Baby Shower photos
February 17th, 2008
I’m finally getting caught up on my photos for 2008. Since the baby is taking her time, maybe I’ll get everything posted before she arrives! I have posted the Baby Shower photos. As many of you already know, I wasn’t actually able to attend my own baby shower. Instead, I spent the weekend in the hospital with a kidney stone – ugh! Since we weren’t sure when they would release me from the ER/hospital, the party went on without me. I knew that it would be impossible to reschedule, and that the hosts already had food and other preparations ready to go.
Sometime early Saturday morning, I had to make frequent trips to the restroom leaving me thinking that I possibly had a bladder infection. I had some discomfort, and after about 5am, I couldn’t get back to sleep. Since we had out of town guests, we were up later than usual on Friday night, so I hadn’t had very much sleep. Since I had experienced some similar symptoms a few weeks ago, I figured that I would go to an Urgent Care as soon as they opened, get them to write me a prescription, and then I’d feel somewhat better before my baby shower at 3pm. The closest Urgent Care opened at 8am, so I decided to take a bath to see if that would help me feel more comfortable. My back started to hurt, but it wasn’t too bad at this point. I didn’t have this symptom the last time, but my internet “research” revealed that back pain can happen with bladder infections…plus, I’m pregnant…my back hurts most of the time anyway.
So to pass the time, I took a bath, then a shower, got ready for the day, and baked muffins for our houseguests. By the time we all finished eating our muffins, it was time to leave to go to the Urgent Care. We told the Keenes what was going on, and we figured that we would be back in about 2 hours. As an afterthought, we left them with a spare key, just in case they needed to go somewhere. Thank goodness, since I didn’t return to the house for about 30 hours!
The Urgent Care nurses and receptionists looked a bit nervous when I walked in as there are not too many things that they will treat for a 34-week pregnant lady. Fortunately, bladder infections are one of those things. Unfortunately, they quickly determined that I did not have a bladder infection. The pain in my back was getting worse, and I was pretty emotional when I realized the doctor was telling me that he suspected I had a kidney stone. I had one a few years ago, and it was NOT pleasant. I was starting to feel some real pain, and I was worried about the baby. He asked me some questions to determine the seriousness, including “do you have any nausea or vomiting?” I was able to answer “no” to these questions, and he went to go call the ER to let them know I was coming and to get in touch with my doctor so that they could consult with him about my care.
I made phone calls to my parents, who were about to leave their house to come to visit me for the baby shower, and to Catherine, who was staying at our house with her family. At this point, we still thought that there was a chance that I would be able to make it to the shower…though the pain kept increasing. I vaguely remember trying to find a comfortable position to relieve some of the pain and telling Gabe, “they have GOT to get me to the ER real soon and do something about this pain.” While I was on the phone with Catherine, I suddenly realized that I had a very odd sensation that I hadn’t had in probably 20 years. The pain was so bad that I knew I felt quite nauseous…and I didn’t quite make it to my intended target (the restroom right next to my exam room). Oops. And yuck. Every time I left the restroom, thinking I was ok, I had to run back into the room. I flagged the doctor and said, “um, the vomiting is new!” Gabe said at this point everyone was a bit frantic around the Urgent Care office. “YIKES! We have this pregnant lady with lots of pain, and now she’s vomiting everywhere! We have to get her out of here as soon as possible!”
So the new events had them scrambling to get me to the ER right away. They brought out a wheelchair and a bucket and literally pushed me across the parking lot and up the road to the ER (about 100 yards or so away). I was ok for a little while as it was a bit cold outside, but then once I got into the hospital I had to use my bucket multiple times. They asked me some questions about name, social security number, insurance, etc, and then the triage nurse asked me some more questions. The triage nurse seemed annoyed that I couldn’t answer her questions fast enough because I had to “use my bucket” every other question. Uh, excuse me lady if I’m having the worst pain and worst experience that I’ve ever had in my life!! Gabe was able to answer some of the questions, and then they got me into one of the “rooms” in the ER.
This part was a bit of a blur as the pain was pretty intense. They hooked me to IVs, gave me tons of fluids as well as some morphine and anti-nausea medication. During my stay in the ER, they gave me 6 doses of morphine! I was worried about whether all of this was safe for the baby, but they were consulting with my doctor and he was telling them what was ok for me and the baby. They kept trying to get the pain under control, but nothing was working. Just when I thought I was ok, I’d have another bout of severe pain that would last 10-20 minutes at a time. They knew that I had my baby shower in a few hours, and they were really trying to get things under control so that they could release me and I could go to my shower. They waited as long as they could, and then they finally admitted me to the hospital (and my hopes for attending my own baby shower were dashed).
Once they admitted me to the hospital, things got MUCH better. They took me to one of the Labor and Delivery rooms in the Women’s Pavilion…the exact sort of room where we will be going to deliver the baby. The rooms really are nice! They put me on a morphine drip and gave me a button in case I needed more…fortunately, I never felt the need to push the button. The pain was finally under control once I was out of the ER, and I would guess that I passed the kidney stone within the first few hours of my stay in the hospital. This was quite a relief after about 6-7 hours of severe pain. I was also happy that they monitored the baby multiple times during our stay and was glad that she was doing fine.
We spent about 5 or 6 hours in this room until they needed to move me. Someone else needed to have their baby – go figure! Fortunately, they were able to use some observation wing in the hospital. I later learned they would have had to move me to another hospital, so I’m thankful that there was somewhere for me to go. The new room wasn’t nearly as comfortable. It was about a third of the size and didn’t have most of the amenities that the L&D had. Gabe’s sleeping accommodations were much less comfortable as well.
We spent about 22 hours in the hospital (once I was admitted). After getting very little sleep in the hospital, we were pretty tired when we got home!! Next time we go to the hospital, we better be bringing home a baby! We felt like the kidney stone experience was our “test run” and learned a few things that we wanted to make sure we put in our “labor bags” (as well as a few things that we don’t think we’ll need). Now we’re just that much more prepared for the labor experience!
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