Baby Jenna

I'm testing blogging through email so we'll see if this works and if it does, I'll be able to email blogger from the hospital to post details about the birth and hopefully a pic or two.

So the pictures attached here are from Tuesday's ultrasound. The first is a profile view and the second is of her face from the front - the left side of her face is very clear, so ignore the distorted right side. :)

What a week!

(Be prepared - this is quite a long one!!!)

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Monday (like a week ago) - normal

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Tuesday - pretty normal. I had my final appointment with my physical therapist. My pelvis was only slightly off kilter and since I'd been pain free for a week, she didn't try to correct it. Just massaged the surrounding muscles and said to come back if I throw it out again.

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That night, I didn't feel bad, but wasn't hungry for dinner and had some gastro-intestinal problems during the night. I felt a little short of breath during the night too, but thought it was probably just the baby's position. To say the least, it wasn't a good night sleep though.

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Wednesday - OUCH! Every breath I took hurt my back. I've had something like this before - it felt like a back spasm but was worse at times, like so bad I couldn't catch my breath. I lasted at work until about lunchtime and then had to head home. I couldn't even talk to anyone on the phone about what was going on because I would start crying and that was incredibly painful. I got home and checked my temp - 101.4. Really? That's strange. I emailed Brent a script so that he could call my nurse since I would have cried my way through the conversation. They decided I should come in since I had the high fever.

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Long story short, I was dehydrated so they sent me to the hospital to get fluids and have some other tests. An ultrasound showed I have gall stones, which could have led to some of the back pain, but not the fever. They kept me overnight, still trying to figure out the fever.

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Thursday - The back pain was completely gone when I woke up in the hospital, maybe a little achy, but no big deal. Fever had stayed below 100 pretty much the entire time I was at the hospital. So they let me go home around lunchtime. I pretty much kicked my heels back the rest of the day. Hunter was pretty thrilled when mommy came with daddy to pick him up from school. Although he did ask where Mema was (she came in Wednesday afternoon once we knew we wouldn't get back in time to pick Hunter up from school and stayed the night to help out - thank you Mema). That night, I ran a slight fever right before bed but woke during the night when it broke (aka, I was drenched in sweat).

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Friday - Hunter played right into my hands that morning and woke up early at 6, so I was able to get him up and take him to school and go right back to sleep when I got back home. Had the phone not rang around 8:45, I probably would have slept all day. Instead, I got up and went into the office. I'll be honest, I probably wouldn't have gone in had my work baby shower not been scheduled for that afternoon. But I felt okay - just tired really. No fever all morning.

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After I got into the office, I got a slight headache - enough pain to go get some tylenol out of the first aid bank at work. But my shower was so nice - Anne and Shannon made all sorts of treats and a very cool diaper cake (will post pics soon). I work with a great group of people, there is no doubt about that. There were gifts and smiles and words of encouragement. Wonderful people - I wouldn't change a thing about my job or the people I work with. Its a great feeling.

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The headache was progressively getting worse though. So I headed home after the shower and onto the couch with my miracle drug, tylenol 3. Not so miraculous this time. Didn't do much for me and if anything, the headache was getting worse not better. By 8:00, it was officially the worst headache of my life and I headed to bed around 8:30 with two tylenol PM hoping I could sleep it off. I only had a slight temp again but did notice I had chills and felt cold, which I don't think had happened my entire pregnancy....less than 2 hours later, I woke up groggy and hot - temp had shot up to 101.4. I called the after hours number for my doctor immediately and the on-call doctor (Swaim) asked me to come to the hospital.

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We had to wait for Mema to arrive since we didn't want to wake Hunter up and didn't feel it was enough of an emergency to wake one of the neighbors to come stay with him until she could get there. Its so nice to have Mema an hour and 15 minutes away for situations just like this. Once again, thank you Mema!!

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Saturday - So we arrived at the hospital, in labor and delivery (scary), around 12:30 am. More bloodwork, which again showed nothing - if anything my white blood cell count was even more normal than it was on Wednesday. (As Dr Swaim said "Boring.") Now they started thinking outside the box a little though. They swabbed me for the flu (negative, although I am still taking Tamiflu), did some test on my pancreatic fluid (?), and I really don't know what else. Brent and I didn't sleep much in that first room. Oh, and they gave me straight codeine hoping to help with the headache but all it did was make me vomit a couple hours later, which also helped my temp break briefly but it came right back. Oh well.

