You would think by now Nat and I would have our own parking space at the York Hospital, we made our fifth and sixth trip of the pregnancy this week and had our first overnight experience. Before I get ahead of myself lets take a journey back to Tuesday........
Tuesday morning I woke up and at first didn't really think too much of anything; I ate breakfast and then went about my morning routine of checking emails, reading the paper, and surfing online. While I was sitting at my desk I noticed that my normally swollen fingers looked especially plump and when I looked down at my feet I almost laughed out loud, I had no ankles and my toes looked liked little sausages. Now I know that swelling is normal in pregnancy so I kind of wrote it off as normal swelling, but as the day went on I noticed I was walking funny and my socks were too tight on my ankles, I had noticeable indented rings around them.
At this point I decided that I should weigh myself, just to see if I was really as swollen as I thought I was, I tend to be a tad overly dramatic. I couldn't and didn't believe the scale when it popped up that I had gained 14 lbs. in the past 8 days, what the crap, how do you gain that much weight that fast? I naturally assumed that the scale was broken so I used a backup scale that was in another bathroom, that scale said that I had only gained 7 lbs., still high but more acceptable.
I didn't really think too much of the rapid and abnormal weight gain, mostly because I convinced myself that scale #2 was right, and forgot about my bloated body until Nat got home from work. When Nat came home I was sitting in a chair in my sunroom with my feet propped up and Nat noticed my chub legs right away. I explained the tale of the two scales, showed him the rest of my lovely swollen self and he looked at me like I was five and asked why I hadn't called my doctor. I told him it was normal to swell and that although 7 lbs. was a lot to gain, it wasn't out of the question. Nat immediately went upstairs weighed himself on scale #1, came back downstairs, handed me the phone and said, "Call them and tell them you have gained 14 lbs. in 8 days!"
Oops.
Of course I called the doctor who told me to go immediately to the hospital to be checked for preeclampsia. Luckily my blood pressure was fine and when the hooked Katie up to the monitor she was happy as a clam, no signs of trouble. After two hours of monitoring and some other tests we were sent home and I was told to stay off of my feet and avoid salt.
Then came Wednesday...
I woke up Wednesday with the same swelling and another familiar symptom, nausea and vomiting. Ugh. I called my doctor and was told to head on in to get a full check-up. Once there I was told that maybe I might have something non-pregnancy related going on so my doctor ordered a gallbladder ultrasound and some blood work to check on my kidneys. So that evening Nat and I headed back to the hospital for the gallbladder ultrasound, which turned out to be normal so back home we went.
Then came Thursday......
Thursday started off alright, had my breakfast, read my paper, went back up to my room to read emails when all of a sudden I began vomiting, hard, and kept on doing it three times before 9am. (I get up around 7am.) I called Nat at work who agreed that I should call my poor doctor back, who by now was most definitely sick of me, so I put in a call, left a message and waited for a call back. At this point I was feeling rotten so I called Nat back and asked him to come home from work and no sooner did he walk in the door than my doctor’s office called and told me to head straight for the hospital. This time I was being admitted for observation, I think they were just sick of me bugging them, hehe.
We got to the hospital around 11:30am and I was immediately shuffled into a bed, placed in a horrible robe that didn't fit and was missing snaps and an IV line was started. The nurse asked me tons of questions, hooked me up to a monitor and then administered a drug that we now know I'm allergic to called Phenergan. Phenergan is a drug that helps stop nausea, so is Zofran the drug I told her I had been given every other time I was in the hospital for the same reasons, but in all of the rush the doctor most likely didn't even look at my chart and just decided to give me what he normally gives sick pregos.
Bad decision.
Within 30 seconds of being given this drug I turned into a raving lunatic; Nat was convinced I was possessed. I was shaking, the room was spinning, I was convulsing, itching and I couldn't get comfortable (tossing and turning constantly). Plus there was the crying, I was so dehydrated that I wasn't producing tears so it was blubbering without the blubber. My inhibitor switch was also turned off and I began swearing, mostly to Nat not at him, and I have no idea what I said to the nurse and doctors that kept checking on me, but I'm pretty sure I owe them all flowers.
