A VERY LONG JUNE!!

Well, the month of June has been a crazy one for our family. The "fun" all started on May 29th. I started feeling pain in my left leg that wasn't too bad but enough to stop me from using it. As the days went on the pain got worse and worse. By Monday I went to my doctor to make sure that the baby was ok. He said that women get pain like this when they are pregnant and didn't think that it was anything out of the ordinary. By the end of that week the pain was so bad. I couldn't use my left leg without causing a TON of pain. The worst of it was in my left groin and it hurt bad. I couldn't stay comfortable in one position for very long. It would just start throbbing and I would move to another position to where it wouldn't hurt as bad till that spot got unbearable. I started sleeping on my recliner chair because laying flat caused too much pain. I had to crawl to the bathroom which I was dreading more and more each day. I would take baths to try and relieve some pain but that would only work for a little while and when I would get out was when it hurt the most. It was like all the pressure of gravity came back in full force and I would just moan and cry on the bed till it decreased in intensity. My niece Talia came down to help us for 2 weeks and how greatful I was for her. By the time she got there I couldn't do much of anything. She took over the house and Kate oh and babysitting me. I really didn't do anything but sit on my chair, try to stay comfortable and try not to cry. I would try cold, heat and tylenol 3. They all seemed to take the edge off but the pain was still there. My doctor suggested that I go to physical therapy to see if they could get me some relief. I went there in the wheelchair that Bradley rented for me and they thought that I had pulled a ligament in my groin and started treating me for that. I would get my leg worked on for a while and then spend some time in the pool. But once again whenever I got out of the pool the pain was overwhelming. It was no longer localized to my groin but it had run down the length of my leg and the whole thing hurt. It was red and sometimes maroon and swollen from my calf down. Whenever it was hanging down it would just throb. At this point now my calf was hurting just as bad or even more than my groin. I went to physical therapy again and they suggested that maybe I had a blood clot and to get it checked out right away. The next day my mom took me to get a doppler flow study (an ultrasound) on my legs. She did my right leg first and it seemed to go well, but I was getting nervous because she was pushing down hard at certain times and I knew that it was going to kill my left leg. She moved to the left leg and I was right. She tried to be gentle but it hurt so bad. I even tried to hide it but it's hard when tears are streeming down your face and you can't breath because of all the snot. It took about 15 minutes per leg, 15 long minutes!!! I didn't expect them to tell me anything because they usually don't at radiology offices, but when she was done she said that I did have a blood clot and that I needed to wait there till my doctor told them where he wanted me to go. I called Bradley and he came down. They said take these x-rays and go straight to the hospital. So Bradley took me down there and mom went to check on Talia and Kate. Poor Talia. She had been with us a week by that point and I had done to the doctor 4 out of the 5 days while she stayed home with Kate. It was such a blessing to have her there but probably not fun for her. We checked in at the hospital on Thursday, June 11th and didn't really know how bad things were or if it was one or several clots. Well, I held the paperwork as they wheeled me to my room and I looked down and it said "extensive blood clots!" I showed Bradley and there was our answer. Not only blood clot"S" but extensive ones at that. I got into a gown and they started hooking me up. Then the doctors started coming in. They said that I had a blood clot that started in my groin and went to the middle of my calf with a little flow behind the knee. GREAT! It was huge! They started me on a blood thinner called Heparin, which is safe while pregnant. It would work on clearing out the clot but also give it more stability. They needed to get the Heparin working on my clot didn't want me to deliver any time in the next 7 to 10 days. Then the head doctor of the NICU came and saw me. His was a relieving visit because with me being 34 weeks along, he was confident that the baby would be just fine and not be needing much, if any of his services. So, I needed to focus on getting this clot under control so that I could deliver a healthy baby sometime soon and so that I wouldn't have a pulminary embolism (where the clot breaks loose and goes to your lungs and possibly your heart causing a very undesirable outcome). I was relieved to finally know the cause of so much pain and greatful that I was going to start getting relief from it. I hadn't had any relief for a week and a half and I was starting to get really discouraged. That much pain for so long really starts to wear on you. So, the hospital days began. Every 12 hours I would have a new nurse that would listen to my lungs, heart and baby. Monitor the baby's heart beats and measure my legs to make sure the swelling was going down. Then I would have my vitals checked (pulse, blood pressure and temperature) every 4 hours morning and night. Then every 12 hours the lab would come up and draw my blood to test to see if the levels of Heparin were correct or if they needed to be decreased or increased. (which happened to be at 4pm and 4am. That's a great way to wake up!) The goal was to try to get me stabalized enough to go home, where I would give myself shots twice a day of Heparin. I started the next tuesday with the shots. I really wasn't excited about it, but knew that it was either do the shots at home or stay here. I was able to do it in my thighs but I tell you that is hard to do. It's something that I don't think I will ever enjoy. With the shots the Heparin I wasn't theapudic, meaning that we didn't have the dosage right. For the next 2 days