Complications

Doesn't it seem ironic to start a post entitled, "Complications" with just a sweet and happy photo?

I had to deliver our Sweet Pea almost a month early due to a complication of my pregnancy called cholestasis.  It's a liver disorder where, simply put, the pregnant woman's liver is not functioning properly.  They think it's because hormones or the baby's positioning cut off the flow of bile between the gall bladder and the liver.  The effects on moms are fairly harmless; the biggest cause for concern is the discomfort of intense, deep itching that doesn't have a rash and doesn't resolve, although it can cause jaundice and hemorrhaging.  The bigger concern is for the infant because their livers don't function yet, and if mom's liver isn't doing all that it needs to for her, it's basically not doing anything for the baby, which can lead to stillbirth.

Yeah.  Pretty terrifying to learn all of this.

It did however, explain a lot about why my pregnancy was so rough.  It was probably the reasons for those freakish, unexplained urgent care visits and the intense nausea.  It explains why I was feeling pretty gross for the last two weeks of my pregnancy and why I started to lose rather than gain weight at the end.

Our precious baby was born perfectly healthy, in spite of quite a few tense times during the pregnancy.  I was told by my doctors that cholestasis resolves itself upon delivery of the baby.  I had a feeling something was wrong with my gall bladder because that is pretty common with patients with Celiac Disease, and besides, both my mom and grandma have had theirs removed, my grandma even right after her pregnancy with my mom.  I asked several doctors and nurses and all told me not to worry.

Well, last night I fell asleep at about 1:30, after cuddling and snuggling my baby, breathing her wonderful scent, kissing and kissing the top of her downy head, and smoothing the fuzz behind her ears with my fingertips for a good half-hour.  I slept for about an hour, then woke up out of deep sleep feeling really uncomfortable.  It was like I was sleeping wrong and something was making my back ache.  I rolled around a bit, but it just kept getting worse.  Finally, I sat up because I felt like my ribs were so tight all around that I couldn't breathe.  It kept getting worse and it made me feel panicky.  I woke up my husband and as we talked I started noticing a lot of shortness of breath.  The pain intensified so quickly and nothing helped, so within 30 minutes of waking up we were on our way to the emergency room. 

I threw up when we got there because the pain was so intense.  Triage was like torture.  Because of the baby, they decided to put me in the pediatric unit, for which I am intensely grateful.  Within 10 minutes I had talked to the doctor, they had pain and nausea medication in me and had pulled blood work.  The relief was nearly immediate, thank goodness, because I was in more pain than I had been for almost all of my labor.  They sent me for an ultrasound within 10 minutes after that, and in another 15 had confirmed that my gall bladder has a huge stone and is almost non-functioning.

So, what's next?  Surgery.  Within two weeks.  With a baby less than a month old. 

We had to give the baby formula for the first half of the day because of the medication I received, which made me a little teary at the hospital.  But I'm so thankful for our incredibly sweet nurse who loved on our baby and assured us that she would be just fine going back and forth between bottle and breast.  Which she was.  Does nothing phase this child?  In spite of everything, she has been so content and perfect, even sleeping a ton today, which was such a gift.

On top of everything, we are fighting insurance yet AGAIN.  It's a long story, but we are in contention with three different insurance companies right now all over things that were completely out of our control.  I'm frustrated.  Frustrated that my doctors didn't follow up.  Frustrated with how expensive all of this is going to be.  Frustrated that I will have a hard time caring for my baby after surgery.  Frustrated that my husband has no paid time off because of having a new job, plus having classes that he can't miss, plus needing to fulfill a certain number of internship hours a week.  Frustrated that I have a body that doesn't ever seem to want to cooperate.  This will be my tenth surgery in ten years.

And yet I know that we'll be ok. I'm reminded yet again of what a gift it is to live in community with so many people who care.  Our families are near.  Our friends are near.  Times are hard, but we will look back and marvel at how God provided (because He has and will continue to do so) and we will chuckle over our "uphill both ways" early days of raising a family.  It's a rite of passage, after all. 

And in the meantime, I am feeling significantly better today.  I haven't even needed the pain meds they gave me because the stone is currently dislodged.  We will continue to love our baby and marvel at her sweetness.  We will enjoy our friends and family.  We will enjoy fall.  And you know what?  Word on the street (aka, the internet) is that even though the chance of cholestasis recurring in future pregnancies is over 50%, having my gall bladder removed takes that down drastically.  Thank goodness, because I definitely want more of this.   

See?  There's always a rainbow.

