Three Emergency Rooms Later...

It never fails, you know. Whenever things are going exceptionally well with our fertility, something has to happen to throw a wrench into the works. Well, this most wrench was quite the doozy. It's a long story, involving a long night so roll up your sleeves and get ready to hear about our last couple of days. Warning to the reader: They sucked. Royally. Worse, I'm still super tired so this blog will likely have minimal humor injected. I'm just too tired so I apologize in advance. Feel free, however, to interject where you think I would have added something funny or sarcastic. It will lighten this up a bit.

Around 6:00 p.m. on Monday evening, Heidi had two sharp pains in her back. By 8:00, her stomach and right side started hurting pretty bad. I told her that it was probably the normal aches and pains associated with pregnancy...lots of uterus stretching, maybe her introduction to morning sickness, all of the fun stuff that she had to look forward to being pregnant. I wasn't worried, I just figured it was the next step in her journey and chuckled internally knowing what she was in for...and she wished for this. LOL

She went to bed early hoping that she would feel a little better by the morning. Around 11:00 p.m., I heard her whimpering, almost crying. I asked what was wrong and she said her stomach was hurting really badly. She went out to lie on the couch (because apparently, she feels our couch has magic healing powers). I joined her and we sat in the dark trying to figure out what to do would fix the problem. I decided to call our nurse, despite the late hour, in case the pain was from hyper-stimulation. She answered in her "Who the hell is this? I'm sleeping" groggy voice. I told her the sitch and she said we could wait until tomorrow to come see Dr. Welden or if the pain got too bad, we could go to the ER...she just didn't want us to sit in the ER all night for nothing. She said Heidi should try to take Tylenol to take the edge off. She didn't think it was the hyper-stimulation but she didn't know what it was. I fetched some hard-core Tylenol and Heidi took those. We went back to bed and decided that if she wasn't feeling better within a half hour, we would go to the ER.

Now, if it had worked, this would be a very short blog. It didn't. At 12:00 a.m. we headed to Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater. When we checked in, they told us it shouldn’t be too long. This was good because Heidi was getting more and more uncomfortable from the pain in her back and stomach. After an hour and a half of waiting in the waiting room, which is slightly scary at midnight, and being told twice that it wouldn't be much longer, the little dude at the desk advised he didn't know when they would be able to take us back because they had gotten really busy (um, not in the waiting area...). It was now 2:00 a.m. and Heidi can barely walk. We absolutely did not feel like having her sit in a hard chair and continue to wait to not be seen so we decided to go to Bardmoor ER. We called them first to see if there was a wait and by the grace of God, there wasn't. We went to get our car from the valet...yea, the hospital is under construction so you had to valet. The dude jumped in his mini-van to head the two blocks to our car and reappeared in about five minutes, laughing that it would help if he had the keys. Seriously? You're a valet...you have two responsibilities: Keys and parking. By the time he got back, I was more than a little annoyed and Heidi was in more pain. Were it not 2:00 a.m. and if I didn't have to hold my wife up, I may have beat him up. Seriously.

We get to Bardmoor ER and get taken right back to a room. Thank you, Gods of ER's, thank you. They immediately start her on an IV. We advise of the issue and advise that she is five and a half weeks pregnant after IVF. Let me just say that the nurse was nice enough, props for that. However, she wasn't really all that detail oriented. When the doctor came in, he though Heidi was five months pregnant. When I was giving her the names and dosages of Heidi's meds, there wasn't an available drop down for 1 ml of Progesterone so she just input the standard 50 ml. One would think that a little attention to detail would be important in this setting, but what do I know? When the doctor came in and we started answering IVF questions, you could tell he wasn't very familiar with the process. We told him we had 3 embryos put back but that we didn’t know yet how many took so he ordered an ultrasound. About an hour later, the ultrasound tech arrives. By this time, Heidi's pain has worsened. This made the topical and vaginal ultrasound extremely painful. Apparently, this tech had not taken the "Dr. Welden's Guide to Gentle Ultrasounds" course and was quite rough on Heidi, especially considering the fact that her stomach was already in so much pain. The only positive in this situation was the fact that I was able to watch her do the ultrasound and I saw her mark the drop-down box for number of fetuses: 2. I also got to see her mark one of the screen shots with yolk sac. This was my second visit with our baby...once during the aspiration, and now, watching a screen with a yolk sack on it. Despite the situation, I couldn't help but smile. Two babies. Deep breaths...two babies. Oh my god. Two babies...back to Heidi. I couldn't help but smile at her, even though she had no idea what I was smiling about. My happiness was short-lived.

