into labor and said it was perfect. The baby's heart rate was perfect the entire time too - he was happy and in no distress. Though he was hungry so I was glad to hear they were admitting me and letting me eat (RN didn't want to let me eat when I asked around 3:30 in case I was going into labor).
So I got moved to a labor & delivery room, poked twice for an IV (ouch!) and got some fluids going, antibiotics, and she also gave me two Tylenol with codeine for the pain. But that's not the best part - the best part was the graham crackers! I was starving and they hit the spot! I had like 6 of them down in about 5 minutes, I was SO hungry. Then about 5 minutes later I ruined my record. I puked. A lot. This whole entire pregnancy I never threw up - came close a couple times, but never did. I guess that my body just didn't like that Tylenol because I evicted it almost immediately. And I was still in pain! AH! So after getting cleaned up and taking some stats, she gave me an IV pain killer that almost immediate took the edge off - it made me feel like I'd had just a little too much wine. Soon I was sleeping, mouth hanging open and all.
An hour or so later I woke up to a knock on the door - our good friend and pastor at the church was stopping by to check on us. Let me tell you, it took everything in me to focus on him and what he was saying without letting my eyes roll into the back of my head or just close altogether. It was so awesome that he stopped by - he prayed for us and left, and I was back into my sleep-coma. :)
When I woke up I could tell the pain meds had worn off, but I was still feeling okay. By now I had eaten about a dozen graham crackers and my stomach was feeling better It was about 7:30 or so and I was on the phone with a friend - she was asking me if she could do anything for us, and then asked the question I was dreading to hear, but knew was coming: "What do you want to do about your shower?" Yea, today was the day of my baby shower. The shower that my friends had spent hours upon hours planning, hand-making decorations for, and home-making food for. And I was in the hospital. I honestly thought (and talked with Bill about it) when we were in the triage room that we would be out of the hospital in time for my shower (which started at 11). But at 7:30 I was getting more and more unsure about that reality. So I told C I would call her back in an hour and let her know what I heard from the nurse/how I felt.
Around 8:30 or 9:00 my best bud A called to check on me... and to tell me they were going ahead with the shower. I agreed. I didn't want all their hard work to go to waste - and a lot of people had RSVP'd, rescheduling would be a nightmare, and I'd rather my friends be able to get together and have fun and food, even if I possibly couldn't be there. A asked me if I wanted her to bring the presents by after the shower, I was on pain meds again and still in a little denial about missing my shower, so I said I'd think about it. We said goodbye and I went back to sleep for a little while.
At 10am I was wide awake, the 2nd dose of pain meds had worn off again and I was relatively pain-free. I still had achy pain all over, concentrated on my back/side, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it was when we got there. I knew at that point there was no way I was going to make it to my shower. I had to step into reality and come to terms with the fact that I was missing my own baby shower. I hated it. I didn't care about the gifts one bit - I hated that I was missing all my friends! Those of you that know me well, know I hate being in the spotlight, so it wasn't that either - I just sincerely wanted to see all my friends. I called A again and asked her if she would take pictures of it all for me... and then I lost it. I was bawling over the phone to her because I was so upset about missing everything. She said not to worry about it, everything would be okay, and that I just needed to focus on resting and getting better. She asked again if I wanted her to bring the gifts to the hospital after the shower and I said I didn't care, she knew I was loosing it so she told me she loved me and to rest and we hung up.
Shortly after I composed myself our other friends A & C (and pastors) called to check on me. He was on pastoral care that day and he was going to come see us while A went to my shower. (Funny side-story - A is 38 weeks pregnant, and we have a running joke that Bill & I have had everything done before she has, even though we're a month apart. We had our nursery painted first, we had attended the childbirth class first, we had a pediatrician picked out, etc. So when she called the first thing I said was, "Yeah, I know, we beat you to the Labor & Delivery room too." hahahaha humor in the midst of this was good) He offered to bring Bill some food (he hadn't eaten anything at all and it was 10:30) and said he'd be there shortly. When they got there A was with him and said she decided she wanted to come see me and bring me my shower gift in person. We hung out with them for a while, which was nice - it broke up the stay a little bit and I'm sure it helped Bill feel a little sense of normalcy seeing and talking to people that weren't in severe pain or on drugs. :)
Shortly after they left we heard a: thump..... thump.... thump... on the heart monitor again. He had hiccups again! Hearing those hiccups made me forget for a brief time that my baby shower was happening without me. It made me so thankful that he was safe, healthy and that none of this shenanigans was effecting him.