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Fighting Pollution is Way Easier, Planeteers

I made several bad decisions yesterday, and I blame them all on pregnancy.  One was related to being overly sensitive, one to forgetfulness and the last to cravings.  They were also all connected like Dominoes.  The over-sensitivity led to feeling deeply hurt, which made me leave my house in a state of distracted absentmindedness, which made me not think carefully about the set of keys I had, which led to being locked out of my house at dinner-time, which led to a Chick-fil-a meal consisting of fries and a milkshake.

Then, after a wonderful impromptu evening celebrating the engagement of two awesome friends, the powers of excitement, way too much sugar, several hurtful situations, anxiety and hormones combined to turn this already-prone-to-anxiety-attacks pregnant person into a sleepless mess about one step away from a nervous breakdown. 

Excitement!  Sugar!  Hurt!  Fear! HORMONES!

(For some reason, I always think of Captain Planet when I think of the term "powers combined.")

The fact of the matter is, this has been a tough summer.  Hubby is still jobless.  I'm so proud of him for his tenacity and the way he has poured himself into so many projects around our house while spending hours upon countless hours job hunting AND maintaining a 4.0 grad school GPA.  We are incredibly thankful for our savings (seriously, if you do nothing else wise in life, have that 3-month savings safety net!) because we're still doing ok, but it's a constant source of anxiety.  I've spent most of the summer trying to avoid thinking about it all, and praying about it constantly, but sometimes those forces combine, anxiety rears its ugly head and I'm left feeling like I might implode.

I fought anxiety attacks as a child and thought I'd outgrown them around the age of ten.  Then, one awful night my senior year in college, while I was still recovering from mono and had been having a rough semester, my computer crashed in the midst of a big assignment.  It was all over.  I honestly felt as if the whole world had collapsed.  I called my parents in the middle of the night sobbing so hard I could hardly speak or breathe.  My poor parents. 

Since then, I've had these little meltdowns a couple of times a year.  One was when Lenny got a speeding ticket.  Another was when the insurance company denied a claim.  Crazy, huh?  It doesn't happen often, but when it does, sheesh.  I've gotten better recently at feeling these weird times come on and can now usually fend them off successfully.  (Like tonight, thank goodness!)  But when the emotions subside and things are better, I always step back and evaluate. 

What exactly is it that I'm so afraid of?  Because it's not ending sentences with prepositions.

See, those silly instances with the speeding ticket and the insurance claim had nothing to do with driving fast or being on hold for 1.5 million hours.  They had to do with money.  What was I afraid of?  Not having money.  But what was I really afraid of?  That takes a lot more though.  Because, honestly, in the grand scheme of life, what's a few hundred dollars?  Why is the lack of money so scary? 

There are a lot of reasons, but I'll just delve into one.  Money, to most of us, represents security.  To newlyweds on their own for the first time (we'd only been married a couple of months when the speeding ticket happened) security is a big deal.  You've broken off from your parents and you're to lean on each other.  No money feels like no security, and that's scary.  Feelings of vulnerability set in and it's all over from there.

So, tonight, since I can't sleep, and I fairly successfully fought off a panic attack, I'm asking myself my same thing.

What am I so afraid of?

1.  No money.  See above, plus add two months of NO paychecks and baby on the way.  Vulnerable?  Yes.

2.  Poor health.  Life with an auto-immune disorder can be complicated.  I get colds and flus way more frequently that others, combined with chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia,  What if I don't care for my baby well because of these?  Is my health going to be better or worse now that I'll be home a lot more?  What if the baby has Celiac Disease, too?

3.  Change, although that's not quite the right way to explain it.  I am beyond thrilled and filled with excited anticipation for the arrival of this new baby girl.  I've wanted to be a mom my entire life and it's a dream come true.  I feel like I'm meant for this, made for this.  Ready for this.  Honestly, this tiny little girl is the only part of our lives right now that feels completely peaceful and joyful.  So I think what it really boils down to is fear of the unknown.  How is our marriage going to change?  How will we function on no sleep?  How will the house stay clean?  How am I going to change?  Who is going to stand behind me?  How are my friendships going to change?  Which leads me to the last one, the biggest one...

4.  Losing my friends.  In some ways, this has been the loneliest season of my life.  That is largely my fault.  We've been away a lot recently, but I've also avoided spending time with friends because A.  I was sick for so long and B. The job/financial anxiety has exhausted me mentally and emotionally.  My job stresses and the constantly puking in the spring left me with, well, nothing left.  Then summer started and the stresses with hubby's job took over. 

