Trippin' : The Incident

June 24, 2013

After work I went and did a short workout in the gym then headed home to eat. I was feeling like I still had a good amount of energy so I decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood. As I was finishing up the last of a 2-miler I turned the corner onto our street just a couple of blocks up from the house. All of a sudden I was falling, it all happened way to fast and I was unable to even try to get my knees and hands down to protect my stomach from hitting the pavement. I was stunned, no one was around so I picked myself up and looked to see what on earth I tripped on. Stupid sprinkler head, the tip of my toe must have barley caught the thing. I held my stomach, crying, and walked the rest of the way home. I assessed the damage once home, I had some scrapes on my forearms and knees but I knew I had hit my abdomen on the pavement so I grabbed a granola bar and some water then laid down on my side and waited to feel some movement. I was only feeling some contracting and pain so I called Paul and had him come home from work. Once he got home we loaded into the car and headed for the hospital.

We were taken immediately up to labor & delivery triage, I was asked to give a urine sample and then strapped up to fetal monitors to assess movement and contractions. We got to hang out there for a couple hours. When the nurse came to check she said I was indeed having a few contractions, then had a doctor come in to do an internal exam to check and make sure I wasn't dilating. The doctor let us know that there was no dilation but because of the contractions and falling on my abdomen that she was going to admit me.  

Around 3am we were finally admitted and taken to a room in the labor & delivery ward. I was hooked up to a blood-pressure monitor, fetal monitors, boots that squeeze your legs every few seconds (to prevent clots), an IV for fluids... I had needles and cords coming out of everywhere it seemed. Someone was in to check me every 30min-1hr. If I moved and one of the monitors slightly moved someone was there re-adjusting it. Every time I started to slightly doze someone was there checking this, prodding me, taking my BP or temperature. 

At one point I realized that I couldn't make a fist with my hand and that it hurt to move it. I took it out from under the sheet and it was swollen 2-3 times its normal size. I immediately hit the call button. A nurse came in and looked at my hand, said that it seemed the fluid was backing up and not entering properly (NO KIDDING!). So she took it out and called for an anesthesiologist to come up and start a new line in my other hand. It took hours and hours for me to start to regain the ability to touch finger tip to finger tip and it was quite painful. 

So the day went on, I didn't have any bleeding and the contractions subsided to just being Braxton-Hicks. Finally the doctor came back to re-evaluate me, the baby's heart-rate looked great and with the contractions stopping and no bleeding they were talking about releasing me! 

Around 3pm it was time to blow that joint and head home for some much needed rest! Both of us crashed hard once we laid down. Who knew being in the hospital could be so exhausting. 

From then on I promised to keep the drama to zero and to stay on my feet at all times while walking. 

1st Kaiser Appointment

After the long 3 week wait we were super excited to finally get to go to Kaiser. Paul and I drove down separately since I would be heading straight to work as soon as it was over. I checked in and was given a clipboard to fill out our family medical history. Basically it was a whole list of diseases and we checked if there was anyone on either side of our families that had it along with information about my pregnancy thus far. About 15 minutes later I was called back and to our astonishment Paul was told he couldn't come! WHAT!?! I was spitting mad! He drove all the way down here and couldn't come back for my appointment? Grrrr.

So I followed the lady to the back where my blood pressure and weight were taken. Then I was seated in a mini office type area with partitions. I sat and waited. Then waited some more. And waited. By now I was super annoyed a lady finally came over and said well while you are waiting why don't we make your future appointments. The next available appointment wouldn't be for almost another month, which I was expecting since once you are with an OB they only see you once a month not every 10 days like I was used to. Another lady walked up when she had just finished making the appointment and asked what she thought she was doing, apparently this new lady was the one who made the appointments and the one who was doing it would be going over my medical history when she was done. So the new lady took over making the next few appointments, which took her FOREVER. She was not skilled in getting the information into the computer. I kept looking at the lady who was originally helping me who was standing in another cubicle area just a few feet away pleading with my eyes for her to come help this woman who could not work the computer. Finally she managed to set up the appointment for the month after that as well as a radiology appointment for my big ultrasound between 18-20 weeks.

Once the appointments were sorted out I was anxious to get this moving along so that I could see the Dr and get a peek at the little one. The first lady came back over and went over piece by piece the questionnaire that I filled out. Then she started asking me weird questions like if I was afraid of the baby's father (WHAT?). I answered with NO, I am not afraid of my husband. She followed up with has your husband ever hit you (is she serious?). Another NO (along with my very annoyed face)! Once she finished up her odd line of questioning she asked if I had any questions, discussed food I should stay away from, gave me some newspaper things that Kaiser puts out for each week of pregnancy.

