If it's not one thing (say it with me...)

"Then it's another..."

That's how I feel about my pregnancy right now. The nausea is 96 percent gone, so yay and a half for that. I do still get tiny tiny waves, but those I can surf ... like I said in a previous post, I am getting arthritis in my back a few times a week already. But life was just not challenging enough so I had to have ANOTHER obstacle. I am debating how much in detail I want to go since the only people who read this are typically...female...and interested enough in what is going on to either have already heard this story, or genuinely caring. (Yeah, I think that describes all 7 readers.)

So if you are easily disgusted, or have no interest in reading about disasters of the bowel, please go ahead and scroll down to the pictures. ;)AND no, I do not have photos of a disaster of the bowel. So seriously, scroll ahead if you want.

A little background...I have mild IBS-d. If you don't know what it is, you can do your own searching for answers. I only have an episode maybe once a month, sometimes more, sometimes less. I've never been able to determine my trigger food/event.

Anyway....last week, I was suffering a tiny bit of another symptom of pregnancy...the one that doesn't send you to the restroom all that much. (I'm trying to refrain from writing words that I really don't want to be linked in with my baby blog..haha) Then, something triggered my pre-existing IBS and Thursday night, I nearly passed out, vomited and died for 30-40 minutes in the restroom as everything that had been saving up exploded out of me. It was horrific. Times 12.

Later that night, I started getting a pinching pain in my lower right abdomen. I just chalked it up to being overstressed from what just happened in the restroom and went to bed. But the next day, it was worse... certain positions hurt it more...I called the nurse at my ob/gyn and they said it was round ligament pain from uterine stretching.

I took some Tylenol and shot through it for a boudoir session I had in Lawson, Mo. That evening, Neil and I went to dinner and the pain increased to about a 6 or 7 on the "oh, f*ck!" scale. I could hardly walk. (This was before I ate.) I got really worried after a bit and called the after-hours doctor and it happened to be MY ob/gyn who was on call. She listened to everything that had happened for the past few days and deduced that it was an inflamed cecum (in my large intestine) and that the IBS episode was so traumatic for the intestine that it's still suffering and cramping up, not playing nicely with the rest of the digestive tract. So she prescribed Bentyl, a bowel-muscle relaxer. Definitely the sexiest drug I've ever put into my body. 

I took it--and it took the pain away (and wiped me out...ha).

The following couple of days, I stuck with the meds and a bland diet.... but by Tuesday, the pain seemed to have dissipated...until the evening, so I turned back to the pharm charm. Wednesday a.m., the pain was back again, so I again took the relaxer.  Big dummy me, who was so hungry and sick of apple sauce and toast decided to move up a notch to a soup...how hard can that be to digest? It's already liquid!! 

Then my logic apparently disappeared in favor of a craving: I wanted broccoli cheese soup, which just so happened to be the soup o the day at a chain restaurant up the street. Hours later, when the meds wore off, the pain came back full force and was again at the 6/7 mark on the scale. I tried to get down mashed potatoes for dinner, but now I was worried that something was wrong more so than what my doc had originally thought. So we decided we needed to go to the ER just to make sure it wasn't appendicitis or anything like that. 

So we spent five hours there (and I do want to take a second to chastise the mother and father who brought their triplet 3-year olds to the ER because they feared one of them had strep and then proceeded to allow the lil' monsters to run about the waiting room, climbing over all the chairs, slobbering on the water fountain, sneezing and yelling and crying and getting their possibly Strep germs all over everything the rest of us with weak immune systems would possibly touch... DUMB MOVE, MADRE & PADRE!! How about just one of you bring the sick child in and the other stay home with the other not-so-darlings? See? I can already make wise parenting decisions, unlike SOME people.) Rant done. 

So we waited for 2 hours....AND finally got a room by 10:15 p.m. Good news finally came our way....The baby's heartbeat was strong. My blood and urine tests came back normal and concluded that my ob/gyn was correct. He told me to continue taking the Bentyl, and not to ween myself off of it for awhile. 

And I'd like to point out how the support of a spouse, and the caring checking-up from a few friends and family members has been truly appreciated. (you know who you are...) The Hubs was so amazingly patient and surprisingly not annoyed with having to sit it out in an ER room rather than watch baseball or play guitar. He was truly the best friend I married. Love you, babers!

We didn't get home until nearly 1 a.m. That was Wednesday. 

It is now Saturday...I am still taking two pills a day and fearful that I will have a repeat scenario. I'm trying to balance my fiber intake and find that happy medium. 

In better news... Thursday morning, when I was exhausted from the long, painful last few days and resulting visit to the ER the night before, I had my ob/gyn check up. Nothing major to report other than we have set the date for the detailed sonogram, during which time we should be able to find out what jewels have been bestowed upon the creature within. AUGUST 25....! Like a beacon of light to get me through these next two weeks. And then Neil better take the debit card from me because this momma wants to FINALLY SHOP!!!!

Anyway, here are two photos. The first is of the After/Before photos of the baby room wall. I'm so incredibly brilliant and put the pics in the wrong order....so fret not, the dingy, dark image on the right with the god-awful honey wood desk/window ledge element is what we've gotten rid of. And the bright, welcoming and relaxing window seat and picture window is now in its place. 

And I've started our photo log of the mound's progress. I must say that I was bigger the week before this one, but now i'm thinking that was due to my bloated condition. 

So the next time I post, I'm going to guess I will be showing you week 17...and maybe even a blabbing of the thoughts that go through my mind at night, or pretty much any minute that I am fully aware that I have something in my stomach that my husband does not.