We've been blessed by incredible friends.  We've also been blessed that many of our nears and dears didn't move far after college, but we still live a good ways away from a lot of great people.  I've lived with around 15 girls over the college and post-college years, and have remained friends with all of them.  Two-thirds still live within an hour of our house, but an hour is still an hour and it's tough.  We also have had some unique pressures on our time (marriage, a fixer-upper house, family situations, youth ministry and now a baby) that many of our other friends don't have yet.  This has been really hard, because I always feel like no matter how much I want to be around my friends, I'm never doing enough for them, I'm never there enough, I'm never available enough, I'm never enough.  I've  been told this to my face.  If I haven't been able to handle that without a baby, how on earth are my friends going to think of me when I do have a baby?  Like I don't care?  Like I'm not there enough for them?  How do I convince them otherwise, but still help them understand that my baby, my family, has to come first no matter what?  How do I maintain these relationships and give all of these wonderful people the attention they deserve?  I'm going to be a stay-at-home-mom for awhile.  I don't know many of those.  I'm afraid of the loneliness, the judgement, the misunderstanding.  If it's already happening now, if we're already being left out or forgotten, how on earth do I keep control of it with a newborn?

I obviously don't have the answers to any of these questions.  I don't know what to do with them except to hand them over to God and ask Him to meet these needs, teach me to prioritize, show me how to love others in that effective, Christ-like way that I just can't seem to get right.  Because after all, that's all that life is about.  Loving God by loving others. 

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."  John 15:12-13

I completely know that all of these questions and fears are a normal, regular part of the third trimester, but mommy friends, I need your help!  Did you have any of these fears?  What did you do about them?  Recognizing them is the first step, and I'm glad I've written all of this out.  Also, I'm excited to be able to look back at this in a few months and see how it all turned out.  I think it's going to be way better than anything I could ask or imagine.  (Ephesians 3:20) 

But in the meantime...advise me!

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32 weeks (or maybe 33?)

32 weeks...how did it happen?  Ok, actually, I have to admit; I got a little confused about my week-number.  Somewhere along the line I got a little confused, so I thought I was 33 today.  But I recounted on the calendar and I'm 32...and my doctors' office says 32...but the hospital email  I get says 33...and they all have the same due date!  What gives Holy Cross?  You totally threw me for a loop!

Speaking of my doctors' office...wow, do I love that place.  I feel so blessed to be able to say that because I know a lot of women feel like just another number at their practice.  I also feel blessed to be able to say that because I've dealt with a LOT of medical intervention in my life and have had more than my fair share of negative medical experiences.  We currently have Kaiser insurance, and I have to say that every other Kaiser facility we've been to has been way lame.  But our center's ob-gyn practice is fantastic.  I met the last of their four doctors today and each one has been fabulous.  The doctor we met today was really interested when we told him we'd been working with teen moms at YoungLives camp all week, and told us about his medical missions trip to Honduras with his church.  He was great, and the baby's heart is right-on as well as her size.  I'm stressed a little though because our benefits are up on August 30th and we still don't know what's going to happen with that.  It's even harder to know that stressful change is coming when I love my doctors so much and I don't want to switch.     

Pregnancy continues to fascinating to me.  It's difficult physically, but it's so utterly joyful.  I love being pregnant.  I love the wiggles and squirms of this baby. I love planning for her, thinking about her, talking about her.  I love wondering what she'll look like, what she'll sound like, what she'll smell like.  I love that during this season she's so mine.  I love when other people ask about her, and I'm probably one of the only people who actually loves it when other people touch my belly.  I feel like they are getting to shake her hand or something.  :)

I've also been feeling so much better in general.  My heart palpitations I've been monitored for all pregnancy have finally gotten better.  It was so weird; a couple of weeks ago, after a few days of feeling pretty awful (the racing, rapid heart rate was exhausting and making me feel so dizzy and sick) we were having dinner with friends.  We ended up cutting the evening a little short because I was so uncomfortable.  I was having some Braxton-Hicks and I swear it felt like the baby was trying to karate-chop her way out of my side!  Nothing felt wrong or scary, she was just moving so much and it was really uncomfortable.  Well, somehow she twisted her way into a better position, because my heart has been feeling SO MUCH BETTER.  I still have the palpitations, but nowhere near as bad as they were.  It's AWESOME! 

