Unexpected Hiccup

This baby. It is trouble.

First, we had a scare with his/her heart. And now, I’m sitting here writing this from my hospital bed. And I guess it’s not technically the baby’s fault—it’s my body causing the issue—but still. What is it with this pregnancy??

Let me back up a little bit.

I woke up yesterday morning, just before the alarm, and felt right away that something wasn’t quite right with my stomach. It felt upset, in the upper portion of my abdomen, right under my boobs and above my baby belly. I thought maybe it was gas pains, or maybe I was just really hungry, so I got out of bed and showered and got ready to try to get on with my day. Things just didn’t improve, though. I had a little breakfast—a small glass of juice and a small bowl of cereal—and things were no better. I dried my hair and decided to lie down on the couch for a few minutes, thinking that it would ultimately subside and I could still go to work, just late.

But then things quickly progressed to vomiting. And the stomach pain I was experiencing was constant. I couldn’t get comfortable no matter what position I was in. The pain didn’t come and go, it was neverending. I called my OB’s office, and they said they wanted to see me at 10:40 a.m. Michael took me in for the appointment and I was so miserable during it that I was curled up on the exam table in the fetal position, crying, while they checked the baby’s heartbeat. They said all was OK with the baby; I just had a nasty stomach bug. They said there was nothing I could do for it, I just had to stick it out. They said there’s a bad bug going around and that it typically lasts 24 hours.

Back home we went, and I barely got the car door open in our driveway before I was violently vomiting again. Fun times. I went back to bed, but it was awful. Stomach ache, back ache. I couldn’t get comfortable, couldn’t doze off, no matter what I did. And the pain… it was just so different than any other stomach bug I had ever experienced. I called my primary care physician in the afternoon to see if they would recommend anything differently than my OB. They referred me back to my OB since I’m pregnant. So I called the OB’s office again to tell them that I was in misery, and I spoke to someone rude who told me “The nurse practitioner told you it’s the stomach bug, right? And that you have to stick it out? That’s just what you’re going to have to do.”

Thanks, bitch.

A little while later, I heard back from the OB’s office (so apparently the bitch had still passed along my message), and they said that they don’t deal with too many GI issues, so really I should go to my PCP. I was getting tossed back and forth at this point and it sucked. So I called my PCP again to tell them this, and since it was toward the end of the day, they told me the on-call doctor would get a hold of me. It took over an hour, but I finally got a message back—they said that I should go to urgent care, or if things were very severe, the ER.

Michael had to go pick up Nora at this time, so I called my mom. We went to urgent care, and I was pretty much immediately told to go to the ER. They said they don’t like to treat pregnant patients there. AWESOME.

I arrived at the ER, and what does the guy say to me in triage? “You have to go up to L&D.”

It seemed that no one wanted me. :(

But being sent up to L&D ended up being a blessing, because I didn’t have to wait. They got me right into a triage room, and began treating me. IV fluids for dehydration, anti-nausea meds, and something for the pain. They ran blood and urine tests and came to the same conclusion as the OB’s office had that morning—it was a nasty stomach bug. I was discharged around 11 p.m. when I had been rehydrated and was feeling moderately better.

As I was walking out of the hospital with my mom, I noticed that I was starting to feel some tenderness in my lower right abdomen. This was strange, since it was completely different—and in a different area—than what I had been experiencing all day. But I brushed it off, thinking that my body was just jacked up right now, and that I just needed to get home and get back into bed.

A quick stop at the 24-hour pharmacy to get myself more pain and anti-nausea meds, and I was home by 11:30 and getting into bed. Mercifully, I fell asleep quickly.

I woke up several times over the next few hours, though, and found that with each wake-up, my pain in my lower right abdomen was feeling more and more intense. By 5:30 a.m., it was pretty excruciating. I couldn’t change positions. I couldn’t lift up my right leg without blinding pain. Instead of waiting it out three hours for my OB’s office to open again, I called the on-call doctor. She told me that it was probably just round ligament pain, aggravated by all of the vomiting I had done yesterday, but that I better get back to the hospital to get checked out just in case.

So again, I called my mom (so Michael could stay home with Nora, keeping her morning routine as normal as possible). The ride to the hospital sucked. Every bump, every movement I made—pain.

Once here, I was wheeled right up to L&D. They re-ran my bloodwork, which all came back normal. But then my doctor—who just happens to be the one here today, yay!—came to examine me and after a few quick presses on my abdomen and seeing my reaction, she said she was very concerned about appendicitis. I was sent down to radiology for an ultrasound.

Sure enough, it was confirmed that I have appendicitis. I will be having surgery this afternoon to remove my appendix. Because my uterus is already grown up to be even with my belly button (or above), they can’t do the surgery laporoscopically. Instead, they have to go in the old-fashioned way. :(

Obviously, having surgery while pregnant is not ideal. There are risks to the baby, of course. They are small, but bigger than I would like. It’s stressful. But I am trying to keep the faith that everything will turn out OK for both of us. I would appreciate any extra thoughts and prayers that you guys have to spare. I feel like I have been asking for more than my fair share lately, but… it’s scary.

Like I said… this baby. It’s trouble. :) At the very least, he/she will have a lot of stories to tell about the time he/she spent inside my belly.