Kara: The Pregnancy

WARNING: LONG!

Obviously, this is coming to you quite a bit late, but I really should document my pregnancy, so why not do it here?

A couple of posts ago, I talked about how long it had taken us to get pregnant. A year, people. A year. And, to top it off, we had a miscarriage in the middle (so I guess, it took us six months, a miscarriage, and another six months...). So needless to say, I was seriously excited when I got my positive test.

Here's something I wrote on another blog about the moment I found out:

Anyone who's ever had a positive home pregnancy test can remember the moment. The second when you look at the stick that you've just peed on and actually see a positive result, whether it be a +, or two pink lines, or just the word pregnant.

I can't tell you how many sticks I've peed on in my life. But they always seemed to come back negative. So when I saw the positive test, I had to look again. I almost brought it to my neighbor's house to ask if she saw the second line too because I was sure I had tricked myself.

But when I was sure, I cried. Happy tears mixed with the words, "I'm pregnant," spoken only to myself since no one else was home. I looked at myself in the mirror in our bathroom and could already feel myself growing. My waist wasn't any bigger, but my heart was already making room for the little girl I'll meet this December.

That's the actual test! I still have it under the sink in my bathroom, too. I don't know if I'll ever actually do anything with it. But I can't bring myself to throw it away.

I found out that I was pregnant on April 15, 2010; I was just a couple days short of 4 weeks along. It was kind of hard to find out so early because it made my pregnancy seem to last for an eternity, plus, my OB doesn't see his patients until they are 8 weeks along. I remember calling my doctor's office and letting them know I was pregnant and needed an appointment. When they started to schedule me for 8 weeks I tried really hard to get them to do it earlier. "I've had a miscarriage in the past, shouldn't I come in earlier to make sure everything is ok?" I asked. But no, they said if things weren't ok there wasn't much they would be able to do about it. "Come in if you have any abnormal pain or cramping," the nurse said (which I thought was ridiculous since the only time I'd ever been pregnant before had resulted in a loss. What the heck is normal pregnancy-related pain?!?) So I had to wait. And that was a LONG 4 weeks!

Since I had had no sickness with my previous pregnancy, I actually remember really hoping to start having morning sickness with this pregnancy. In my head sickness meant that everything was going well. And, boy, did I get my wish. Starting at about six weeks I was nauseated. At first it was nothing more than intense nausea; I just felt SO sick, but didn't really throw up. Then it started to escalate. I started vomiting one to two times a day. When I went in for my eight-week appointment, I got to see my sweet, tiny baby and hear her heart beat; she looked like this:

Also at that appointment, my doctor offered me a prescription to help with my nausea. I agreed, but when I got home I realized I had forgotten to ask the nurse for it; I figured I would be ok—I could handle throwing up every now and then. But the next day I started throwing up a bit more frequently, so I called my doctor and got my prescription called in. All better, right? No such luck. As the days went on, I continued to get more and more sick; I couldn't go to work because I was rather useless as an employee—I spent half of the day in the bathroom and the other half with my head on my desk. I stayed home and watched television all day. I felt useless, and in reality, I kind of was. It got so bad that I could hardly walk up our stairs. Alma would bring me a sampling of different drinks in the morning before leaving for work so I could see if any would stay down. I always had a bowl next to me, just in case, and some days I decided it was just better if I camped out on the bathroom floor next to the toilet.

Then one day I started throwing up in the early morning and just couldn't stop. I lost count of how many times I had thrown up at around 30. Alma came home and tried to get me to have a popsicle; I threw it up. He tried Gatorade; I threw it up too. Then I didn't eat or drink anything, and I still threw up. My medicine was not working since I couldn't keep it down long enough to digest. I remember throwing it up completely whole and then trying to take the same pill again (really gross, I know...). So we finally decided to head to the ER. We got there and they found Kara's heart beat, which was nice to hear, and then they gave me a medication called Zofran that dissolves under your tongue and gets into your bloodstream quickly. They then proceeded to give me three glasses of orange juice. I was fine for about an hour, but then that all came up too. They finally decided to give me 2 liters of IV fluid with liquid Zofran in the IV as well. I finally got home around 2:30 am and I think I slept until noon the next day.

Upon hearing about my day at the ER, my doctor gave me 2 more prescriptions for nausea, but when I ended up in urgent care a week later for more IV fluids, my doctor decided it was time for IV therapy. Luckily I didn't have to get to many more IVs. I started feeling better around 20 weeks and my first prescription got my nausea under control.

Here's me at 23 weeks; finally feeling pretty well:
I also got to have an ultrasound around this time, but unlike the last one, my baby actually looked like a baby in this one. It was a lot of fun to see her moving around, to know that there really was a little tiny person growing inside of me, and to find out she was a girl!

Here are some images from that ultrasound:



Once I got to feeling well, I thought the rest of my pregnancy would be smooth sailing. I signed up for 18 credits at school and prayed that Kara would come no sooner than one week early so I could finish my finals. Everything was fine for about half of the semester, but at 30 weeks I went in for a regular appointment and had high blood pressure. The doctor made the nurse check it repeatedly, but it wouldn't go down. In fact, it just kept going up. My doctor ordered a handful of tests for me at the hospital (which was literally right next to his office) and sent me over.

