Back to my not-that-exciting 2nd trimester. I celebrated my final day of week 26 in the hospital with the worst lower abdominal pains I have ever experienced. It was 5:45am and I was just about to leave for work when I doubled over in the bathroom and couldn't get up. Luckily, I had my phone on me and I called my husband to help me off my hands and knees. He helped me back onto our annoyingly high bed (at least for someone with limited mobility) and I grimaced as I tried to figure out what was happening. Pain. That's all I could tell what it was. Lots of it and all over where my uterus was. My first thought was that I had maybe pulled one of the tendons in my abdominals that holds the uterus in. But after waves of increased pain that came out of nowhere, my second thought was "Oh no, it's too soon for labor. This kid better not be coming out right now!" Quickly, Aaron made some phone calls and were on the way to the hospital, as instructed by the midwife on call. I could barely move but somehow managed to get into the car and wheeled into triage for someone to look at me. I felt like an episode of "House" because no one could figure out what was wrong with me (and most of those episodes involves someone being pregnant). All they could tell me was what wasn't the problem. Thankfully, a few doses of morphine and some frozen baby diaper ice packs did the trick and all my tests came back with good news. Baby boy was fine, and probably hyper because of all the commotion. The morphine didn't even make him remotely sleepy like the nurses expected, which they could tell from the fetal monitor I was strapped up to. Once the morphine was working and I was less concerned with what the heck was going on, it was nice to hear him move around and even have hiccups a few times.
Aaron was an angel and stayed by my side the whole time. He admitted that the experience made him more excited for when the baby does come, though he was glad that wasn't going to happen too soon. I couldn't have agreed more, and I was so thankful for all the comfort he showed me during this difficult time. It was good practice for labor as he helped massage my back when the stress of the pain radiated to other parts of my body. He was ever so patient and went without food for most of the day just to stay with me. Once I was more stable, he did take a break to eat something and grab comfy clothes and the laptop to watch a movie with me. We even got a visit from our friends Marc and Rebecca, who work in the hospital and just happened to be there at the time. Things finally got better so we got to come home after 15 hours in the maternity ward and I woke up feeling fine this morning. Fortunately, I get to enjoy some R&R (which is why I have the time and energy to write a whole post today!) while Aaron stretches his legs and does some spring cleaning. I guess being cooped in a room with me in pain all day got him antsy to do something more productive while still being around in case I need him.
All in all, the day did not go as expected, but we are glad for a few things. One, that our baby is fine and seemingly unaffected by the day's events and two, that whatever was wrong has thankfully gone away and I can be a normal person again.
We got a nice face shot during our ultrasound! His eyes were open :)
