Back to the story

So to get back to the story of being pregnant.  The pump was a miracle for a couple of weeks, my mom was with me at first so before I went back to work she helped me shop for maternity pants, I wasn't showing yet, but I needed looser pants to allow my site to not be bumped all the time.  Things went really well at first, I could eat normally and I was able to go back to work.  I only worked for a few days - it feels like longer, but I was just figuring out dates, and it was probably only about a week, and then I started throwing up again.  I again stopped being able to keep anything down, and based on my weight and dehydration, they sent a nurse out to my house to put in an IV.  I had a few issues with it flowing fast enough, but it stabilized me a little bit.  A day later, I had my weekly doctor's appointment.  I did find that when most patients are pregnant women, they don't want a sick person, especially one toting their own IV pole to sit in the waiting room long, so I was seen almost immediately.  At this appointment, I had my first ultrasound.  With a lot of hyperemesis patients they are carrying multiples, so my doctor wanted to check that out  (also a side note -  people with HG are more likely to be carrying a girl).  They did determine that there was for sure only one baby in there and it was really incredible to see it moving around so much.  I didn't enjoy it as much as I wish I would have though, because I already knew I was going to be hospitalized again.  This doctor's appointment was kind of scary, my doctor talked about the possibility of getting a tube inserted so that the baby and I could get the nutrition that we needed.  She also decided that my situation was now more serious than what she dealt with.  I still saw her weekly for my appointments, but all the decisions were now being made by a high risk doctor.  It did impress me that she turned me over to someone else and I trusted her more.  So again we went straight from the doctor's office to be checked into the hospital.  At the hospital I was on the maternity floor, then because of overcrowding up there, right before night I was shifted down to pediatrics.  My new doctor came in and told me that I would be having the tube inserted.  He explained it some, it was called a PICC line - PICC stands for peripherally inserted central catheter - and I'd get it the next day.  This visit was a difficult one, I was given Reglan a lot, which we figured out makes me feel like my skin is crawling.  It gave me the jitters, and I wanted to walk and not be still, but was too weak to do so.  I'd guess that I told Tad I wanted to go home about 100 times or so.  The pediatric nurses were really wonderful to me, there was no one else on the floor, so I had their undivided attention.  When Tad had to go home to let the dogs out and get our things for the night, they put me in a rocking chair with a really warm blanket so that I could get some of my jitters out.  After that when it was time to get my meds, they would give me benedryl first, to calm me down - which really worked but it was REALLY painful.  It would burn my veins and I could feel it as it traveled up my arm.  I hated it, but I was glad for more calm and less freaking out.  The next day I would get my PICC, and my parents came up for it.  I was very scared to get it put in, so the nurse that would administer it called me in the morning to talk me through what she would do and tried to put me at ease.  It didn't really work, but I appreciated her kindness and thoughtfulness.  Getting a PICC is a sterile procedure, so only Tad could stay in the room with me.  The nurse strapped my arm down to a table (not a good feeling) and got it put in.  She was incredibly kind and told me that she'd tell me what she was doing at each step - I told her, no thanks.  First she numbed my arm with a painful burning shot, then cut my skin open a little bit to be able to thread the catheter into my vein.  It went up into my right arm, and stopped just above my heart.  The procedure went well, it was not nearly as bad as I would have guessed.  My PICC had 2 'ports' on it, so I was able to get fed through one of them and could get medication and my blood drawn through the other.  They kept telling me how nice it was going to be that I could get blood drawn this way and they didn't have to stick me.  the bad news was that a PICC makes you more likely to devlope a blood clot, so I had to go on blood thinners, which was an injection to the side of my stomach daily.  Again, Tad learned how to do this, as there was no possible way I'd be sticking a needle in my own stomach!  After getting the PICC in the hospital made me up a bag of TPN (total parenteral nutrition).  They got me hooked up to it right before I went to bed, and that turned out to be a very long night.  No one had taken out my IV, so I was getting IV fluid and TPN all at once.  I would have to go to the bathroom SO bad about every 20 minutes.  So Tad would drift off to sleep and I'd have to wake him up to take me to the bathroom.  It was awful, but then a nurse figured out that I didn't need both, so I got off the IV fluid.  We had to stay in the hospital until the next night, because Tad had to learn how to change my bag and take care of my lines.  They also came out to our house once to walk him through it.  It was a complicated process and it was important that he did it correctly, but the nurses were very impressed with him :)  Below are some pictures of the PICC  - another time I will post pictures of Tad caring for it.  sorry this was a long entry! 