Around 1:00 best bud A called again to tell me (she stopped asking at this point) that her and Am were coming to bring me my gifts in a little bit. Then she held the phone out and everyone at the shower said 'hi' to me. :) So sweet. She said that there were 16 people that still showed up and that everyone was having a great time and that she'd call after they got things cleaned up and were on their way to see what they could stop and grab for us to eat.
So around 2:30 the door to our room opened and here come A, Am and R with balloons, decorations from the shower and all the presents. They brought almost the entire shower to my room! They set everything up and decorated the room, brought the food leftovers from the shower along with a sandwich from Panera. "We brought the shower to you" they said! I was almost in tears - SO sweet! I mean, I knew I had some amazing friends (remember the Car Catastrophe of 2011?) but this just was over the top. And then. Oh. And then. R laid a book on my bed.
It was a scrapbook filled with images of all the people that went to the shower. She had taken a Polaroid of all the people that attended, then each person took the time to assemble their own scrapbook page and write a little note to me. I asked Bill if he could see and he kind of shrugged - I said, "No, it's not sappy, it's funny!" The girls all laughed and said, "We KNEW you would want something funny and not sappy so we made everyone pose silly for the pictures." My friends know me so well. :)And here's the final product:
We got home around 5:45, I laid down on the couch and hubby headed out to get the prescription filled. I couldn't believe how exhausted I was - I totally could have fallen asleep on the couch and all we did was leave the hospital and come straight home! I had some cereal for a snack and we both headed to bed around 8:30 because we were so tired. I slept so much better in my own bed - though did discover I do, in fact, have a bruise on my rear from the hospital beds!
Sunday was a good morning, I felt pretty good aside from the aches and pains/soreness and was able to climb the staris a couple times to take care of some things, tidied up the kitchen a little bit and started a load of laundry. And pretty much collapsed from exhaustion. Whew. Had to lay down and relax for an hour or so- could have taken a nap by Am was coming over to help out so I didn't want to fall asleep. When she got there we went through all the baby stuff and sorted/organized it (when I say we, it was mostly her, I sat on my exercise ball and she was doing all the moving around and such). Then A came over for a little bit to hang out and bring me the rest of the decorations from the shower. Yes, the decorations are so amazing (and hand-made) that I will be using them to decorate the baby's room. I'll post pictures when I get it done! After they left and I came back downstairs the exhaustion hit me again. I was finding my limitations. I laid back down and rested while hubby finished up some things on our to-do list - vacuuming, laundry, etc) (He's the best ever, in case you were wondering). He even cooked an amazing strogonof dinner for us, which we ate while we watched a TV show. And it happened again. We couldn't hear it, but we could feel it. Thump... thump... thump... he had hiccups again! It brought a smile to our faces as we remembered hearing it over the heart monitor in the hospital, and how we got to listen to his heartbeat all morning and all day long while we were there.
The last thing on the to-do list was groceries. The original plan was for him to go and get them himself, but he didn't feel comfortable with that so the plan was he would push me in the wheelchair and I would push the cart. I wasn't too keen on that idea, I don't think there would have been anything left on the shelves if we did that because I'd be running into everything with the cart. So we asked our friend C if she wanted to join us and be our cart pusher. So we were quite the sight to behold- our little parade going through Target. Though - as Bill pointed out very quickly - that was the fastest Target trip in a long time since we were able to move at a normal speed rather than a pregnant-waddle speed. :)
It's been quite interesting the past couple days. There have been hiccups thrown into our plans. But there have been so many amazing things that have come because of it. We were able to listen to our baby boy's heart beat steadily for over 12 hours straight. We were forced to be the ones on the receiving end of so many generous people, praying over us and offering their help. And we got to hear our baby boy get his first hiccups ever.
God is good. All the time He is good. Even when there are hiccups in the plans. And I am thankful for His goodness, His healing, and all the amazing gifts He has put into our lives - including the 16 people that still went to the shower, the 3 people that brought the shower to me, the 3 people that came and prayed over us, the 3 people that came and fed our kitties while we were gone, and the many others that were offering their prayer and support over the phone and over facebook.
We are truly blessed and this is one weekend I won't soon forget... the sound of hiccups will never be same again.
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