Baby Rick Asserts His Authority

So, for those of you who don't know, Baby Rick and I spent a few days in the hospital (15 to be exact, minus a day and a half where we got to go home). Rick was fine; in fact, I think he thought he was at sleep-over camp. He kicked, rolled, and did endless flips all while I was laid up in bed, strung out on narcotics, and still vomiting endlessly. Rick had a great time. I had a time. I don't think Rick cared much about me being sick or hungry or uncomfortable. He just cared about having a good time. And as Lisa and I quickly discovered, what is important to Rick is now all that is important to us. Patrick Ross is weeks away from being born and he is already asserting his authority.

In spite of it all, Lisa and I still had a good time watching Rick roll around in my belly and listening to him on the fetal monitor. He is very cute in line form (i.e. the fetal monitor) and even cuter in 3D ultrasound form. We got an ultra sound of him the first week we were in the hospital. That's when we found out that he already weighs 3 lbs 11 oz. (In spite of too much time trying to get our scanner to work, I have given up. Ultra sound pics of Patrick to come later.)

Unfortunately, I am not so cute these days. Much cuter than my ulcer, but that says very little because my ulcer is damn ugly. I can't decide whether to attach a picture of it or not. I find it fascinating, but others find it nauseating; which is appropriate considering it was my 7 months of vomiting that brought on this ulcer.

OK, so here is the run down: I went into the hospital two Saturdays ago when a braxton hicks (sp?) contraction led to intense cramping and chest pain that wouldn't go away. I had also been experiencing increased nausea and vomiting which had decreased my fluid and food intake. They kept me over night at the hospital until they got the contractions under control and determined that Patrick was doing fine. So we went home Sunday and I proceeded to throw up more and more. By Monday afternoon I wasn't able to keep water down either. We called our midwives who had me call my bariatric surgeon. By the time I called her she was no longer in her office. The next morning she called and ordered me to the hospital immediately. When we got to the hospital I was given a bariatric surgeon, an OB, and soon after a GI specialist.

The theory when I first arrived at the hospital was that I had developed a blockage in my bowels as a result of the gastric bypass. My theory was different, though. I figured that after 7 months of vomiting, I had aggravated my stomach and pulled some stomach muscles. I also knew I had a hernia at my belly button, which is common in pregnancy. I knew that the hernia hurt severely when I was vomiting. I also knew that I could eat less and less fiber type foods without getting sick. I couldn't even eat a damn salad without feeling like I was going to die. So, my theory was that I had puked myself into constant pain and my stomach was sick of food.

The doctors politely (some of them were polite) dismissed this notion. They gave me an ultrasound to rule out gall bladder problems and a cat scan to rule out hernias and blockages, but they were pretty sure they would find a blockage. Lisa was freaking out at this point thinking I was going to have to have surgery or die. They didn't find a blockage, I didn't have to have surgery and I am not dead. That's when they called in the GI docs. They did a scope on my stomach and that is when they found my massive ulcer. So, it turns out, after all the vomiting, I had developed an ulcer. Because of the propensity for bypass patients to develop ulcers at their incision sites, my ulcer was outrageous. This explained the intense pain and my inability to keep food down.

They treated this ulcer with heavy doses of pepcid type things, took me off of hard foods to ease stress on my stomach, put me on an IV feeding system, and gave me heavy narcotics. The ulcer will take a long time to heal and will likely need surgery after Rick is born. In the meantime, all the things they did to help the ulcer led to... how shall I put it? A slow down in my internal plumbing. The slow down led to increased pain, which led to increased narcotic consumption and increased refusal to eat any food, let alone the soft stuff. This led to an increased slowdown in my plumbing and an increase in pain. When the doctors finally figured out what was causing all my trouble, they gave me another x-ray to confirm it and began the process of getting my plumbing going.

I am now home and working very hard at staying there. That's the story. I'm sure I left tons out, but to be fair, I was high as a kite most of the time.

We were scared to death at first because they wanted to operate which could have caused an early arrival for Rick. A very early arrival. After that we were just confused and I think Lisa was still pretty worried about me. I was just frustrated, I think. I don't quite remember.

