We're Expecting!! Weeks 4-10

Tyler and I are so excited about our baby due on November 20th! When I found out I was pregnant I started a blog post and began adding all the big events as they have happened over the past 6 weeks. It's a little long but a great explanation of all we've experienced so far.

3-14-12
4 weeks, 1 day
The day I found out I'm Pregnant!!! Tyler had to go into work early and left before I got out of bed. I wasn't supposed to start my period for another 2 days but we were going out of town that evening and I knew I wouldn't get a chance to test until we got home on Sunday. Even though I was sure it would most likely be negative, I couldn't help myself. Curiosity got the best of me and I took a pregnancy test. I saw a line start to appear almost instantaneously, but didn't want to get my hopes up so I set it down and walked out of the bathroom to keep myself from staring at the test. The next few minutes felt like they dragged on and on. I finally walked back into the bathroom and the test had two strong pink lines, clear as day. I grabbed it, gasped in surprise and then cried and cried. I knew I'd be excited when a test showed up positive, but I didn't think I'd down right bawl. I was overwhelmed with gratitude and excitement and just couldn't hold it in. The first thing I wanted to do was call Tyler but I knew I'd be inaudible and scare him thinking something horrible had happened. Plus, I didn't want him to find this out over the phone. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep quiet until we both got home from work, so I hopped in the shower, got ready super fast and drove to his work. I called him from the parking lot and told him I had something for him. He was surprised I was there and came out to see me. When he got really close to me (I didn't want anyone else to see) I pulled out the positive test that I had written "you're a daddy!" on and showed him.

All he said was "are you serious?" with a big smile on his face and then we hugged for a while. The sweet moment didn't last too long because we both had to get back to work, but that evening it was beyond apparent that he was elated! We spent our drive down to Vegas and then California talking about our new little baby :)
We saw a lot of family that weekend and it was difficult to keep it quiet, but we didn't want to say anything until I was a little farther along, I hadn't even missed my period yet and was apprehensive about telling people so early.

3-28-12
6 Weeks 1 day!! Up until yesterday I was feeling great! Tired, but great. I had a few fits of nausea here and there and I was always hungry, but overall I felt....normal. Then the morning sickness train hit me with a vengeance. It knocked me out all day and I learned very quickly if I let myself get too hungry, that's when it gets uncontrollable. I'm having a hard time eating anything and just the thought of meat makes me gag. I was so sick this morning and you could tell Tyler felt so bad. He looked at me and said "just remember, you have a baby in there" I just chuckled knowing he was trying to make me feel better and love that it worked. I'm willing to do whatever I have to to get this little one here.

4-11-12
8 weeks 1 day. Haha, I thought I was feeling sick before?.....nope, I didn't even understand the meaning of sick. Over the past two weeks I have gotten increasingly worse. I was able to keep it somewhat under control until last week. I was so sick I literally could not get out of bed. Just holding up my head was far too difficult. I knew something was really wrong when I hadn't moved from my bed in 2 days straight. I couldn't move, I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink and I was lucky if I peed twice a day. I literally felt like I was dying a slow and miserable death. My dad stopped by one afternoon to drop off some stuff my mom was hoping might help me feel better. He took one look at me and said, "You need to go to the hospital and get fluids now. I saw this same thing happen to your mother when she was pregnant. You're obviously severely dehydrated and the longer you wait to take care of it, the harder it's going to be to get on top of it." That took me by surprise because I have never once had my dad give me medical advice (that's my mom's area). It made me realize that this wasn't just really bad morning sickness and it was time to at least see the doctor. My dad had to leave to get to a meeting, but made me promise I'd get some fluids. (I later found out I freaked my dad out so much because my cheeks and eyes had literally sunken in from the dehydration. Even Tyler commented on it later after I had some fluid in me. He kept poking my cheeks and saying, they look so much better.) As soon as my dad left I called Tyler who then called our doctor. They asked him to bring me in right away. Getting there was awful. I was so dizzy, I couldn't see or walk straight. Tyler practically had to carry me. As soon as we got to the doctor's office they hooked me up to an iv. The first bag was in me within 30 minutes. My blood pressure was dangerously low and my heart rate was dangerously high (both signs of dehydration). They started a second bag and the doctor wanted to give me phenergan for the nausea. 2 minutes after that stuff hit my veins my muscles started shaking like crazy. I just kept thinking this must be kind of what it feels like to be conscious during a seizure. Everyone thought I was just cold from the iv and they kept piling blankets on top of me. It didn't even touch the nausea so the nurse gave me even more phenergan and that's when the puking began. It was then that they realized I was having an allergic reaction and gave me benedryl right away. When they realized phenergan wouldn't work for me they decided to try Zofran again. It helped somewhat but I wasn't holding my breath. I had tried it earlier in the week and it hadn't really made a difference. We later found out that I was only taking it 1-2 times a day (because that's what it said on the bottle) and the doctor told me if I don't take it every 6 hours on the dot, it wasn't going to work. So now that we had medicine figured out and 2 1/2 bags of fluid in me they said I could go home on one condition, the iv had to stay in. So Tyler took me home with the iv and we had a home health nurse come check on me the next 2 days. My vitals were better and the nurse took the iv out Thursday night. The doctor wanted to see us Friday afternoon to see how I was doing. When they could hardly get a drop of blood out of me for blood work, they decided the iv had to go back in for at least the weekend. They said to come back on Monday and we'd talk more about possibly putting in a picc line iv and keeping me on fluids for the next 4-5 weeks or until the end of my first trimester. That weekend, it was clear that the iv made me feel better but it was also clear there was no way I could eat or drink enough on my own. When we saw the doctor on Monday we told him we thought it would be best to place the picc line. He agreed wholeheartedly and I think was grateful he wasn't going to have to talk us into it. He also told me that with these types of ivs it's possible to unhook from them, go about your day and hook back up to them when you get home. I was given explicit instructions not to do this. He told me that for the time being I must be getting continuous fluids 24/7. I guess he's so worried because I'm prone to seizures and being dehydrated lowers your sodium levels which can then make you have a seizure. He obviously doesn't want that to happen and neither do I. So yesterday we went to the hospital and they placed the picc line which goes into your arm and up to your heart. It was a little nerve wracking but not too painful. I feel so much better with the iv that I was able to go to work today for the first time in over a week. It's kind of a pain having to cart the iv around with me everywhere but I'll do it cause that stuff is like liquid gold to me. It's seriously my lifeline. We also discovered that I have way too much acid  in my stomach. I could hear and feel it all day long. It was bearable until I ate something and then I would get the worst stomach aches and nausea. When I explained this to the doctor he prescribed me some antacid medication that has made it possible for me to start tolerating a little food in my stomach. This whole time he's had me on a very strict diet. No grease or sugar, just super bland foods that won't upset my stomach. I guess the point of that is to try and keep me from throwing up. The combination of medicines, iv fluids and bland foods has made me functional again and I'm so grateful.

