After my last OB visit, I was told to stay off my feet 90% of the time. It really wasn’t that bad. Kendall would play around the living room while I lay on the couch. She was allowed to watch more cartoons than normal but we knew this was just a stage and hopefully she wouldn’t come out too damaged by it.
Things were going ok until something went very wrong with my sciatic nerve in my right leg. I’ve read that the baby can get in a position to cause pressure on it. Whatever was going on it was the worst pain! I could get comfortable lying down but standing or walking was almost impossible. I would have the sharp shooting pains in my right hip and down my leg. Then my leg would go numb and ache so bad. My sweet husband bought me a shower chair; because I couldn’t it make it through a 2 minute shower. (You know you are old when he buys you a shower chair and blood pressure cuff in the same week!)
This went on for a solid week! It was really horrible. I went from doing almost everything for my daughter to being able to do nothing. Thankfully we’ve had lots of family and friends who stepped in to help. We started to notice a change in Kendall’s eating patterns. She wasn’t eating near as much and she started to get a small rash on her back and stomach. At first we thought the rash was poison ivy and her eating was messed up by being on such a different schedule.
Last Friday I had a small scare and called the OB. They wanted me to come in that day and see the nurse practitioner. She was really concerned about several situations including really high protein in my urine (an indicator of preeclampsia which I also had with Kendall). She told me I needed to be on full bed rest and come back on Monday to see my doctor. When Monday rolled around, things weren’t looking much better. My doctor also found that I was starting to dilate (which I wasn’t on Friday). She wanted me to see the high risk doctor that same day and her again the next day. The NP had mentioned high risk on Friday but when my doctor wanted me to see him that same day, it was pretty scary.
The high risk doctor visit turned into some relief for my frazzled nerves. We had yet another ultrasound. The baby looks great. They are estimating that she weighs 2lbs and 5 ozs right now. Although preterm labor is still a concern I’m kind of at a strange place. I’m not early enough and having enough symptoms that he was super worried. One option he offered was starting me on Motrin but since I wasn’t having any contractions he wasn’t real sure about it. My blood pressure was looking good also, so he wasn’t too concerned about preeclampsia.
Back to my normal OB on Tuesday, my protein looked a lot better. So I’m still on bed rest, she’s also gonna be monitoring me with weekly visits. There’s really no way to tell what’s gonna happen with this child of mine.
Finally after a week of dealing with the horrible leg/back/nerve pain, I woke up Wednesday suddenly almost pain free. The only problem is I woke up at 2 am with what I thought was heartburn/indigestion. Not a big deal….nothing a few Tums can’t help. However no matter what I did nothing would make it go away. Kendall also woke up at 5 am pretty cranky so we had an early morning cartoon fest.
Michael’s mom came up to help out for the day. I spent the day on the couch still super uncomfortable. I should have known something was up when I kept getting super-hot and then super cold. Kendall was getting grumpier as the day wore on. By late afternoon she was super uncomfortable. Her rash stretched from her back to her stomach. When Michael woke up (he’s been working night shift), he made her an appointment with the pediatrician for the next day. During this time my vomiting started. He hung up with her doctor to call mine and hung up with them to call into work for the night.
At Kendall’s appointment, her pediatrician diagnosed her with shingles. It is super rare for a baby that young to get. He even had another doctor come in for a second opinion.
So needless to say things at our house have been less than ideal! I think I’m on the mend. It will most likely be several weeks until Kendall is back to her old self. I’m thankful for all the friends and family that have been helping us. Oh and I seriously married super-man. He’s had to do so much extra recently. We are both ready for a little normalcy in our lives, but at that point we’ll probably be adjusting to 2 babies and a new normal.
So that’s the highlights of the last 2 weeks of our lives. Not very glamorous but in honest detail.
1 comment:
Oh, Stephanie, I've been wondering how things were going. I am so sorry that it's been so rough. Hopefully, very soon things will look up. Praying for you sweet friend.
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