It was my husband's birthday, and we have a tradition of laying out birthday presents on the placemat in the morning. We celebrated together, and had dinner plans later that evening. I went to work, and was feeling generally uncomfortable but chalked it up to a cyst during pregnancy and some morning sickness. I had a cyst on my ovary during our last pregnancy, which is fairly normal and helps sustain the pregnancy. However, last time, the cyst became big enough, even early on, for me to feel it and cause me some discomfort occasionally.
As the morning progressed, I became more uncomfortable, but I wrote it off... it's just that cyst, and I just needed some tylenol. Luckily, I had an opening due to a cancellation so I had a chance to run to the store to get some tylenol and applesauce. I took the tylenol, and waited.... but it was getting worse, and suddenly I was on the floor of my office in pain. I went to call my mom, but she was out of the country. I called my mother-in-law, who is a nurse and asked her to pray with me. She urged me to call my doctor, but I was nervous about being that patient who called a million times for nothing. I called and they calmly told me to come in immediately.
I called Evan, who was very concerned, and wanted to come pick me up to take me to the doctor's. However, I was in so much pain at this point, that I truthfully could not imagine waiting the 30 minutes it would take him to come get me and then the 30 minutes it would take us to get to the doctors. So, I insisted that it'd be faster for me to drive there myself, and my husband brilliantly offered to meet me halfway instead. I didn't make it very far, as I got sick a few times en route. Finally, he got to me, and we hurried to the doctor's. We waited in the waiting room for probably 2 whole minutes, which felt like a million. My pain was escalating, I was having a hard time sitting still, and a hard time not panicking. We were taken back to the ultrasound room, and waited probably another 2 minutes, which again felt like a million. One of the doctors came in and the ultrasound tech, and ultimately told us that I had a hemorrhagic cyst burst and it was leaking fluid, which was what was causing the pain. They looked for the baby, but could not see it past the fluid, which was not concerning apparently since we were only approximately 5 weeks.
However, they were really concerned about my pain level and that there could be other issues. So, we were admitted to the Women's and Infant Unit. It is such a blessing to get to the hospital and see that my regular doctor was the doctor for the unit that day. She ran more tests, confirmed the hemorrhagic cyst burst with leakage, and looked for the baby again. She could not find the baby either. She checked my fallopian tubes, and this was the first time we were warned that this could be an ectopic pregnancy. She could not see the baby in the tubes either, and said that if the baby was in the right place that it should be unaffected by this. All we could do was wait. Wait to see if the internal bleeding stopped, to see if the pain could be managed, to see if they the baby was fine, etc. So, to my shock, they gave me IV narcotics for the pain, which was an incredible blessing (who knew that those were safe during pregnancy.. I really thought I was just going to have to tough through it).
And we waited.... Evan did such a wonderful job at keeping our families up to date.
And we prayed... We reached out to a few friends for prayer, too.
And we saw so many doctors in and out... At every moment, we had incredible care, and I am so thankful for all of my doctors and nurses.
And we waited.... Evan went home to download some shows from our DVR to watch to pass the time.
Finally, after my test results showed that I had stabilized, we were sent home after midnight with more pain medication. They said that my body would reabsorb the fluid, and my pain would decrease in the next few days. We would have to wait 48 hours to know if the baby was okay. They gave us all the information about signs to look out for with reasons to come back or call. We had an appointment to talk with our doctor in the morning.
Before we left, my usual doctor, who was at home at this point, called in to wish Evan "Happy Birthday" one more time; just one more example of how thoughtful our doctors were. Also, Evan was so incredibly gracious that we hi-jacked his birthday. I teased him that he wanted me to take off of work for his birthday and that, technically, he got his wish. I'm so thankful at how supportive and gracious he was despite his birthday going very differently than planned. We really did have a day full of togetherness, prayer, support, and love, and truly that is all that really matters.