At some point when everyone around me agreed that it was safe to move me, safe for them not me, they moved me to my own room in the maternity ward to let the rest of the drug ware off. The next point in time that I was aware of was when my friend Michelle came in to visit after she had gotten off of work, she is a nurse in the OR. When she came in I was still itching and twitching, but most of the spinning had worn off. Michelle let Nat take a much-needed break from me and while he was gone I got sick all over my bed and myself. Thank God Michelle is a nurse and a mom because she flew right into action, cold washcloth on my neck one on my forehead, she called another nurse in the room, basically she did all of the thinking that I was unable to do. After getting cleaned up and Nat coming back in the room, I passed out. I think now that the throwing up was like the curtain call on my drug addled afternoon, it was over and so was my day.
By Friday I was feeling better and had some visitors that afternoon. The culprit of the vomiting and nausea seems to have been really bad heartburn, can you believe that? I guess my diet wasn't jiving with my stomach and with Katie getting bigger and bigger and putting all sorts of stress and strain on my system it finally just gave out. I am now on a bland diet, eating six small meals a day, nothing fried, greasy, or spicy. I am also on a new pill called Protonix, for the acid, and it seems to be working at least a little because although I am still having problems getting the food to go down, no acid is coming back up. I can work with that.
They sent me home Saturday afternoon and I just had a check-up and my weight has stabilized although I am still really, really puffy. (Call me Puff Mommy) I just had my baked potato and half a chicken breast so now I am going to prop myself up in bed and try to relax, drink lots of water, and take a snooze. There is more to this long story, including a new baby in the group, but that's too special to add to this pitiful post so I will update again really soon. Sorry this was a long one, I just have to write it down so I have proof when we ground Katie for freaking her parents out so much.
Four generations of the Lucia family, how cool! This picture was taken on Christmas Eve and as you can tell Miss Katie was about half-awake. Of course she was most likely overwhelmed by all of the gifts she recieved, including clothing, jewelry, money and the most awesome book called "My Own Name" which spells out her name, page by page, and tells a neat little story in the process. It made me cry, not only because it was so special but because Katie is so fortunate to have a family that loves her so very, very much.
This picture was from Christmas Day. My parents and sisters and brothers-in-law came over for breakfast and then to open gifts, my mother makes this sausage and egg casserole every year on Christmas morning that we all crave and devoured quickly, oh and you have to have it with corn muffins. Tradition! I think Katie was still worn out from all of the excitement from the previous night because she slept through the whole opening gifts process, Aunt Liz and Uncle Tim made sure she was snug as a bug, while Aunt Sarah took picutres. (Secretly we all think Uncle Doug is scared of tiny Katie so he did a lot of staring but no holding!!) Katie got books about Bikes (the pedal kind), some Hokie baby stuff, and tons of stuff from Grammy and Grandpa Sylvanus including the cutiest outfit from Baby Gap with a fur collared sweater and fur rimmed jeans, OMG it is sooooooo cute!!
Today, December 26th, Kate had her 2 month doctors visit. I know it's two weeks early but becuase she was born prematurely her immunizations are off by two weeks so she had to get her second round of one shot and they decided to give her the 2 month shots two weeks early so she wouldn't have to come back. That was horrible; I have never heard her scream like that. And why haven't they figured out a way to combine all of those shots into one needle stick, I mean come on, five pokes in her thigh, that just seemed cruel. She did pretty well the rest of the day, she was very sleepy and we actually had to wake her up to eat, but by 10pm she was back to her normal self, watching TV in bed with us (that's the picture above). Oh and ginormous news, she is now 7 pounds 1 ounce!!! What a porker! I love it, she's filling out and getting rolls, it's awesome. Ok well that's it from us for now, I hope everyone has a great new year and keep checking back for new pictures, I try to post a few a week!
