Dear Baby Peanut,
This past week has been a little scary, disappointing and painful. We headed to Vail for vacation and to photograph a wedding. We drove out and visited with cousin Lauren and then spent the night with Aunt Mary and Uncle Larry in Lincoln before making the rest of the drive the next day. When I woke up the following morning, I had some very uncomfortable pain in my back and side. Originally, I thought I slept funny or pulled a muscle. I kept rolling into different ways but the pain wouldn’t go away and was getting worse and I was beginning to feel nauseous. Eventually, I got sick and knew we needed to go to the Dr. We headed to the Urgent Care to get checked out and were then sent to the Emergency Room at the Hospital. The pain had steadily increased and was unbearable. I was worried about you and that I could have kidney stones or appendicitis. They checked you our right away and you were very active and had a strong heartbeat so they gave me some medication to help manage the pain. Eventually, we had an ultrasound done and learned my kidney was very enlarged and swollen. However, they weren’t able to determine anything without a CT scan so they released me with some very mild pain medication and told me to come back the next morning. It was pretty clear they didn’t know what was causing the pain or how to find out because I was pregnant, which was a little unnerving.
We proceeded to attend the rehersal dinner and not tell anyone what was going on because we didn’t want to worry anyone. I got sick twice throughout the evening because the pain was so excruciating. Never have I been in so much pain that I actually throw up. Although I was in a lot of pain, I felt I could manage it because you were healthy and maybe even a little prep for labor. The next morning, I felt decent so we began photographing the wedding and things were going pretty good until we headed to the top of the mountain, and I kind of fell apart. While Daddy was photography Nikki and Ryan, I was laying on the bathroom floor trying to feel better and hoping the pain would go away. The pain continued to get worse and I was pretty much incapable of doing anything. As soon as the ceremony was over, Daddy took me down the Gondola and to the condo to sleep off the pain. Thankfully, Micah was able to help Daddy take a couple photos while he was taking care of me. The following morning, I was feeling OK so we spent it with Micah walking around Vail Village. I was in pain and had to take it easy but was able to keep food down for the whole day.
Originally, we were scheduled to stay a couple extra days, but I was still feeling crapy and wanted to go home and figure out what was causing all this pain. So we drove for 18 straight hours to get home. The Vail Doctors thought I had Kidney stones and had advised that I strain my pee in hope of catching the stones (and let me tell you it was always awkward coming out of a public restroom and having to rinse the strainer), Dr. G didn’t think I had kidney stones. She believed you were pushing on my ureter (tube between my kidney and bladder) as you were growing and essentially putting a kink in my tube causing urine to get trapped in my kidney. The next day we had another ultrasound, which campe back inconclusive of any diagnosis. Unless the pain got worse, I needed to muster through the pain. There was a good chance that it would go away as the pregnancy continued, but there was also a good chance it wouldn’t. In addition to pain, the medication I was taking made me very constipated. I hadn’t pooped in over 9 days. I was even given medicine that is supposed to clear you out and it did nothing. Praying things get better or it’s going to be a long four months.
Love, Mom
Peanut Smiles 