And Babies Make Four: Kidney Stones and other exciting things that happened this weekend!

Jay and I had decided that in order to get everything done this weekend, we would have to divide and conquer. He made putting up the board and batten treatment on the nursery his personal goal, while I made decorating it mine. On Saturday morning I woke up early, paid some bills, and headed to Atlanta by myself to visit my parents, pick up nursery furniture, and choose the rest of the fabrics for the nursery. I had a fun ride down. I made some stops at Mary Jo's fabrics and Pottery Barn Outlet (nothing really good at either place) and listened to some Pregtastic podcasts to help pass time. If you are pregnant or thinking about becoming pregnant these are really informative and fun to listen to.

I arrived in Atlanta and quickly picked up my mom and headed towards midtown to visit a plethora of fabric stores. We started at this cute store, Whipstitch, which was low on the types of fabric we were looking for but had the cutest patterns. The store is very modern and they offer sewing classes. Might be something fun to look into. Next we went to a store that we heard great things about, Lewis and Sheron Fabrics. While they had TONS of great, really modern fabrics, they did not have the toile I was looking for, nor did they offer any customer service. When asked about the toile, they said that they don't carry old patterns like that. Well excuse me if I like "classic". We promptly left and proceeded to Forsyth Fabrics where we hit the holy grail of fabrics! They had the toile I was looking for in pink and blue, as well as many other complimenting fabrics. We spent a few hours trying to narrow down our choices. Forsyth also has a design center that provides free consultations. The lady working was sooo good. She had my style pegged right away and made several suggestions that took my fabrics from looking cutesy and frumpy to tailored and sophisticated.

I am so excited about the fabrics we chose! The outside bumpers of each crib will be white with either pink or blue toile (pink for Emma Cate's crib and blue for Holden's). The inside of the bumpers will be white fabric with small pink polka dots for Emma Cate and blue for Holden. The piping and ties to hold the bumpers in place will be a dark tan linen fabric. My mom is going to make the crib skirts out of the same linen fabric and trim them in grosgrain ribbon.

We're going to cover the gliders in the white with polka dot fabric. One will be pink and one blue. They'll both be piped with the same linen from the bed skirts. I'm planning to learn how to cover two lamp shades in the toile fabrics. Finally, my mom is also making two window treatments. They'll both be linen with grosgrain trim to match the bed skirts.

We left the fabric store exhausted but so happy and headed home for pjs and chinese takeout. Sunday morning we all hung out around the house and I enjoyed having a delicious breakfast cooked for me. Our plan Sunday was to head out around noon to go shopping for maternity clothes. I hopped in the shower around 11:30 and by 12:15 was ready to go. While I waited for my mom to finish up a project she was working on, I started having some pains in my lower right side. They felt very similar to what I had felt a few weeks ago when I went to the doctor and they told me to watch my appendix. I assumed it was probably just gas pains and took some Tylenol. The pain really started to increase before we left the house at 12:30 and I cried just a bit. My parents were concerned but I figured it would be fine.

About 5 miles from the house, I was in so much pain that I had my mom pull of the highway to the nearest parking lot so that I could walk around a bit. I called my doctor and was in so much pain that I hung up instead of waiting for the call center to take a message and have my doctor call back. I told my mom I would be fine if we just found a place to buy some Gas-X. She continued driving to a nearby gas station and I laid across the backseat. As we pulled into the gas station, the pain subsided and I began to feel a little better. Mom headed in to find some medicine and when she returned empty handed I started crying. The pain was much worse and I decided that shopping would not be in the cards that day and that we should return home so that I could lay down.

On the way home my pain increased to a level I didn't know existed. The pain had gone from my lower right stomach into my side and up my back. It felt like my insides were on fire and being ripped apart. My mom said that we would pick up my Dad and head to the ER. We pulled in the driveway and it felt like it took forever for my mom to take the dogs out and my dad to get dressed (he had been working in the yard and looked like a bum). I climbed out of the car to walk around a bit and ended up sitting on the driveway unable to move in terrible pain. My mom had to physically pick me up to put me back in the car. On the way to the hospital I was screaming in pain and started to vomit because it hurt so bad. My dad drove like a crazy person, ran a few red lights, and whipped the car into the ER drive-thru.

At the check in counter, they paged a nurser from labor and delivery to come pick me up. I think it took at least 5 minutes for her to get there. I sat in the waiting area and sobbed. Once we got to labor and delivery we had to do a formal check in process. My dad was not having it and demanded that a nurse take me back to get started figuring out what was wrong while he and my mom took care of the check-in information. Once back in labor and delivery, the nurses were super kind and helpful.