After the tech finishes, she advises that the radiologist has to review the pictures and the doctor would be back in to talk to us in thirty to sixty minutes. It's about 4:30 a.m. at this point so what else do we have to do? Sleep is pretty much out of the question because of the amount of pain Heidi is in and the fact that the temperature in the room was probably bordering at about 37 degrees. The doctor finally comes in and tells us one fetus looks good and is in the right spot in the uterus. Another embryo looks to have implanted really low in the cervix and is in the wrong position and may not continue to be viable. He also thinks the pain on Heidi's right side is due to an ectopic pregnancy. So, in a span of a mere few moments, we learned we had three babies and then learned that maybe we had one. He also said that they were not equipped to handle these types of issues and that an ambulance has been called to transfer Heidi to Bayfront.

It is now 5:00 a.m. and the pain is just too much for Heidi. A half hour earlier, she asked the nurse for pain medicine. When the nurse came back with it, Heidi asked if it was okay to take since she was pregnant. The nurse gave her a look that said, "why would it matter?" and said "Not really, it's a narcotic.". I then asked her if she could have some Tylenol to at least try to take the edge off. The nurse goes to get some. After about thirty minutes, Heidi just couldn't take the pain anymore. She conceded and agreed to take the pain medicine. After nine hours, she just couldn’t take it anymore. You have to understand how bad Heidi's pain must have been. Under normal circumstances, I can't get her to take a Tylenol to save my life. She could be fighting the worse headache of her life but she'd rather see if she could just manage it without taking the Tylenol. For her to take a pain pill was a huge indicator of the amount of pain she was in. She was so worried about the affect it would have on the baby. Second visit from the nurse with the pain pill must have resulted in her actually looking up some information about the pain pill because she said it was a Class C narcotic that was often used in OB situations. Weird...this is the second health care professional that I wanted to beat up in a single night.

When we find out we are being transferred, I tried again to call Pam. Our phones were almost dead so I called from the hospital phone. I'm sure the sobbing voicemail she received was not the best wake-up call she could have gotten. It was weird. I didn't cry in front of Heidi because my job is to be strong for her, take care of her, make her know that its going to be alright. But there's something about talking to a trusted person, someone who had gone through this journey with you, there was something about talking to that person in a time of crisis that makes you turn to shit and become completely incapable of forming words without hitching and sobbing. I took a moment to go plug my phone into the car so it could charge and give myself a moment. I called Pam again and unfortunately for her, just let go again. I asked her what we should do because I just didn't know. I only knew that I needed Heidi to be alright but beyond that, I was actually lost. I needed her to tell me what to do. Using her groggy voice again, she said that we should go ahead and go to Bayfront. Before we agreed to let them do anything except diagnostic testing, the needed to talk to Dr. Welden. The ambulance shows up around 7:00 a.m. We were on our way to ER number 3 for the night. After a long 45 minute, bumpy ride with Tim, the new ambulance driver, we finally arrive at Bayfront. I followed the ambulance and made all the phone calls I needed to make while I had battery-life. Work, Nancy to update her on Heidi's condition and Jessica...again, a person who just made it OK for me to cry when I talked to her. That was okay...I needed to get it out before I was back with Heidi. You can't be someone's rock if you're a blubbering idiot, right?

We were placed in a room upon arrival. Heidi's stomach pain had finally calmed down and while we waited for the doctor, we fell asleep - - - Heidi in the hospital bed, me in the least ergonomically correct chair possible. It's amazing where and how someone can fall asleep if they are tired enough. Around 9:00 a.m., the OB doctor came round...Dr. Brown. By the grace of God, once again, he was very familiar with IVF (he and his wife were currently 22-weeks pregnant with twins so he knew exactly what we were going through). Thank God! He indicated that he didn't believe it was an ectopic pregnancy because the pain was to high in Heidi's stomach. He thought it was more likely a kidney stone but would send her for his own ultrasound instead of relying on the notes from Bardmoor. In less than six hours, Heidi was having her second topical and vaginal ultrasound. And amazingly enough, this ultrasound tech had also failed the gentle ultrasound course. Heidi was in so much pain her eyes were filled with tears. The entire experience was so painful and uncomfortable for her. I watched the tech, who initially asked me to wait in the waiting room (yea, right, that wasn't going to happen!). She was quicker than the last tech, taking less pictures. After the ultrasound, Dr. Brown reviewed the ultrasound and said that the one fetus appeared to be fine. He indicated there may be a second fetus at the bottom of the uterus but because of the size, it was hard to tell. He thought the best course of action would be to go to our fertility doctor. He called Dr. Welden to explain his findings and then came back in for a brief chat. As we were preparing to be discharged, Heidi started spotting. It created that feeling that if one more thing went wrong, we might just go unhinged. I don't actually know what the result of that would be, I just know that we were nearing the end of our emotional rope. Each time we would start to feel better, something else would happen. We hailed the doctor in the hallway to advise him of the spotting. He indicated that it was likely because of all of the ultrasounds Heidi had that day.