I was there for a couple of hours; they hooked me up to monitors that regularly checked my blood pressure, the baby's heart beat, and whether I was having contractions. The baby was fine, I wasn't contracting, and my blood pressure went down, so the nurse called my doctor to let him know. Even though everything looked good, he ordered a 24-hour urine test (that's right, folks, I got to collect my pee for 24 hours!) and instructed me to stay in bed for the next 2 days. I was to come back in two days to see how everything looked and at that point my doctor would decide whether I was on bed rest for the rest of my pregnancy or not.

Honestly, for the two days I had to wait to go back to the doctor's, I felt fairly confident that all would return to normal after my appointment, so I emailed my professors (remember how I was taking 18 credits?!) and let them know what was going on, but that I would probably be back by the next week.

When I went back to my doctor, the nurse came in to check my blood pressure, "118/76" she said. And I knew that since my blood pressure was great, I wasn't going to be put on bed rest. My doctor came in and started looking through my chart and said, "Well, your blood pressure looks good, BUT there was some protein in your urine. You know what that means? Bed rest." I'm pretty sure my jaw hit the floor, I turned bright red, and tears filled my eyes all at the same time. "Permanently?" I asked. "No," he responded, "just until the end of your pregnancy." My mind was racing and I had no idea what to do. Obviously my baby was the most important thing, but I was taking a full course load and working. I didn't have time for bed rest.

My doctor wrote a nice note explaining the circumstances and sent me on my way to follow up the next week. That day I emailed all of my professors with the doctor's note attached. Here's what I said:

Professor,
I've attached a letter from my doctor explaining that I am to be on bed rest for the remainder of my pregnancy. It's extremely frustrating, but I guess life is what happens when we make plans, right? Anyway, the withdraw deadline has passed, so please let me know what we can do to work things out. If there is any way to complete the course from home, I would love to do that (I need something to keep my mind occupied); however, I completely understand if that's not possible. If I can't continue the course this semester, is a medical incomplete the next choice?
I apologize for the inconvenience. Please let me know what needs to be done.
Thank you

Also, here's the doctor's note:

I actually was really fortunate to have the professors that I did; they all were willing to work with me. I ended up having to do a lot more work than I would have in a normal semester, and I had a lot of help from friends who recorded lectures for me and shared their notes. It was very stressful, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to finish, but I did, I finished the semester and took my last final just 3 days before Kara was born. And I even had a pretty darn good GPA.

Here's a picture of me 2 days before I got put on bed rest. 30 weeks:
The rest of my pregnancy was fairly uneventful. I was on bed rest until Kara was born, and toward the end of the pregnancy I was going to the doctor twice a week to be monitored. My fluid levels were a little low toward the end too, but they never got too low.

Here's an image from an ultrasound I had at 32 weeks (the hospital lost my original ultrasound information, so I got a second one for free!):

I started throwing up again around once a day at about 32 weeks, and I had HORRIBLE heart burn. I think we went through 3 Costco size bottles of TUMS. I was feeling pretty miserable as I neared the end. Here's a post from another blog that I wrote about how awful I was feeling:

I'm posting this here because I really want to complain and my husband is at school. Plus this blog is all about pregnancy, so even though no one is going to want to read this, I'm posting it.

I am only 33w3d. Now, I know that means my due date is in less than 7 weeks, but it also means that I have a little over 6 weeks to go (ish...). The problem is that I am already miserable!

I'm an emotional wreck since I've been on bed rest, mostly because I feel useless.
I have heartburn ALL the time.
My nausea has come back; usually in the middle of the night and in the morning.
Sleeping is almost impossible with the heartburn and constant having to pee.
My back hurts pretty much all the time, unless I'm lying in just the right position

I've been feeling this way for a little while now, so why did I decide to post about it today?

Last night:
I went to bed like normal; it was about 11 and I took some tums right as I laid down and had 4 more on my dresser for when I woke up with the horrible heart burn. 12:30 rolls around and I wake up with heart burn. Normal; I sit up, chew 2 tums and lie back down. 2 rolls around, same story, only I really had to pee, so I got up and peed and then took my 2 tums. 4 am rolls around, and if you've been counting, you know that I'm out of tums on my dresser. I woke up with heartburn and the slight urge to pee, but I really didn't feel like getting up. So, I rolled over and got the hugest wave of nausea and heartburn. I immediately sat up because of how intense the nausea was, I got up and half-ran to the bathroom and barely made it to the toilet before throwing up...whatever was in my stomach. To top it off, my bladder control isn't the greatest so I definitely peed while throwing up. Once I was done barfing, my mouth tasted awful so I rinsed/gargled with mouth wash, and then got in the shower, since I had peed all over myself. Don't forget, it's 4am. Finally, I got out and dried off. I stumbled my way back to our bedroom and got on some clean clothes before getting back into bed and shivering/listening to my husband snore until I fell asleep (which I swear was at least an hour later...).

Like I said, I was pretty miserable toward the end. But what's funny is that now, when I look at pregnant women, I kind of want to be pregnant again. Sure, I was nauseated, had horrible heartburn, had a constant back ache, and peed on myself occasionally, but I've never liked my body more than I did while I was pregnant. I really did feel beautiful. I was supporting a life other than my own, and my shape showed it. My belly was a constant reminder of the gorgeous little girl inside of me, and I loved feeling Kara kick, roll, and get the hiccups (she got the hiccups ALL the time). So while pregnancy had its down sides, I definitely loved it, and I plan to do it again one day :)

Here's the last picture I have of me pregnant with Kara. This was at 38 weeks even. She was born 2 days later: