SURGERY

I am on an update overload! I've added three posts (15 Weeks, 16 Weeks and Weekend in Charleston). This will be my fourth and final post for tonight. So enjoy! Actually, you probably won't enjoy reading it but you will find it interesting!

So after a wonderful weekend in Charleston my roomie and I woke up on Sunday morning and started packing to go home. I remember sneezing several times while getting ready. I started to feel cramps, pains and twinges. I felt hot. I laid down for a few minutes but that didn't seem to help. We went out to breakfast before driving home and I started to notice that most of the pain was on my right side. I started to feel like I was going to vomit. On my way home I stopped in a parking lot and laid down in my back seat. I thought maybe it was round ligament pain and I just needed to relax. Laying down did NOT help! I gave up on trying to relax and just headed straight home. I had to talk to myself the whole way home. I was saying things like "I will be home soon! I will lay down when I get home! I will feel better soon! The baby is okay!" I had never experienced that type of pain. I seriously considered driving straight to the ER but instead I drove straight home. I was hoping that being "home" in my own bed would make me feel better. I was wrong! The pain became worse when I got home. I couldn't lay still or get in a comfortable position.

Josh was still out of town at a conference so I called Q. She came right over and drove me to the ER. Q is a heaven sent friend and I can't imagine life without her. She listened to me whine about the pain over and over again. She waited with me for hours in the ER. She rubbed my back when I thought I was going to die from pain. She held the trash can while I vomited from the pain. She held my hand while the nurse was putting in my IV. She was AMAZING and I couldn't have survived that experience without her.

Q was finally relieved by Josh. He arrived right before they mentioned SURGERY!

So after lots of blood work, three rounds of IV pain meds and an ultrasound that confirmed our baby was okay, the doctors thought it was either my appendix, my right kidney or my right ovary. They were all leaning towards my appendix because my white blood count was extremely high. They said that signaled an infection which can be caused by an appendix that is close to rupturing. When they recommended SURGERY Josh and I were a little shocked. They said the risk of exploratory laparoscopic surgery was low compared to the risk of my appendix rupturing. Josh and I asked lots of questions and finally decided to start the process. We signed lots of paper work and we headed to the OR. I remember being wheeled into the OR in pain! Two surgeons and my ob/gyn did the surgery. It was so comforting to know my ob/gyn was in there. After 45 minutes of surgery I woke up with Josh by my side, feeling NO pain and hearing my ob/gyn saying "Look! Here's your baby with a strong heartbeat!" She also showed us pictures of the surgery.

So guess what happened?

My right ovary had twisted around TWICE which was the cause of my pain! It's called Ovarin Torsion. During surgery they untwisted my ovary. Thankfully my ovary will recover because the blood flow wasn't completely cut off. My ovaries are still a little enlarged from IVF meds so that's why my right ovary twisted. It was just too heavy and maybe my sneezing triggered it to twist.

Now I have two nasty scares from surgery. They made two incisions: one in my belly button and one a couple inches below my belly button. I'm not going to be able to have the cute pregnant belly pictures because of these two scars. Oh well!

Here's a picture of the surgery they did:

It grosses me out to know they did this to me!

Here are a couple pictures of my incisions:

My belly button scares me!