I have two health complications that are related to Celiac Disease.  I don't talk about it much, but I have mild chronic fatigue syndrome and moderate fibromyalgia.  They actually affect my daily life in a negative way more than CD.  (Although I wouldn't have them if I didn't have CD...so I guess it's all the same).  I always wondered and worried how those would affect pregnancy, and I can say that for the past couple of months, the chronic fatigue is gone!  It disappeared about the same time as the nausea.  It's been great to just feel energized.  On the flip side, the fibromyalgia has been quite a bit worse, coupled with the other pains of pregnancy.  But the blessing is that the energy increase makes coping with the pain SO much easier.  I'll take the ouchiness over exhaustion any day.  I wish I could keep this forever!  Even with sleeping less at night, I hardly want naps or feel like I'm dragging.  When I do get tired I feel really grumpy, but not sleepy or foggy.  That said, I know it will disappear as I get bigger, but I sure have loved enjoying it now.  It made our grand adventure to Niagara Falls and YoungLives camp so wonderful.  I'd been worried about that trip, but I knew that people were praying for me and the baby and we were SO BLESSED by that time.

So anyway, more on our grand adventure later, as well as a few other things.  I just wanted to get these few thoughts down so I won't forget them later!  I'm starving and will probably drink milk and eat fruit with lunch; my two constant cravings!  And chocolate...but I don't think that craving can really be blamed on pregnancy. :)

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30 weeks

We're about to head into single digits weeks-wise.  Crazy.  So close, yet SO FAR.  I'm trying to wrap my mind around the fact that it will be at least 7 months before I ever get anything that looks like a full-night's sleep again.  My back hurts so much at night that I absolutely can't sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time.  Sometimes I'll luck out and get a few hours, which is so much better.  I'm trying to decide if this pain is worth a doctor visit.  I had a pretty messed up back anyway before pregnancy from a couple of falls, so I always have back pain anyway and knew that it would be really bad in pregnancy.  But I feel like going to the doctor is pointless because it will be like, "Oh, really?  Another pregnant girl with back pain?  SHOCK-ER" and they can't really do anything about it anyway.

Little girl moves SO MUCH.  She is constantly wiggling and tickling and dancing around in there.  She's really responsive when I rub her back when she kicks, and wiggles like crazy when she hears her cousin's voice.  She seems more quieted by Lenny's voice.  I'm really curious if we'll see any of these "in the womb" patterns when she's born.  I'm thinking she's still going to have a burst of energy around 11:30 (she seems to have that no matter what I'm doing!) and I think she's going to recognize some voices.  

But here's the real news:

The nursery is painted!  Hubby put in wainscoating and we painted it white.  This was our guest room, and I actually chose the "Jamaica Bay" blue with a nursery in mind before we were even thinking about getting pregnant.  I loved the color so much and knew I could make it work for a boy or girl, but dang, it's going to be CUTE for a girl.  (As a side note...our office is already red and white, supposedly a throwback to our UMD roots, but if we ever have a little boy while we're still here it's going to make a super cute cowboy room.  Just sayin'.)  The accent colors in this room are going to be bright with lots of pink and flowers and birds.  I just love bright colors and I think they are great for babies.  

Just wait.  Just wait.  

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How I Spilled the Beans

I found out I was pregnant super early.  As in like, positive pregnancy test 6 days before a missed period early.  It was so early that I refused to believe it because I was afraid of it being wrong and feeling devastated, but I still took pictures of myself making an excited face in the mirror.  I also took pictures of our cats because I felt like I needed to remember what they looked like when life was peaceful and calm and they ruled the roost. 

The next day I took another one and got another positive.  Then I started feeling certain it was true.  This was all unbeknownst to my husband, which I felt a little guilty about, but I'd wanted to tell him in a very specific way and besides, I really loved having my own little peanut all to myself for a few days. 

I worked away on the project for the rest of the week and on Saturday, at the start of a snowstorm, headed to Walmart to pick it up.  I also picked up another pregnancy test, just in case.  I came home and ran upstairs, took the test, got yet another positive, then left it on the counter in case he needed proof.  Then I went downstairs to where my husband was calming minding his own business watching "This Old House," utterly unaware that the world as he knew it was about to be forever rocked.  Well, ok, he probably wasn't utterly unaware, since he played a significant role in the bringing about of this baby.  Anway, I cuddled up next to him and handed him this.

It was a photobook called "The Adventures of Lenny and Taylor" full of pictures of special times in our relationship.  The first picture my best friend took the night I came home with flowers after Lenny asked to make our relationship "official."

The rest were all of really special times, about 20 pages worth. 

He loved it.  He thought I made it just for fun.  Then he got to the last page...

He looked at it and laughed, not having any idea that the picture on the left was a positive pregnancy test.  He'd never seen one before.  I was confused, so I didn't say anything, and then he hugged me and thanked me for the book.  Then he said,"...wait...are you PREGNANT?" and I smiled and nodded and he scooped me up and we laughed and got teary and excited and the next thing he said was, "I really need to make more money."

The end.

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