But let's take a moment to talk about Lisa. While I was sick in bed, she was the one who was really suffering. Seriously. She had to either sleep on an uncomfortable cot or drive 45 minutes each way to be with me. She hardly slept for two weeks, she missed work, fell behind in her research, did and still does all of the cleaning, laundry and errands. She was so tired by the end of my hospital stay that she crashed in my hospital bed while I got dressed and ready to go. When the technician came in to take my temp and blood pressure, she tried to wake Lisa. I explained I was the patient, but she didn't believe me. In fact, she kind of laughed at me. She kept looking me up and down and looking back over at Lisa in the bed. Poor woman. I hadn't seen her in my 2 weeks in the hospital. I think she was really shocked and confused.

I have an Outie Now

So, I always swore I would never let anyone take or, at least, disseminate pictures of my naked belly just because I am pregnant. This, however, is too funny looking not to share. I can make my belly button pop out at will and then pull it back in. Initially, I took the picture myself, and it was a good closeup, but the picture I took didn't look like a belly at all. It looked like a breast and while, as you can tell from this photo, no one should ever mistake a big pregnant belly for a breast of mine, I decided to have Lisa take the picture instead. Unfortunately, you can't quite see the outie as well here, but you get the overall idea, I think. You also get to see me at most typical: sitting in my recliner reclining while Lisa does stuff for me. Life pregnant is good--except for the daily vomiting, lower-back pain, shooting pains in the belly, leg cramps, and constant hunger. All that aside (hell, all that included) I really like being pregnant.

On a more practical note, my belly is clearly really big now, which means it is time to move on to stretchy maternity pants. I think I have a student who will turn my current big pants into maternity pants by replacing the top of my jeans with stretchy stuff. Any idea, anyone out there, what kind of stretchy stuff I need to buy so it can be sewn onto my pants. I've been putting this off for too long I think. Patrick has been trying to crawl out through my belly button and stretching my gut into a new zip code (F.Y.I. the stretch marks in the photo are old, but the pain in my stomach is all new, let me tell you). Oh, and don't worry Mom, my hair just needs to be combed. It's normally much prettier :).

That's all for now.

Making Room for Rick

So, we have been putting together Baby Rick's room. It's overwhelming, let me say. We have lots of stuff already--generously donated by family and friends, and we have lots of stuff coming from Nana and Papa Straight sometime soon. For now, though, we needed the basics to get the room started. So, I recruited our trusted student and future Rick sitter, Alex, to go to BabiesRUs with me and find those basics. It was supposed to be a quick trip, but it took us hours to figure out what kind of mattress pad to get for the changing table. And then we had to find a sheet to go with it. I told everyone in the store that my inability to do this efficiently was Alex's fault. She appreciated that.

Anyhoo... The room is sort of put together now. It is a nice mix of little girl and little boy stuff and a whole lot of stuff in between. (We have lots of nieces so we have a bunch of pink stuff. We have been getting boy stuff lately. We mostly bought gender neutral stuff ourselves, though. It works well.)

On the vomit front: Rick no longer likes McDonalds, which is great; but I have yet to figure out what he does like--other than pizza. He also doesn't like my old standby of protein bars. If I try and eat salads or even carrots... well, watch out. Oh, and raisin bran is out now. It's no wonder I'm losing weight again. But, don't worry, I checked with the mid-wives and they aren't worried. I am still healthy and Rick is a friggin soccer player (he's taking after his Aunt Amber already). He's doing great and getting all the nutrients he needs. I may be sick everyday, but I'm having a great time anyway. So, don't worry about our health and the mid-wives asked me to tell everyone to stop scaring me with your worries.

On the clothing front, it's almost time for me to move to stretchy pants. I have decided to take Ann "Boo" Hamada McClaughlin's advice and get one of the students in the costume shop in the theatre dept. to convert my pants into maternity pants. The cast for the play we just finished bought me a new, sturdier pair of suspenders too, so my pants haven't fallin off at all in days. (They also bought Patrick two pairs of argyle socks--the play was about a man who has a fetish for his father's argyle socks. Aren't the actors sweet?)

That's all for now, I guess. This was not an exciting blog, but I have been told that an update was needed. Here you have it. Oh, and my pictures to come later.