After changing into a hospital gown and getting situated in my bed, the nurse took my vitals and worked on getting me an IV. Unfortunately, I was super dehydrated and she couldn't find a vein and had to call in a specialist. Now, I normally drink tons and tons of water but for some reason I didn't drink a ton on the way to Atlanta on Saturday and only had a glass or so of water Sunday morning. The expert IV putter-inner finally found a suitable vein and after a lot of digging around. I was hooked up and receiving fluids. They used the doppler to find the babies heartbeats and both were doing well!

In pain, waiting for the IV

The nurses needed a urine sample and that proved extremely difficult. I was still in sooo much pain, trying to carry an IV machine with me in the hospital and had to pee in a cup. All shame/modesty went out the window and thankfully mom was there to help. This is probably oversharing but my urine was almost brown and immediately upon seeing it the nurser told me there was a lot of blood in it. As soon as I could get back in bed, the nurse put some pain meds in my IV and about 3 minutes later I felt wonderful.

A doctor came in to see me and made a guess that I had kidney stones. I was so concerned about the appendix thing that kidney stones never crossed my mind. My dad who is the only one in my family to have ever experienced them immediately kept telling me how sorry he felt for me because he knew how badly they hurt. Shortly after the doctor left, an extremely kind "transporter" took my mom and I down to radiology to have an ultrasound down of my kidneys. The pain meds wore off while I was in radiology and I had to use some yoga-breathing techniques to manage the pain. My sweet mom rubbed my back and talked me through the pain. The ultrasound tech couldn't tell us what was going on but my mom did notice that she measured several places on my right kidney and none one the left. She was really sweet and even showed us a few pictures of the babies to reassure us that they would be fine.

Emma Cate looking out (the only other pics we have are of her spine)

Profile shot of Holden

Tiny baby feet! Both babies were head down and their feet were together.

After the ultrasound, I got wheeled back up to my room and they hooked up another bag IV bag of fluids. This one hurt so badly. Evidently if you take a break from the IV, a clot will form where the needle is in your hand and in order to get fluids in again the clot must be pushed out of the way. OUCH! I also got more pain meds and was feeling great. My parents left to go home and get some things together. It was decided that since my room was so tiny, my mom would come back after dinner and hangout until bed time and then meet me back at the hospital the next morning. While they were gone, the nurse brought me some gross dinner which I tried to eat and immediately threw up. My stomach and pain meds don't mix well.

Following the lovely dinner incident, my mom came back to the hospital and we were informed that I'd be switching to a much bigger, nicer room. My nurse was getting off duty for the evening so I would get another nurse once I was moved. As soon as I got to the new room, my pain medicine wore off and I had the worst "episode" of the day. The pain was absolutely horrible and I started to vomit again. My poor mom cannot handle throw up but she did such a great job rubbing my back and running out to the hall to try and flag someone down. A nurse came in soon with Zofran (the same stuff I take for morning sickness) for my IV. My previous nurse had warned me that if they pain meds ran out again they would have to put me on something stronger. So the new nurse had to wait for the pharmacy to get all the meds together for my pain "cocktail". After what seemed like forever, she reappeared with the new pain medication in intramuscular shot form. Now, I've had a lot of shots in the tush with hormones and the injectable hormone meds were definitely thicker but holy cow, this syringe was filled to the brim and took 2 minutes to get fully injected. Thank God my mom was there to hold my hand through the process! My mom also decided that she would spend the night in case I woke up in pain again had to get another shot. She said it was just too much for me to handle by myself and she was so right.

my new big room and my pillow from home (so thankful my mom brought this! hospital pillows are so itchy!)

Mom and her sleeping quarters

My new pain meds worked wonders and I was even able to hold down the Popsicles and turkey sandwich my nurse brought me to eat. We had a pretty uneventful evening and both mom and I got some sleep. The following morning I had an appointment with a perinatalogist to check on the babies. They were both doing extremely well and I am sooo thankful that this kidney stone hasn't affect them at all. I was released from the hospital later that afternoon and after the pain meds wore off, I made the drive back to Charlotte.

I had a great night last night with no pain. I woke up with morning and tried to guzzle some water and immediately threw up again. I feel like the first trimester all over again! I had an doctor's appointment with my normal ob this morning for a follow up and while I was there the pain started up again. I quickly made it home, took some anti-nausea meds along with my pain killers and happily planted myself on the couch. The pain meds are working well and although I can still feel pain, it feels more like really bad period cramps and is totally manageable. I'm now drinking tons of water and plan to head back to work tomorrow.

Sorry if this post was the most boring narrative you've ever read. My kidney stone obviously has not passed yet and the doctor told me that with twins I was prone to have more stones throughout the pregnancy and I wanted to remember all of it in case it all happens again. I do have some cute nursery progress pictures to reward you for reading all the way to the bottom!