We left the hospital around 12:30 p.m. On our way home, we grabbed lunch and with what little energy we had left, ate and went to bed. We had to be at Dr. Welden's by 4:00 so we only had an hour and a half to rest but we needed every second of that.

We get to Dr. Welden's and are embraced by our nurses. It felt good to be somewhere familiar with people who knew us and cared about our outcome. Dr. Welden did an external exam, listening to Heidi's belly parts, tapping around in places (all of which were weird because he's usually just involved in one part of her body so it felt out of place...). He performed another ultrasound, much more gently than the techs. Poor Heidi...this was her third vaginal ultrasound in one day. If you've never had one, know this...the want is a good twelve inches and has to reach the netheregions of her girl parts. It is not what one would describe as "fun" or "enjoyable". He was so thorough, looking everywhere...he found the baby placed appropriately in the uterus. He also found a blood sac behind the embryo and said that sometimes, when an embryo is implanting, it may hit a blood vessel and some of the blood may leak into the uterus. It thought that was the case with the blood behind the uterus in this ultrasound. He was unable to find an embryo at the bottom of the uterus as indicated by the two other ultrasound techs. He said it may have been a mucus sac or something like that. He had seen them in Heidi's cervix in the past so he wasn't concerned. He advised that it was difficult to see an ectopic pregnancy because the ultrasound contract was the same as the tube; unless the embryo was large enough, it wouldn't necessarily show on the ultrasound. IF the embryo had travelled up the tube, it may be about forty-eight hours behind the other embryo. With that being said, he wanted us to come back on Thursday to do another ultrasound. He also said the pain Heidi was feeling could be a kidney stone but he didn't know; he was just speculating based on the path of pain - - - lower back to stomach.

He was going to do a urine sample and more blood tests before we left. Heidi had been poked so many times this week, between the blood tests for HCG and all of the tests from the hospital. My poor little pin cushion...she had gone through so much today. We were finally starting to feel a little better about things. One last thing...urine test, and then we were off to go to bed. She went into the rest room and as she sat down to do piddle in a cup, a bunch of blood came out. She was obviously freaked out and immediately left the restroom to tell Dr. Welden; she didn't even finish peeing in the cup. He happened to be right at the bathroom when she came out. He said not to worry; it could be from all the ultrasounds and trauma to the cervix. It was possible that the one embryo that was really low aborting itself. Just no way of knowing this early in the pregnancy. Heidi went back to finish her urine sample. I sat with Pam and cried. Again, everytime it felt like we could relax a little, something else happened. Heidi was coming out and I dried my tears...gotta stay strong for her. I am her rock, dammit, I gotta stop all this damn crying. It must be because I'm so damned tired.

We have instructions to return on Thursday. We go home and have dinner and go to bed. This was one of the longest and most difficult days we've had to endure in this process.

What now? Well, Pam called and said that Dr. Welden took the records from both ER's home with him to review more closely. Since they both indicated an embryo at the time of ultrasound but he was unable to find it, he thinks she may have miscarried. Pam also indicated Heidi's HCG levels had gone down; another indicator that one of the embryos miscarried. I don't suppose we'll ever know for sure; since she is so early, everything is speculative. The pain has subsided signficantly. If it was a kidney stone, it could have passed. She's still tender but it's nothing even close to the original pain she as in. The bleeding has also stopped; just some spotting today. She's exhausted but we took today off together and caught up on some sleep.

Tomorrow is another ultrasound. With every single ounce of everything that I am, I pray and hope that the baby is growing and thriving. I only ask that you also pray because that's what we have left...one baby and a lot of prayers.