Saturday, January 3, 2015

Rewind to 34 weeks with Emmy

WARNING: This is a fairly boring story with no pictures.


Up until a month ago, I thought 34 weeks pregnant with Emmy was the most traumatic time in my life, so before that moment surely disappears from my memory, since it now seems so small comparatively, I feel like I should blog about it.

While pregnant with Emmy, I had a sharp pain in what I thought was my hip. At around 25 weeks it started to progressively get worse and worse, but would only last for a little while and I could typically sit in a position that made it disappear temporarily. After telling my doctor this, he assumed it was just a pulled muscle from my body growing, which would have made perfect sense. At 32 weeks, it had gotten to the point to where I would have to sit on the couch in a certain position to get any sleep, but I kept blowing it off as a normal pregnancy discomfort.

On a Sunday night, when I was home alone (at the time, Logan was working in North Dakota-11 hours away) I was in so much pain that I tried just about everything. I sat in my normal spot on the couch with no luck. I did multiple yoga poses in hopes it would just give me a moment of relief with no luck. I laid in a hot shower until it turned cold with still no luck.

By 4 a.m. I was done. I called my mom in Georgia and told her I either needed her there with me or that Logan was going to have to come home from work until I had baby Emmy, to which she responded, "Call your mother-in-law now or I will." Well, I was not calling my mother-in-law at 4 a.m. for a little pregnancy discomfort. How embarrassing! So I called Logan and gave him my same sob story, to which he told me that he was calling Lori (mother-in-law) because she could be there way faster than either him or my mom could be.

An hour later in walked Lori. At that point I was nauseous, laying on the cold tile floor in front of the open door (in February in Rexburg, Idaho) eating ice by the bag. I thought all I needed was someone to sit there and tell me everything will be fine, but she walked in, took one look at me, and told me to grab my purse and jacket because we were going straight to the hospital.

After lots of poking and prodding, and laying in an ER bed for what seemed like an eternity, they realized I was actually having contractions every 2 minutes and sent me to Labor and Delivery. Once there, they told me that since I was 34 weeks pregnant, they wouldn't stop the contractions but a few hours and quite a few painkillers later, they gave me a shot to stop the contractions. They told me they didn't know why I was in pain or why I was having contractions. And then an ever so kind nurse informed me that I would be more comfortable at home on my couch. I'm being pretty sarcastic when I say kind, and I wish I knew her name so I could tell her she was very wrong and I got home to my couch to realize I was in more pain than I had been when I first showed up to the hospital.

So Lori and I did as the nurse said and went home. It was a Monday evening so my favorite show was on (The Bachelor). After watching for a few minutes I got in so much pain that I turned it off. If you ask Lori, this is how she knew I was really hurting and that we needed to go back to the hospital. Haha. We had a sectional couch at the time with cushions that came off, so she grabbed those and made me a "bed" in the back of her Excursion. Turns out there are a lot of pot holes between Rexburg and Idaho Falls because that morning I had felt every single one, and the trip back was worse even with the cushions. The contractions would hurt so bad that I would moan (maybe even scream I can't remember) every time we hit a bump. (These contractions are also the reason I didn't realize I was in labor when I really was. My labor contractions were a breeze compared to these!)

Once there, they took me straight to Labor and Delivery and started the process all over again. At this point, I was so exhausted that I don't remember of that night. There were a lot of doctors, a lot of nurses, a lot of tests, and a lot of ultrasounds. All of which showed nothing but a very pregnant girl with contractions. Lori remembers the ultrasound better than I do, but apparently Emmy's hand was near the spot that I felt pain near my hip, almost "pointing" to it.

At 10 a.m. on Tuesday morning they decided they were going to take me for surgery to remove my appendix even though they knew it wasn't my appendix that was causing the pain. They hoped that once in there, they would be able to determine what was wrong. They also told me that since they didn't know what was going on, I could come out of surgery with Emmy having been delivered. Logan was then able to leave work in North Dakota and head to Idaho Falls.

Between Logan not being there before the surgery and the uncertainty of what would happen while I was in there, I was freaking out. They wheeled me into an all white room that had hip hop blaring, put a mask over my face and told me to take deep breaths. I don't think it took more than 3 seconds for me to pass out.

I am pretty sure I will never forget coming out of that surgery. When I woke up I immediately started crying hysterically. I couldn't swallow so they gave me the littlest sip of water then I quickly asked if they had to cut me all the way open. (I hate that stuff.) Nope I was still pregnant and I just had three little cuts and they were bringing in the machines to check on Emmy. A nurse came in, checked on Emmy, said she was fine, and quickly left. It happened so fast that I was sure they didn't really check on her and asked them to bring her back in to check again. Of course they didn't listen and just started to wheel me back to my room and calm me down. Hearing later I guess I really was a mess. Haha.

When I got back to my room the doctors came and explained to me that I had good reason to be in pain. I had an ovary torsion, which basically means that as Emmy was growing, my ovary was twisting and had cut off it's own blood supply and died, so they had to remove it. I was so incredibly thankful that they had finally figured out what was wrong and that I wasn't just crazy. Nine hours after Logan had left work (it usually takes him 11), he was at the hospital showered and with my things. I was so glad he was there to help me recover. After a few days of being at the hospital, we were finally able to go home.

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