Time for an update

Whew... we had quite the weekend. I woke up at about 6:30 am on Mother's Day, promptly went to the restroom and noticed that the longer I was in there, the more intense my pain was becoming. I have had ovarian cysts before, and it felt very similar, so I laid back down to see if it would pass. It didn't. The pain kept getting worse, and I told David, "I think we need to go to the hospital." As I was trying to get ready to go, I was going upstairs to get something and began to pass out on the stairs, breaking the handrail on the way up. I eventually regained enough thought to crawl to the top of the stairs and lay down, fighting the urge to throw up. Once I caught my voice, I told David to call 911 instead. I thought for sure it was a tubal pregnancy and that the baby or me was in serious trouble. They got there fairly fast, and started an IV right away since my BP was only 80/50. They gave me some IV anti-nausea medication and took me to the ER.

The pain and nausea and light-headed feeling continued all day, even with the meds. to help it. Every time I urinated, the pain got worse, not like a bladder infection, but like the muscles in my uterus/surrounding area were spasming. They ran a few tests and said it looked like the pain was coming from a cyst that was leaking some sort of fluid, but they wanted to keep me overnight to make sure it wasn't a tubal or appendicitis. So we spent Mother's Day and the next day in the hospital getting not-so-great treatment. My first nurse, when my pain and discomfort was the worst, would say, "well, your vitals look fine," when I would call her and tell her how horrible I was feeling, instead of actually asking if there was something she could do to help. She actually stopped the IV almost as soon as I arrived at the hospital, even though the IV had gotten my BP up to normal. She restarted it when I told her I was feeling lightheaded again, even though I was laying flat on my back. One nurse thought I was 5 months pregnant, one thought I had just delivered, one said my pain could be implantation-related and tried to offer me ibuprofen, when it's a no-no during pregnancy. The ER doc said that they couldn't confirm I was actually pregnant since the fetus wasn't visible yet, even though my HCG had risen substantially and there was a gestational sac in the uterus. Maybe they meant they didn't know if I had a viable pregnancy, but to be told that you might not be pregnant when you're so scared for the baby is very upsetting. The nurse I had for Monday was awful. Not only was there a huge language barrier (they should really require that the nurses at least understand everything you're saying), but she rarely checked on me, thought I was there for contractions, and refused to take out my IV that was obviously irritating my vein. How hard would it be to start a new one if needed?! Then the kicker came during check-out when the Dr. came in and said, "I see you're here because you're having some discomfort." Some discomfort, I thought! Stubbing your toe causes some discomfort, this was more than discomfort... it is the worst pain I have ever been in!! He hardly explained a thing, told us the HCG had dropped from the morning to the evening, and never confirmed what the pain had been caused from or how long I could expect it to last.

In all, I felt like the majority of the people just brushed me off. By the time the charge nurse got there, I was so upset I was bawling, and I just spilled out how I felt and what had gone on. She gave me a sheet to fill out and told me to write everything down, and called my OB right away. She personally stopped by on her way home from her hair appointment to talk to us about things. She said I was definitely pregnant, and that the HCG drop could have been from the cyst bursting. She also confirmed that she thought the cyst was the cause of the pain, and to expect residual pain for up to a week. I was so thankful that she stopped by, it really helped me out and answered some questions.

I had a follow-up ultrasound yesterday, and they saw a yolk sac in the gestational sac, and the sac had grown as well. My HCG had gone from 5700 Sunday morning to 4900 Sunday evening to 13000 Tuesday morning. So all signs look good right now. And, as expected, my morning sickness hit yesterday afternoon. Now I'm fighting all-day nausea and taking it as another good sign, even though I feel like death warmed over. So that's why I've been absent for a few days. I'll have another blood draw and ultrasound on Monday to see where things are at. Keep praying!!