This was in my room, since I was on pediatrics, they gave me a beanie baby dog :)




not a very attractive picture, but the purple line on the right shows where the tube stopped inside of me and you can see the PICC - here I am attached to the TPN, but the other one was free.





Mother's Day

Well to be honest, mother's day is a very difficult day for me.  Not following along with our history here, but I thought I'd take a few minutes to talk about being a mother without a child.  Today was an ok day - I don't believe that 'time heals all wounds' but time definitely makes things a little duller of a pain.  Last year I asked Tad to not do anything for mother's day, I didn't want to think about it.  At that point I was only a few days away from my due date, and was already having a really rough time.  So last year Tad let me decide how I wanted to spend the day.  I don't remember a whole lot of the day, except that we went to the hospital.  When we were in the hospital having the baby (I'm sure I'll talk about it more in a later entry) they were amazing to us.  One of the things that they have is called the Wall of Miracles - if you have a live baby, you are able to put a plaque on the wall with their name birthdate and footprint, for I think a $50 donation.  If you have a baby die, they give you a plaque for free.  All the babies plaques are intermixed, you can see some families' histories on the wall.  So we went to see Gabriel's plaque last year - below I will add some pictures of it.  We didn't have him buried, so it is probably the closest thing to visiting his grave that we have.  We go there whenever, but mainly we've gone on important days so far.  His due date, mother's day, father's day, his birthday, and when we've had family in town.  So this year, we again had a relaxing day, this morning we stayed around home, I got some sun (a little too much actually) and didn't do much.  This afternoon we went over and visited Gabriel's plaque.  He had a new 'neighbor' plaque since the last time we'd been there.  It was another baby that had died.  To see how many babies are up there each year that don't make it seems so impossible.  We often feel so alone in our pain, but really there must be people everywhere going through the same thing.  Afterwards we went for a long walk, then a nice Sunday drive, and out for dinner.    I know that some people do not see me as a mother, because I don't have a child here, but I am absolutely a mother.  I have not had to stay up nights with a crying infant, but I was awake nights throwing up all night.  I haven't had to choose a day care, or how to parent, but I did have to choose to be poked and proded daily in order to keep my son as safe as possible.  I look forward to future mother's days where I can hold a child in my arms, but I will never forget my first child.  I may not look like a mother to an outsider, but I have known the wonder and amazement of holding a child in my arms that my body had been able to form - which is truly a miracle.  To all of you moms out there, I hope you had a wonderful day.



Gabriel's plaque - we have a matcing one at home.



  

Hyperemesis Gravidarum

So when I was in the hospital the first time I was given information about hyperemesis gravidarum (HG)  but didn't know a whole lot about it.  Since then I have found an incredible website http://www.hyperemesis.org/ and read as many books as I could get my hands on to try to understand more.  Please feel free to read more on the above website, it has the best information I've found, and is really great.  While in the hospital the doctor told me that throwing up was going to have to be something I got used to and lived with, so Monday morning, I again tried to go to work - pink bucket in tow.  I was again not keeping anything down, and didn't last the entire day.  Later in the week - probably on Friday - I went and saw my doctor for the first time.  We chose her by going with a Christian clinic here in town, and I wanted a female doctor, and she was the only one there, so we felt lucky that she was what we were hoping for.  She was concerned about my lack of improvement, and decided to hospitalize me again so that I could get rehydrated.  They had also recently started working with an in home nursing company, so she wanted me put into their program.  While with them I had to check my urine daily to see if I was in ketosis, and my weight and call it into a nurse.  They also were able to come out to our house so that I didn't have to be put in the hospital any time I needed an IV.  Most importantly though what they could offer was a pump for my medication.  While in the hospital this time, they again put an IV in.  They got it on the 3rd try - I got a lot of medicine through there and was someone regulated again. Then a nurse came to install my pump and teach Tad and I how to use it.  The good thing about it was I could no longer throw up my medicine, it went directly into my blood stream, and I got it around the clock.  The bad thing was that it had to be put in my thigh.  I was really not thrilled with this information, but was told over and over that it was a small needle that went just under the skin.  I will agree that in general it was a small needle, what they didn't tell me though is that it just went straight down into my leg, and I had to have it changed from one leg to the other every 3 days.  My parents came when I was in the hosptial this time, which I really appreciated.  I was in for 2 nights.  Tad learned how go change my 'site' from leg to leg and we both learned the ins and outs of the pump. 



my mom and I waiting for the nurse to show up

 After getting the pump I thought it was going to be my miracle, I really started to feel better and was able to work for about a week and 1/2. 



in the hospital after getting my pump installed

 



these next pictures are from home, when I was feeling pretty good, this is as I had my site changed on my left leg is the old site that is getting taken out, and in my right leg is the new one, so it has the cover on it with the medication going in.





my legs did not react well at all to the pump being in them, they got all red and irritated, and I didn't think they'd never look normal again - thankfully though, there is only one spot where you can see the markings






feeling pretty good - trying to get my old one out

 



after it was out, my painful leg with the medicine coming back out of the hole it made.

