The Hits Keep Coming

Well it has been another eventful day at the Crigler household. Stephen and I got to go to the beach this weekend and spend time with two of my closest girlfriends from Atlanta, Laura and Jen, and their families. We had a great weekend and so much fun...up until last night. Beginning at around 9:30 last night the abdominal pain that had sent me to the doctor for the first time started to come back. I wasn't suprised or concerned, just uncomfortable. I decided I would go to bed and I was sure it would get better. I was up several times during the night with pain and having to go to the bathroom but was able to manage it. I finally woke up at about 4:30 and I knew something was not right. I tried to lay in the bed and see if I could find a position where it would not hurt. After 15 minutes, I woke Stephen up and told him something was wrong. We called the paging service at the doctor's office and they said to go to the ER. I informed them we were four and a half hours out of town and they said to go to the nearest ER. I really didn't want to try and find an ER in a city I didn't know, with Drs I didn't know, so we gambled and packed up our stuff and started driving home. We got on the road at around 5:30am.

Stephen was a very good, safe, yet aggressive driver and got us to Birmingham in 4 hours. My pain level was continuing to really increase as we were driving and I was in a good deal of pain. I called my dad at around 7:30am and he was trying to help me and do some diagnosising over the phone. We really thought that I might have appendicitis based on the location and severity of the pain. We made it to the Birmingham at around 9:30ish and went straight to the hospital where my dad met us. We went straight to labor and delivery and they got me back and on a monitor right away. They were so nice and helpful and really took good care of me. They had me give a urine sample and took my blood and started watching me and baby crigler. Baby Crigler had been very active the entire time we were on the road and I told Stephen that this was the first time that I was more scared for myself then I was for him. He looked great on the monitor and made sure to put on a show by kicking the monitor almost continuously.

They told me that they were going to take me down to ultrasound and see if they could see my appendix. They took me down there and even let Stephen and my dad be in the room with me as they were doing the ultrasound which was very nice. They started the ultrasound and checked out my appendix which they could not find...a very good sign. If the appendix is not visible, then it means it is not inflamed. She then told me we were going to check my ovaries and bladder, etc. She asked me to push on the area were it was hurt. I showed her were and she started checking it out. As soon as she pushed down on it with the wand it brought tears to my eyes it hurt so bad. On the screen we could see this big white thing and we knew that it was not something normal. In fact, it was so big I thought I was looking at my actual ovary. She told me that she was on my ovary and I was like what is that big white circle thing. Dad told me that it was a hemoblahblahblah cyst. Basically I had a cyst that had bleed into itself and had grown to an inch. Which definitely would explain the pain. It was so big it was taking up almost half of my right ovary. After we saw that, we were convinced that that was what had been causing the tremendous amount of pain.

Luckily the radiologist was still at the hospital and he was able to read the ultrasound while they were getting me back up to the observation room. They called the doctor on call and told her all of the test results and then I was able to go home. I have been contracting for the past two weeks and they were able to monitor some contractions while I was hooked up. I could feel them, but they were not painful. The doctor decided that they were not enought to make me dialate and I didn't need a cervical exam because sometimes that can cause more problems then it solves. I am a little nervous that I am contracting this much this early, which the nurse did say was unusual but not unheard of based on everything that had been going on with me. I am going to watch them and see if I can figure out any kind of triggers or pattern. The sad news is that there is nothing they can really do for me because it is something that has to resolve on its own. They said either the cysts will rupture and the pain will immediately go away or it will just gradually re-absorb and the pain will start to lessen as it gets smaller and my body gets used to the pressure.

So that is the next chapter of what is turning out to be a very difficult second trimester. Please pray that the contractions completely go away once the pain has subsided and that Baby Crigler will stay safe,healthy and happy until his due date. Please pray for me that I a) don't loose my mind worry about all of this :) and b) am able to get past this and get back to enjoying my pregnancy.