She's here, oh happy day!

John took this picture of me looking like death.

Saturday when Madison woke up we jumped in the car and went back to the campsite to spend the rest of the day with family. I wasn't very comfortable on the drive up but nothing too bad. When we got to the campsite the pain was getting worse. I went to the bathroom hoping that peeing would do something, anything and yet knowing that it wasn't going to. I tried sitting, it didn't help.

The kids and John wanted to go fishing so we loaded everything up and drove a mile down the road to 2nd Dam to go fishing. We hiked in, John even carried my chair so I'd have someplace to sit. The pain kept getting worse and worse. I was at the point of trying to decide if the fishermen would appreciate me losing my cookies in the water or in the brush behind them. John realized that I was not doing well and we all went back to the car. He was driving me home so I could lie down but the pain was so bad that we decided a Dr.'s visit was in order.

I made John drive all the way back to the campsite to drop the kids off with his Mom and Dad so that we wouldn't have to deal with them while I was unable to help. Thankfully they were willing to take them and off to Insta-care we went. They put me at the top of the list and got me in super quick. The doctor came in and told us that he'd already called Labor and Delivery and that we were supposed to go there. 

We got to the hospital and they admitted me very quickly. They also found an OB for me since mine was in a different county and got everything rolling fairly quickly. 

I told them that I thought it was a kidney stone with contractions. They wanted to know how I knew and when I told them that it was the only thing that made sense they looked skeptical because I'd never had a kidney stone before. They started running tests and one nurse didn't think that I looked like I was in enough pain to be either in labor or have a kidney stone.

It didn't take very long for them to figure out that I was indeed in A LOT of pain and that the drugs they were giving me weren't helping enough. Luckily John was out getting lunch when the worst of it hit so he didn't have to go through that. I had one nurse who was fabulous, she got a wet rag and started wiping my face to help with the nausea and the pain. (Later when she was checking on me, she was rubbing my forehead and then started tracing my jawline with her finger. She stopped herself and apologized, she said I looked like her girls and her motherly side took over. I thought it was sweet and told her that I didn't mind at all. Needless to say, I liked her because she was a calming influence and she was sweet!)

The ultrasonographer came up to my room so that I wouldn't have to be pushed around the hospital in so much pain and started her work. (I only interrupted her twice with the need to lose the contents of what was in my belly.) She checked on our newest growing member. She is still a she and she guesstimated that she weighs 5.1 lbs. Our little one is growing and developing and everything looked normal. Next she moved onto my L kidney, the side with which I thought death was going to be coming from. My kidney was swollen because it had so much fluid in it, but otherwise it looked fine. My R kidney was normal looking. Then she moved on to the bladder. I have to say that having someone push directly on your bladder as hard as I think they could've, while you're 34 weeks pregnant is a most undesirable event. She did find in my right ureter a kidney stone. It was stuck at the junction between ureter and bladder. When she measured it, she guessed it was a 4 x 6 mm stone, nice and big for those who aren't familiar with kidney stones. So, I was right, although I would not have minded being wrong!

When she left the nurse checked my dilation because I was having contractions too. I was at a 2 1/2 dilation with 70% effacement! Needless to say, they gave me a shot to stop the contractions. They gave me another shot about an hour later because they still hadn't stopped. The second shot dropped their frequency sufficiently and I was left with only kidney pain. Having never had a kidney stone, I assumed that I would be leaving the hospital that night, assumed was the key word there.

I finally found a position that I could lie in and not be in pain, one position. If I moved however the pain would return and I would be miserable for at least another half an hour. Going to the bathroom was such a discouraging chore. Not only did I have to have someone help me because I was shaking in pain, but they also had to cart my IV around and a puke bucket because I would inevitably lose whatever was in my stomach when I got out of bed. Nurses should be paid more.

This morning before John got to the hospital I was feeling pretty good, I wasn't shaking too badly when I walked to the bathroom and I didn't lose anything for TWO bathroom trips! And then it hit. Thankfully I was still taking the puke bucket with me just in case or the poor nurse would've had to get a cleaning crew! Needless to say they gave me a lot more drugs and I was lying there feeling like death. But with massive sickness comes some reward - at least in this story.

My bathroom trips were infrequent compared to any other pregnant womens and compared to anyone else who is having fluid pumped into them at the rate they were pumping it in to me. Once that sickness hit, the bathroom trips increased in frequency, which was good and bad. It helped relieve some of the kidney pain but caused me pain each time I had to get out of bed. The happy moment came when we found "the stone". Not nearly as exciting as having a baby, but let me tell you we were pretty proud to have gotten that thing out. We are assuming that the massive sickness that overcame me was the kidney stone making its way through the tiny ureter/bladder joining. 

I started improving in pain, shaking and nausea from that point on. So much so, that the doctor came and released me at about 1 pm! Little did I know that the swollen kidney would still hurt like a beast when the medication that they had been pumping intravenously wore off. They sent me home with some good pain killers, but lets be honest, they aren't doing what the other stuff had been doing. So, I'm slightly miserable still, but it could be worse so I'm trying not to complain too loudly. My Mother-in-Law even stayed to watch the kids today while we were still dealing with this and she's going to stay tonight too so she can help with a Dr.'s appointment for Alexis Monday - she's amazing I know! 

I'm awake, but I still look like death.

Morphine makes you really itchy. I'll never understand why people are addicted to it, the itching is so annoying!

And here she is! 4 x 6 mm.

This little beauty caused me more physical pain than anything else in my life, I was so excited to see her go.