 


the is the part that stayed in my leg - when it went in there was a needle with the little tube, but after it is in your leg and secure, then the part with the needle comes out.  It was quite painful, but at least it made me feel better.

  

Pregnancy Part 1

On September 16th 2009 - Tad and I found out that we were expecting.  I was excited, but very freaked out!  Tad took the news much more calmly :)  We spent the next few days trying to pick a doctor and hospital.  We were planning to see our parents 3 weekends in a row coming up, so the plan was to tell each of them in person.  We found out on a Wednesday, and I felt fine through the weekend. 

On Monday morning, I started feeling what is probably normal morning sickness.  I felt sick all morning, then could eat pretty well from about noon to 5 and then felt sick all evening. During this week we picked a doctor, and set an apointment. On Friday the 25th, I threw up for the first time and the 26th was the last day I was able to keep food down.  I worked for a few hours Monday, but went home pretty early.  Monday I called my doctor and told the nurse how sick I was, she put in a presciption for me and thought it would make me feel a lot better.  That was my first experience with a suppository - not a big fan, and it didn't help me.  Tuesday was more of the same, another prescription, a stronger suppository, and again no results.  Wednesday I was given a new prescription for Zofran, they told me this was a lot stronger, so I had dissolving tablets, and again, didn't feel a change.  At this time we were starting to get worried, so we decided to call our parents and let them know what was going on.  We also decided to not go on a trip that weekend that we had planned.  We were to fly to Albuquerque to see Tad's family.  In the wee hours of Thursday morning, Tad called the emergency number for our doctor and she called him back.  She told him to take me to the hospital.  We waited until morning to go, I didn't want to be hospitalized, so I was hoping to just be able to have a regular appointment.  In the morning though, nothing had changed, so we went to the hospital to get an IV because I was very dehydrated. 
  In the hospital they got my IV started on the second try - they placed it in my left hand in a vein on my wrist, it hurt the entire time it was in - they even gave me an ice pack.  When I turn my wrist now I can still sometimes feel where it was placed. 

While there I was on the labor and delivery floor, they gave me a lot of Zofran through the IV and alternated it with Reglan. 

I got this pink bucket that day, and it hardly left my armspan the entire rest of my pregnancy.

I was only in the hospital for a little over 24 hours.  My doctor who I still had not met was not on call, so we saw another one from her practice.  He was a total pompus jerk, and I was very unimpressed.  He gave me a piece of paper with what I had been diagnosed with, never even bothered to tell me more about it or the name or anything.  He just told me that getting sick was going to have to be something I got used to.  While there I felt very uncomfortable and wanted to go home so badly.  Tad slept on a little cot in the room with me.  Before I was released they gave me grape juice, a popsicle and jello.  They thought the IV fluid would help regulate me and I'd be able to keep things down.   When Tad was driving me home, we had just gotten to our exit when all of the things they'd given me came right back into the pink bucket and so it began the cycle again...

Welcome

Hello and welcome to our blog :)  We thought we'd make an area where we could update people on our lives and our journey to building our family.  Please feel free to follow along!  I just thought I'd start out with our short history.  Tad and I met in January of 1999, got to know one another on a missions trip to North Carolina that summer, and had our first date during Thanksgiving break of that year.  We dated through the rest of my high school years and college.  Tad proposed in January of 2004, and we were married the following year in June. 


the day after we got engaged



June 2005


 After we were married - we lived in Champaign/Urbana for a little over a year, and then moved just north of Green Bay, WI.  As we moved, we got 2 new puppies and enjoyed the craziness that they added to our lives. 


PJ and Colby when they were brand new



Over the years we discussed having kids at length.  We knew that was what we wanted for our little family, but we weren't sure how we wanted to go about it.  I was nervous to be pregnant, and we didn't feel it was necessary that our children be biological so we thought for a while about only adopting.  In the end we decided that it would be interesting to have a biological child - and probably easier to do first, so we decided to start trying for a baby in January of 2009.