THAT WAS IT!

What a second.... I am not seeing a Dr. today? There will be no ultrasound? Not even to check for a heartbeat? Now I was livid! This was not okay! My next appointment will not be for another month which means it will be over 2 months since I was seen at HRC before I would see a doctor at Kaiser. NOT OKAY!

I headed out to the waiting room to tell Paul what had transpired...

We had been planning on becoming "Facebook Official" with the news of our pregnancy after this appointment but that was when I thought we would get confirmation that everything was still going smoothly... now I am wondering if we should wait.

Too Long!

Once we "graduated" from the clinic I was told I had to get an OB with Kaiser ASAP so that HRC could sign off on me and turn over my medical records. They actually told me at my 8 week appointment to call and get the process started of being assigned to an OB but I was scared that something would go wrong and my world would come crashing down so I didn't. I waited until I absolutely had to as HRC would no longer be booking me for appointments. I called Kaisers Orchard medical offices to set up the appointment and they said it would be THREE WEEKS till they could get me in to see a NP! I was floored, how in the world could they not want to seem me for so long! What were they thinking did they not pay attention when I explained what I had to go through to get to this point?!? This was not okay with me and I began to freak out (A LOT) about all the things that could happen in that long stretch between appointments.

So I held onto my security blanket of medications that I was still on, knowing that they were helping to sustain the pregnancy and we began the waiting game....

The parade of medications continues:

         - Progesterone lozenge: 3x a day

         - Endometrin insert: 3x a day         
         - Estradiol tablet: 3x a day         
         - Vivelle Dot patch: time to stick on a new one every 3rd day

         - Prenatal vitamin

         - Folic Acid

         - DHA

         - Fish Oil

         - Baby Aspirin 

The Saga Continues

The bleeding gave way to spotting and cramping day after day after day. Waiting 10 days until our next appointment was excruciating! Every day felt like an eternity. Every day of those 10 days included spotting, cramping, worrying, praying, hoping. The longer the spotting and cramping went on the more annoyed I got with it. I begged it to just go away! I was frustrated and scared that something would happen to #1 if it continued as it had been. Luckily for me a few of those days were spent being semi-distracted by a trip to visit TK to do wedding stuff. I made sure I was laying down as much as possible, taking it super easy and not over doing it.

Finally, after the longest week and a half ever, it was time to head back to HRC and have our appointment with Dr. W. We went over how I was feeling and what had been going since my last appointment. The spotting seemed to have subsided the day before our appointment! We keep on praying that it will stay that way!

Dr. W took a look to see what was going on inside and there was our little miracle measuring right on at 8 weeks 0 days. Once again we had the privilege of hearing that amazing little heartbeat pumping away at 167 beats per minute! Dr. W confirmed that #2 had not made it. The good news is that #1 was not harmed by any of the cramping or spotting.  

Measuring Junior

Checking out Juniors heartbeat

The appointment following this one is a biggie -- as long as everything still looks good and nothing major happens it will be 'graduation day' meaning that Dr. W would sign off on us and I would be transferred over to a good 'ol regular OB!

And of course I am still taking these every day:

                    - Progesterone lozenge: 3x a day

                    - Endometrin insert: 3x a day
                    - Estradiol tablet: 3x a day
                    - Vivelle Dot patch: time to stick on a new one every 3rd day

                    - Prenatal vitamin

                    - Folic Acid

                    - DHA

                    - Fish Oil

                    - Baby Asprin

Drama

I was taking a shower and didn't feel too good so I got out and dressed for bed. I laid down for a few minutes hoping it would pass but then I felt horrible pain in a straight line from my belly button all the way down my abdomen. I was frozen in the position I was in, it hurt too bad to even think about moving and I was afraid if I did move that it would make the pain worse so I just laid there. Praying. Lord don't take our babies.

This happened just 2 days after our visit where we got to hear the heartbeat for the first time. After about a half hour I got up to use the restroom and there was bright red blood. I was in shock. I was in denial. I went and laid back down. Praying. Lord don't take our babies.

At some point I fell asleep. In the morning I was still having some bleeding/spotting so I immediately called the clinic. I left a message for our nurse, G. She listened to my account of what happened and told me to lay back down she would consult with Dr. W and call me back in a couple minutes. I waited. Praying. Lord don't take our babies.

