I was ecstatic to be over the halfway hump because you could start seeing my halfway bump. It didn’t last for very long though before I was scared something was wrong. At 21 weeks, I started having severe sharp right flank pain followed by diffuse abdominal pain. I was able to withstand it for one day at home. I went to work the next day thinking that it was just gas pain, constipation, or simply baby trying to make room in my small torso for it to grow. I did the most mom thing a girl could do, and I went to Facebook for Facebook answers from women who had gone through pregnancy. They all agreed that it could be gas or constipation, but many still said to go get checked out.
I said I’d wait. I’m a nurse, and if you don’t already know, we make the worst patients. We often wait too long to be seen, and when we are seen, we demand our care to be nothing less than stellar. As I was driving home from work that night, I barely made it home without tears in my eyes. I barely lifted myself out of the car and into the house. I thought a shower and Tylenol would make a difference. I tried simethicone and docusate to see if it would help kickstart things. I knew it would take a few hours before I felt any different, so I told my husband we’d try to make it through the night.
I got out of the shower and couldn’t stand up straight. I cried, and I cried hard. The pain had become so unbearable that I had my husband stop everything he was doing so we could go to the hospital. I was running through all the things it could be, right lower quadrant pain, guarding, tenderness… Appendicitis? Cholecystitis? Where were my organs anyway now that my uterus was an inch above my navel? Do these normal signs and symptoms still apply to a pregnant lady?! (You can see how nurses think, I guess. Our minds are basically our own WebMD.)
If you have anything in your gut telling you to go get checked to make sure baby is okay, GO GET CHECKED. Don’t try to be strong because that’s how you were before you got pregnant. You’re not just thinking about you anymore, you have to think about baby. Follow your intuition as a mother and be safe!
When I got to the Labor & Delivery unit, I was seen by an OBGYN and general surgery. They wanted to rule out the two things I thought it could be. They admitted me for observation and further testing. They tried to get an MRI on me, but I couldn’t stand the procedure due to the pain. I was so afraid of what the outcome could be, especially since I’m pregnant. The worst possible scenarios kept playing through my mind. Until we came to a conclusion after seeing an ultrasound showing that I have hydronephrosis. Totally normal in pregnancy around this time due to the growth of the uterus and displacement of the ureters. Unluckily for me, I had a little sprinkle of kidney stones.
I’ve had kidney stones before. They’re awful. There’s some belief that passing kidney stones is just as painful as giving birth, just not as rewarding at the end. I spent four days in the hospital for pain management and hydration to try and flush out the stones. Nothing. Just sediment accompanied by a lot of pain. I asked to be discharged because I didn’t want to do the invasive procedures they were talking about, especially with baby on board. So I’ve been on convalescent leave and I’ve been struggling with managing pain at home. Being on oral pain medications, I’ve had to maintain a very strict schedule so I don’t become overwhelmed with pain. I thought that I could wean myself off of my discharge medications, and that was the worst idea. I didn’t sleep and neither did my husband. The pain is still hard to control. I can’t walk very far without my right flank feeling like I’m being shanked from the inside.
As long as there’s nothing else wrong with me, I’ll power through this for baby. We’re exhausted all of the time. My movements throughout the house are very short and always take the breath out of me. As if pregnancy wasn’t already getting harder with my growing belly. But hey, I’m just taking it one pain pill at a time.