I think by now it will be no surprise to blog readers, but we are expecting another addition to our family! I didn't post anything on here until this time to ensure that we had told people, or that people had been told (hopefully) before reading on the blog. If you consider that and the fact that I'm behind on my blogging, I'm almost halfway through the pregnancy. Eighteen weeks as I write this. It feels very weird being pregnant for the 3rd time. With the 2 girls and Scout I rarely think about the pregnancy. As I'm in the second trimester I'm feeling really good. When I felt awful it was easy to think about the pregnancy. I'm also keeping up with my exercise with my daily dog walks--I think this helps to make me feel energetic, not tired, and keeping excess weight off.
I did have a rough start to the whole thing though. when I was around 8 weeks along I had something that felt like a running cramp. We were about to go for a walk to the duck pond so I figured I'd go anyway, and walk off the random cramp. As we got into our walk I decided that I'd better go back home. I tried to do some stretches as well as have a bath but nothing really helped. I thought maybe it was some sort of gas problem, but nothing seemed to help. After putting the girls to bed we watched tv and then decided to go to bed. Still it was not any better after laying on the couch and then getting in bed. In fact laying down almost made it worse. I ended up calling telehealth as our google research brought up things like appendix problems. The nurse told me to be driven to the hospital right away. Luckily Grandma and Grandpa had come home early from the cottage, and Maura came over to stay with the girls while we went to the hospital at 12:30am. When we got there i was in agony. Luckily there were only 2 other people in emergency (when does that ever happen??), and I was seen fairly quickly. When I finally saw the nurse I was saying "I need medication!!!!" The doctor who came in did a quick ultrasound to rule out an ectopic pregnancy (which I hadn't even thought about), and said that it couldn't be an appendix problem. He alerted the gynaecologist, and kept me on morphine all night. Mike ended up going home to relieve maura for a few hours and get some sleep. With the medicine I was feeling not too bad, and was able to sleep on and off. First thing in the morning the doctor came to see me and sent me for a full ultrasound. The people doing the ultrasound seemed very surprised and the sonographer (is that what it's called?) came in to read the results right away. It was discovered that I had an ovarian torsion--essentially a twisted ovary. The people there were saying that it was very rare and the pregnancy threw a loop into the whole equation. There exact words when I was wheeled out of the room were "well, good luck". The gynaecologist came to talk to me and mentioned it was best to operate right away. He said that the ovary was most likely not receiving any blood and would have to be taken out. Surgeries during pregnancy are usually not advised, he said, but that we would obviously have to do it. I wondered about how removing an ovary would harm a pregnancy and he said that they really don't know at what point the ovaries stop assisting in the pregnancy. There was a large cyst on the ovary (pregnancy related) which likely caused it to fall over and twist. He didn't sound 100% confident that the pregnancy would survive after the whole ordeal. So into the operating room I went and was put out. After I woke up he said he was able to save the ovary, and he looked pretty enthusiastic--probably a great and exciting day for him! Pretty amazing outcome. The operation was a laparoscopic surgery so only involved 2 small incisions. I was very bloated and sore in the abdomen. It was very hard to walk for a couple days and the bloating and pain took a while to subside. Mike was able to take the week off work, and we even went on a scheduled weekend away the following weekend. Took it pretty easy of course, but without worrying about kids and dog it was easier than being at home.
Since then I have had I think 3 ultrasounds, and both baby and ovary are doing fine. Oddly enough when I go for the ultrasounds the technicians barely believe the story and then say "oh I heard about you!" The one lady told me that they never see this problem. But all is well as far as I know. I feel good, like I said, and the baby is starting to kick a lot, so I have no worries there. pretty resilient little thing. I had a lot of medication at the hospital but apparently that is fine and I shouldn't worry about it.
On Monday is my 18 week ultrasound and we are able to find out the gender. We decided to find out this time, as we did with Rose. Not finding out is more exciting of course, but I think the girls would love to know. We'll all go to the appointment for the big news.
So far I haven't gained much weight at all. I attribute that to the surgery, feeling super gross for a few weeks, and more positively, those morning walks. My stomach is quite ball-like, but I can still wear my usual pants with the button undone. Another reason to keep up the activity level, is our trip to Disney coming up on Feb. 1. A lot of walking will happen there, and unless I want to miss out, I need to be fairly in shape to waddle around the theme parks.
In a way it's good to hold off making this announcement. I never blogged about how gross I felt, so I can just pretend that never happened. As much as I'm not thinking about being pregnant, I am excited about the new little one on the way. I think it'll seem more real after we do Christmas, Disney, start getting the room ready (Paige and Rose have to bunk up!), etc.