Nurse G. called back and said that Dr. W wanted me to be on bed-rest for the day, to only get up when absolutely necessary and that I needed to come in for another ultrasound first thing the next morning. I let my manager at work know what was going on and that I wouldn't be in the office for the day. Then I laid flat on the couch for the remainder of the day. Praying. Lord don't take our babies. I was restless all night willing the morning to come faster so that we could hurry up and get to the clinic for our appointment.

Finally it was time for us to get up and head to the clinic. Sitting in the waiting room was excruciating. The ladies at the front counter looked at me and asked if I was alright, I could barely muster a nod of my head. As I had spent much of the previous 24 hours going between feeling numb and crying so I am sure I wasn't looking so good.

Dr. W got everything set up quickly, asked how bad the bleeding/spotting was and then he made some notes in my chart. Finally it was time to take a look inside. We held our breaths steeling ourselves against hearing the worst. Then after a few moments he pushed a button on the monitor and we once again got to hear the woosh, woosh, woosh of our babies heartbeat. The 3 of us let out a collective sigh of relief. Dr. W then moved the camera around to get a look at the second sac. He told us it was collapsing. Our second little was not going to make it.

It is a strange and difficult place to be - elated because our little with the heartbeat was ok but grieving because we were losing the second little. I was sad, I cried for our little who would never be but thankful that we did not lose them both.

At just over 6 and 1/2 weeks we lost our second little. 

The good news from that appointment was that little #1 had a stronger heartbeat than just 3 days prior. 

Heartbeat @ 125!

Dr. W then took length measurements. 

Dr. W said that unless I began bleeding again, more than I had already or I was suddenly in a lot of pain again that he would see us again in 10 days. But, he did not expect anymore drama. This little was doing well and it would be our take-home baby. While we are thankful for his optimism and knowledge in this field it is difficult to block out the possibility that while this baby is currently thriving nothing is guaranteed. We are laying our trust in God that he will continue to protect and grow this precious little one whom we already love so very much.


Disclaimer: Everything is still going well with the pregnancy. We are well past when these events occurred.

Really?!

When I opened my browser this morning I was taken aback by an article that accosted my senses.

You can read the article HERE.

My stomach began turning into knots while reading about the multi-million dollar industry of choosing to have a child of a specific gender. Is my reaction heightened because of my struggle to become a mother? I don't know. But being mad and crying because you found out you are having a baby that is not a girl bothers me greatly! Those who become pregnant should be thankful that they are able to have children, it should not matter what gender they are. If this little baby girl that you choose to have decides she does not want to paint her nails and wear dresses but rather would like to play sports -- what then? Are you going to reject her because she is not fitting into her "role" in your life?

Way to Parent

(June 26) -- A Florida mother is being investigated after she posted a photo on Facebook showing her infant son apparently smoking a bong.


The photo shows the 11-month-old baby in a diaper, sitting on a carpet with his face leaning over the glass smoking pipe.

The baby's 19-year-old mother claims the pipe didn't have tobacco or drugs in it at the time, and that the boy didn't inhale any smoke. She says she posted the photo online as a joke to show one of her friends.

This disturbing photograph showing a baby apparently smoking a bong has sparked a fury. The 11-month-old boy's teenage mother from Florida snapped the photo to show a friend and posted it online.

The picture was widely distributed around the Internet, and eventually landed on the desks of Florida child protection officers, who didn't think it was so funny. The state Department of Children and Families has launched an investigation into the woman's parenting skills, and says she could face charges if it's revealed that the child was exposed to drugs.
"We are alarmed that any parent would take pictures of their child next to what is obviously drug paraphernalia," department spokesman John Harrell said in comments carried by several news outlets.
The Florida TV station WJXT used Facebook messaging to contact the woman, who lives in Keystone Heights, northwest of Gainsville, and questioned her about the photo.
"If u look at the picture u can see that there is no bowl in the TABACCO pipe," she responded, with grammatical and spelling errors. "And i took a pic to show one (expletive) person and it was a mistake. I would never ever ever let him get high."
The mother is undergoing drug tests as part of the investigation, and her son is being examined by state doctors, she said. In her interview with the TV station, the unnamed woman accused the media of getting her into trouble.
"Do you realise how serious this is? i can go to jail and he can be taken away from me. WHY would you do something so (expletive) stupid?" she asked. "i know what i did was stupid but i would NEVER put by baby in harm. im so nice to everyone idk (I don't know) why you would do this to me."
 
I say she got what she deserved...