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Saturday morning, I sent Brent home so that he could sleep and they moved me to this room. (BTW, I'm writing all this in the hospital on my blackberry so that I can email it to myself and copy/paste to the blog. Lots of spare time when you're in the hospital this long. And I just heard a brand new baby come into the world next door - that cry is unmistakable. So fresh and new - yes, those are tears in my eyes.) Dr Miller came on shift right before I moved rooms. One thing she mentioned that no one had before was meningitis. She lifted my head off the pillow to see if I would allow my chin to go to my chest, which I did but with a lot of effort because it was really pulling my neck muscles in a way they didn't want to be pulled.

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Saturday wears on and I'm feeling pretty miserable. Nothing is helping the headache or bringing my fever down. I think my temp stayed between 100.5 and 102.1 all day long. Dr Miller decided to bring in a neurologist just in case he thought of something new. But when he did the lift the neck thing, my neck was definitely more stiff - could be the miserable pillows I hardly slept a wink on? He said my symptoms do indicate a possible case of viral meningitis. He actually said to me "you don't have bacterial meningitis because if you did, you'd be dead by now." I'm serious. He really said that. Don't get me wrong though - Dr Lovett was actually very good and I thanked him for giving me the good news first. The bad news was that he needed to do a spinal tap to see if I have viral meningitis, and if I do have it, I just have to let it run its course. Some might think "why bother if they still can't do anything for you?" Knowing a diagnosis at this point was all anyone cared about, especially me.

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So, he said it would be like an epidural - ok, no problem, that was a breeze when I had one with Hunter's delivery. He did warn me that if he couldn't get into the space, he would have to get an anesthesiologist to help. Yes, he needed help. I can't see my back very well, but I think I see 4 marks where he was trying to get in, and one step above and not even vertically in the same line, one single mark where the anesthesiologist (Dr Walters - I'm remembering that name for when I come back for real labor and need that epi!) succeeded. I thanked Dr Lovett for making me forget about my headache for awhile and thanked my nurse, Klarissa, for holding my arms down while he was poking around back there so that I couldn't backhand him. Preliminary results were inconclusive. Still no answers as I drifted to sleep Saturday night.

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Sunday - Wow, there's a lot of sweat on my sheets and in my hair, its everywhere! My temp is what?? 96.5? Yes, but there's still a headache but it feels a little better - maybe a 3. That 3 slowly drifts down to a 1 by afternoon and I feel well enough to accept Brent's offer to bring my baby boy up to my room. By the time they get there, I've showered and changed into my own gown and I don't even feel my headache. I think I feel normal!!

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When Hunter walked in my room, I should have prepared myself better. I didn't realize just how much I had missed him. I burst into tears and scared him or at least put him in his shell. Thankfully, he let me finish squeezing him hard before running back to the safety of Mema's arms. It was a much needed visit and he warmed up to the situation fairly quickly. I'm sure it was very strange to see mommy in this state, even though I felt pretty normal, I probably looked pretty rough and this hospital place is very strange! Dr Lovett came by while they were here and pretty much had no new news. The 24 hour results on the spinal culture weren't showing anything either, but maybe there could be something from the 48 hour check. Just don't make me stay until that 48 hour check pleeeease.

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I felt great the rest of the day and wanted to go home even more badly. But they still wanted to keep me overnight. Fine, but just note on that piece of paper that I want Dr Samuels to come by ASAP Monday morning to sign my discharge papers.

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Monday - Dr Samuels came by around 8:30 and got my discharge papers ready to go. They said they would call me with the results and they kept me on the tamiflu because maybe that is what made my fever break and stay away, even though the flu test was negative? I'll do whatever they say as long as they'll let me go home.

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And here it is Monday night, and I finally got on the computer so that I could copy/paste and read through this one more time and make sure I didn't mistype anything on my blackberry. Feeling good still - still a very low temperature (I still don't think it's gone back up to 98 yet), incredibly tired (although I got a very good nap in earlier), and a slight headache (but a totally different kind of ache than Friday and Saturday). Being home is a wonderful feeling. I missed my family...

Happy July 4th!

I'm way behind on pictures and unfortunately, you won't see any here either. I didn't even get the camera out this weekend...complete loser.

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We pretty much did nothing this weekend. The most exciting part of the weekend was getting the inflatable pool out for the first time this afternoon (Sunday). Hunter LOVED it!! We will do it again soon, I promise, and I will make sure the camera is outside.

