It is Friday, February 15 and I got home from the hospital again last night. What? How can that be -- the girls were born on February 5 -- 10 days in the hospital? Not exactly! We had a second little adventure and I am just itching to share the story. It's a doozie!
I was discharged from the hospital on Friday, February 8 -- we didn't actually leave there until after 9:00 because we wanted to be there for the girls evening feedings. Both Geoff and I were exhausted, but it was nice to be home. Our house is in such disarray, since it is still in transition from being a bed rest home to being a home for two newborn baby girls -- we have a lot of work ahead of us to get it to that point.
I got upstairs and set up my breast pump and Geoff got our video camera set up, so I would have good "pumping" footage to get the milk flowing. I got my bag unpacked and Geoff did a load of laundry before heading off to bed.On Saturday, we spend most of the day with the girls -- arriving at the hospital in time for Emily's 11:30 feeding and staying until about 5 pm for their dinner-time feedings. After that we took advantage of the opportunity to go out for dinner -- so we headed to our favorite Chinese restaurant. Once we were home, again things were fairly uneventful -- I checked email and tried to get up to date with my Baby Center friends and my blog.
Afterwards, I headed to the girls room where we set up my temporary pumping station. After pumping, I started getting ready for bed and as I do every night, headed to the bathroom. (Sorry if this may be TMI -- but I feel it is necessary to fully understand what happens next) -- Once the urine stated flowing, I started feeling some of the most intense pain I have ever felt in my life. I had no idea what could have caused it -- but it sure seemed like the pain was brought on by urination. After about 5 minutes of extreme discomfort, the pain began to subside. Geoff was outside of the bathroom door and asked if everything was okay -- he obviously could hear my cries of distress. I told him what happened and said that it could be just contractions as my uterus shrinks back to its normal size (it was my best guess). I resumed my nightly routine of getting ready for bed and things seemed to be back to normal -- at least for the time being.
I woke up at around 1:00 am, and thought it was a good time to pump, so I headed to the bathroom to gather my pumping supplies. Before heading to the pumping room, I again went to the bathroom and again endured the same intense pain as I had felt earlier. It lasted for about 5 minutes and soon I was able to return to normal activities. I went to pump and returned to bed.
At around 4 am, I woke up again -- but this time the pain was brought on just being in bed, I felt the need to urinate, but I couldn't get myself out of bed -- the pain was just too intense. Geoff was awake with me and stood looking at me with a look of concern I had never before seen on his face. He looked like he wanted to snap his fingers and take my pain away immediately -- but he couldn't do a thing to help me, and he knew it. After about 20 minutes of rolling around in the most intense pain I had ever felt in my life, I asked Geoff to call the doctor's answering service and have my doctor paged. The doctor called just minutes later and Geoff gave her the low-down on my situation. Of course there wasn't much she could tell us over the phone, but she told Geoff that if the pain continued, that we really needed to go to the emergency room -- I figured that was going to be her recommendation. I of course feared that I was just constipated and I didn't want to be the dope to get rushed to the ER only to be given an enema and sent home (and then be joked about by the ER staff for weeks to come). After Geoff hung up the pain again subsided and I eventually became comfortable enough to sleep again.
This pattern of on and off pain continued throughout the morning. I was comfortable long enough to shower, but then soon found myself back in bed in intense pain. I knew what was going to come next. Geoff had come into the room and stood over me, looking intensely worried as I rolled and cried. He softly told me "I think we should take you to the emergency room" -- I couldn't argue with him. By this point I knew that something had to be wrong and I had a feeling it was more than just a little constipation.We got me bundled up and after another episode of pain, got into the car for the ride to the ER. Surprisingly enough, I survived the ride and the arrival into the ER without another episode. Of course I feared that they would think I was just "crying wolf" -- but I learned that was not the case the moment they asked me for a urine sample, the pain immediately returned.
They got me settled into an exam room, stated an IV, took some blood and gave me some medicine for pain. A few minutes later a medical student came in and asked me a bunch of questions -- we gave him all of the details and he left to consult with a doctor. The doctor and the medical student returned a few minutes later and reported that they were going to send me for an x-ray of my abdomen. Once the results of the x-ray were shared with the doctor, he came back in and said that they were now going to do a CT scan of my abdomen, since the x-ray didn't really show them much of anything -- just a little constipation. The CT would be done using contrast, which would prevent me from nursing for 48 hours -- I did not like hearing this, since I was still producing colustrum which is very beneficial for the girls at this stage. I of course began to cry and this brought on another pain episode -- this one was an intense one, and finally the doctors could see the pain that brought us to the ER that day.
The nurse watched as I rolled around in pain and say that I was favoring my left side. She suspected I could perhaps have a kidney stone. She told us that if they sent me for a CT looking for a kidney stone, they would not need the contrast. She left to talk to the doctor and he came back and said that he would agree to doing a CT without contrast to look for a kidney stone, but if it came back negative, then I would have to have it redone with the contrast. I agreed and off I went for my CT scan.
The results from the CT did not show a kidney stone -- however, it did show that I had some excess fluid in my abdomen, but what kind of fluid was unknown. At this point the doctor informed me that I was going to be admitted -- the level of pain they saw me in warranted further investigation, so they could not let me go home at this point. I was somewhat relieved. Right now, he said, it looked like I may have an infection of some sort -- so they would begin IV antibiotics and monitor my progress. They contacted my OB to get her consent to admit me and returned shortly to tell me that they were going to re-admit me to the New Life Center, so I could be close to the girls -- that was the best news I could hear at such a miserable time!
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