every time they came back they wern't quite right. We were planning on a Thursday, June 18th discharge, but wednesday night they came in and said that it still wasn't right, so I wouldn't be going home tomorrow and that I needed to get back on the IV because I had been untherapudic for too long. That was a hard blow, but it's what we had to do. That night I woke up at 2 am with major cramps in my upper right stomach that wouldn't go away. I thought that it was just gas and would work it's way through. I took tumbs and gas-x but it was still there after 2 hours. I was sitting with my bed sitting all the way up, my legs as tight to my stomach as possible and my hand pushing into my stomach. I sat there watching tv trying to distract myself and finally fell asleep like that around 5am. I woke up at 6:30 from the pain. It was now getting worse and I was now contracting on top of it. The rest of the day was crazy. I called Bradley and I had a hard time getting a hold of him. He was so worried and rushed down to find me in such pain. I was so greatful to have him there to hold my hand and to focus on when the pain was too much. The morning was a whirlwind of IV's, shots and ultrasounds. The baby seemed fine but they tried to find out what the pain was coming from. They did an ultrasound on my gahlblatter and other organs to try and find the cause. That was painful again because of the pushing and me having to breath deep. It hurt a ton when I would breath. I kept having contractions and they kept trying to stop them with no success. Since we had been working with the Heparin shots they gave me another one earlier in the day because they were worried about my clot, but now that they couldn't get my contractions to stop they were worried about hemoraging during delivery. They gave me this one medicine to stop contractions and it took over my body. I couldn't breath, my heart was racing and I couldn't focus. I looked at Bradley with terror in my eyes and said distract me. He had to tell me to breath and I focused on that or I wouldn't have. Thankfully it didn't last too long. By the evening I had been in and out of it all day and was still contracting. They decited that they would remove my cerclage (the stitch in my cervex). That usually isn't a painful experience but it was horrible. I will spair you the details, but I did feel instant pressure relief when he cut it. That evening they were planning on a delivery but were trying to prolong it as much as possible for me and the baby's safety. They put me on Magnesium Sulfate which eventually slowed down the contractions. It was a nervous night for me but more so for Bradley and everyone else. I would wake up and be in pain and they would give me something and it would knock me out again. Bradley said that I was saying all sorts of weird things. Every time I woke up it was weird to see that different people were there in different positions. It was scary and I didn't want to deliver this baby. Every time my levels would come back I was still too high and the didn't feel it was safe to deliver. Things finally wore off and I woke up in the morning. I felt good. The pain in my stomach was gone and I was still contracting, but they wern't as bad or frequent. My stomach was so soar though, I had been contracting all day and my muscles felt it. Throughout the morning I continued to get better and they sent me back to my room in the Antipartum unit. (the unit for pregnant mom's trying not to have babies yet) We don't know exactly what started the pain. They said that there was some bile sludge in my gahlblatter that can be as painful as gahlstones, but they don't know if that was it. They also think that maybe the baby kicked my placenta hard and since I am on blood thinners, tore it and started into contractions. We'll just have to wait and see when I deliver. Well, I was back in my room 124B and looking like I was going to be there for a while. Every time I would try to go home, something would go wrong. So we decited that me staying here till I deliver with the IV was the safest way. With the shots the Heparin stays in my body for 12 hours (which on Thursday it stayed for over 24) But with the IV it should only 6 hours. So, I've been bunking down for the last 2 weeks and they have been uneventful, greatfully. All my pains are gone and I have been feeling good and can walk on my leg now. That has been the hardest part. When you don't have any pain you forget why you are here and you just want to go home or at least get out of this room. I do have to rememer that if anything my clot is getting better and better. This has been my 21st day in the hospital, I am 37 weeks and today was a great day. This morning at 8am they did an amniocentsis where they poke a needle through your somach to the amniotic fluid and remove some for testing. They wanted to make sure that the lungs were developed enough to enduce me tomorrow. And the tests came back mature, MatURe, MATURE!!! So at 8am tomorrow they are going to enduce me and hopefully have a safe delivery and get a healthy baby here. We are still not out of the woods yet because during delivery there is a chance that the clot could dislodge and there is still the possability of hemorrhaging. So, there is still a lot of danger but I am being highly monitored and there will be people standing by if things go wrong. I am just excited to get on with the next stage of life and to get this clot under control. I am still going to have to deal with it for another 3 months or so and I am ready to get going. I'm sure this doesn't all make sence and I have stipped a lot of what I wanted to say but my 2 hours are up with this hospital laptop and it's someone else's turn. Hopefully July will be a better month. And hopefully Bradley will have a wonderful birthday tomorrow with the best present he could ask for, another baby girl!

GETTING USED TO MY NEW SURROUNDINGS

ME WITH MY 2 LOVES AFTER THE THURSDAY SCARE

ON ONE OF MY DAILY 1/2 HOUR WHEELCHAIR WALKS

2 BEST BUDDIES

Brad and Kate have grown so close during this time. They have really gone through a lot as well. We all look forward to be back together again as a family!