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Brent has been sick again. We thought Hunter was getting sick again, but he went all day today with no fever, so hopefully it was nothing. I, however, have been feeling pretty good - back hasn't messed up again since my last physical therapy appointment, so I'm hoping it holds out at least until the next one this Tuesday. I'm not sure if I'm just working the right muscles now that they've made me more aware of them or what, because I'm moving around and playing with Hunter pretty normally...I just need to be careful on the jerky movements since that's what's hurt me in the past.

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Before I go to bed (very early), I'll tell you about what I did for dinner tonight. Some of you know I struggle with coming up with healthy, easy meals that all of us can eat. And Hunter has really been picky with his proteins lately. Brent suggested tacos before I went grocery shopping yesterday (note to self - don't go to the grocery store for normal weekly shopping on July 4th, especially when it falls on a Saturday). Instead of hamburger meat, we did ground turkey. Instead of taco shells, we did tostada shells (still not great for you, but realistically, we like to eat our tacos like a salad anyway and it forces you to only eat one). And instead of refried beans, I mashed my own black beans with some olive oil. We loaded up the tostada shells with beans, turkey meat with low sodium taco seasoning, sour cream (lite), salsa, avocados, cilantro, tomatoes, onions (I didn't mix the guac this time - we just put everything into the shell). It was YUMMY!!! This will be a new staple for us, until we get burnt out. And Hunter loved the black bean mash - I think he likes anything mashed.

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Have a great week!!

Pregnancy Back Pain

A note to all the women out there who are pregnant or will become pregnant. Do not ever assume that something about your pregnancy is normal or expected just because it's in the books or because your friends had something similar.

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Yesterday, I got up from my desk at work to go get something from the printer and had a severe pain in my lower back. It basically hurt on my left side only when I stepped down with my left foot. When I sat back down, the pain subsided but was still there. At times, when I walked, my left leg felt like it might not hold because of the severity of the pain, but I made it to my car and sat down on the scalding hot leather (the outside temp according to my Highlander said 106). The heat did something good because by the time I got home and got some Tylenol in my system, I was already feeling better.

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Later in the evening, I did something to re-aggravate it and the pain came back with a vengeance. Brent was home and I seriously considered asking him to take me to the emergency room - it was horrible. I could not find any position that eased the pain, except standing with all my weight on my left leg (so the pain switched - still on the left side, but now it hurt when I would take the weight off that side).

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I'm getting long-winded - short version: major pain, like 10 on a scale of 1-10, but we finally found a comfortable position in bed, which I knew would not allow me to sleep, so I ended up sleeping in the media room. Every time I got up to hit the bathroom (and moms know that is VERY often when pregnant), I had to go through the pain again when I tried to get back into the recliner.

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When I woke up this morning, there was significant improvement, but still occasional excruciating pain with certain movements. I had emailed a few people and all seemed to think it was probably my sciatic nerve, so I called my OB nurse to see what she suggested. "Make an appointment with Texas Woman's Physical Therapy." I was thoroughly confused - no one had diagnosed me so how would a physical therapist know what to do? Silly me - the PT can diagnose me and treat me all at the same time. (By the way, I strongly recommend Texas Woman's Physical Therapy - they were WONDERFUL!!!)

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Diagnosis: Right Anterior or Left Posterior Rotation of my pelvis. Ouch! So the pain I was feeling was at my left sacroiliac joint because the loose pelvic ligaments of pregnancy allowed my pelvis to rotate too much and threw it out of whack (that's a medical term). :)

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Treatment: Another medical term for ya - she "straightened me out." She had to massage the muscles back there pretty hard to get the bones to allow her to shift them back in place, so I'll probably be pretty sore tomorrow, but as the day wore on after the appointment was over, the pain significantly improved. Now I just have to remember all the things she told me as far as getting in and out of the car and bed, walking with short, narrow strides, etc. and I'll have 2-3 follow up appointments to make sure everything stays in line. She's going to give me exercises to do at the next appointment but didn't want me doing them yet so that I could rest the area fully and get it back to normal.

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Lesson learned - listen to your instincts and your nurse, even if the nurse at first tells you she needs to check you and make sure you're not in labor ("labor pains can be in your back too, ya know" - of course I know, this is my second pregnancy and those were NOT labor pains. Can I talk to my real nurse now???)