Tyler has been amazing through all of this. I've been sick before but never like this. He takes care of everything: doctor, home health, changing my iv bags, making sure I take my meds, making sure I try to eat and drink every 2 hours, helping me get dressed, you name it. The first night I had the iv he kept the bathroom light on and woke up every hour to check on me. He gives me my medicine in the middle of the night and changes the iv bag if it gets too low. I think of everything he's done for me and I'm beyond grateful for him. Even this morning he packed everything in a bag for me that I might need while at work--food, medicine and iv bags. I'm honestly overwhelmed with how amazing he is.

We told our families this past weekend. We wanted to keep it quiet until I was out of my first trimester but once the iv went in we knew that wasn't possible. We gave in and ended up having to tell most people over the phone, which wasn't what we had planned, but circumstances had changed and I was too sick to care. Plus it's been so helpful to have the moral support of family and friends.

4/23/12
9 weeks, 6 days. I had a bit of a scare today. The area around my picc line iv was itching like crazy and it looked red and bumpy. I could barely sleep the night before it was bothering me so bad. I've been told over and over again that it's very dangerous for the picc line to get infected because it runs straight to your heart. I didn't think it was an infection, but I wasn't sure so I finally decided that I should at least call my nurse and see what she thinks. She told me I needed to come in immediately so they could take a look at it (I guess this isn't something they mess around with) and if it was infected I'd have to go to the hospital where they'd pull the iv and start me on antibiotics. This really freaked me out because the iv fluid is my lifeline and if I can't have it I seriously don't know how I would function. So I left work and drove to the doctor's office right away. My nurse took a look at it and she didn't think it was an infection but pulled the doctor in to look at it anyway. He agreed that it wasn't an infection, it was an allergic reaction to the tape they have to put over it. That didn't come as a huge surprise to me, I've had allergic reactions to adhesives in the past. The doctor told me I'd still have to go back to the hospital where they gave me the picc line to see if they had any other kind of tape because they didn't have anything else for me to try (I guess this isn't a very common problem). Then he told me I looked better and asked how I was feeling. I told him I've been doing much better and doing my best to eat and drink. Then he asked about my weight gain and when I told him I just can't seem to keep up and I'm continuing to lose weight, he just thought for a minute and then looked at the nurse and said let's do an ultrasound right now. I was completely caught off guard, I wasn't supposed to have one until at least next week. And even though I knew he wanted one right then to make sure nothing was wrong, I was more excited than worried. I've been telling Tyler for the last month that if I could just see this little one it would make all of this easier. So I'd been dreaming about an ultrasound for weeks. As soon as the doctor walked out of the room I picked up the phone and called Tyler. He left work right away so he could be there. The ultrasound was the most amazing experience. It took the doctor about 2 seconds to find the baby and then he had to point it out to us and zoom in. The baby was so incredibly tiny but you could see its little heart flashing and its teeny little legs moving so fast. It looked like a blurry little gummy bear. My heart just melted and I instantly fell in love. The doctor told us that the baby was perfect and everything looked good. It gave us peace of mind and it made all of this feel more real. It was exactly what I needed.

Afterwards, I headed over to the hospital where they gave me a different kind of tape to try. Unfortunately it didn't make much of a difference. I don't have the choice to not use the tape because then I have an increase of infection. I'm just grateful it wasn't an infection, so as long as it's just an allergy I'll live with it. I've discovered that my pregnancy is extremely similar to the pregnancy my mom experienced with me (karma is a beast). She had the picc line iv and allergic reactions to the tape as well. It's nice to have someone to talk to who knows exactly how I feel. Experiencing all of this has made me appreciate my mother more than I ever could have before. I'm grateful for all she went through for me and that now she can help me through the same situation.