Long Road. Part One.

So, I'm sitting here, looking at my beautiful daughter I decided to write down the beginning of our adventure. I have never written in down in it's entierty.  I have posted bits and pieces as I was feeling like sharing.  But this post, is for me.  So that I will remember the details.  I'm not expecting anyone to read this.  If you do, know that this was the hardest road I've ever had to travel down, but it lead me to one of the best things in my life.  The wonderful, and beautiful Madison Ann.

Tyler and I found out we were expecting in August of 2011.  It was a surprise of course.  We weren't TRYING to get pregnant but we weren't preventing it either.  We just figured we'd let it happen if it was meant to.  And one night I took a test, and there is was 2 lines.  It's amazing how 2 little lines can change your life forever.

The next 6 months we pretty uneventful.  I had a pretty easy pregnancy, I thought.  A little bit of morning sickness, nothing too bad.  I only threw up at work once, and only a handful of times at home.  I had a major food aversion to eggs.  Oh man the smell made me ill.  I remember one morning, Sherri, Tyler and I all went to Kneaders for breakfast.  Sherri and I both got the french toast, but Tyler...oh Tyler, got a breakfast sandwhich with a greasy over hard egg on it.  *gags*  It smelt so bad to my pregnant nose.  He got his food before I got mine, and I sat there with a napkin over my nose until my french toast arrived.  And when it finally arrived I practically ate with my nose in the food, just to keep the egg smell out.  As for cravings I only had a few.  Grape soda was a major one.  And grilled cheese sandwiches.  I swear Tyler made me a grilled cheese almost every night.  Oh and potatoes, which was a strange one.  I used to HATE potatoes, but during my pregnancy and ever since, I really like them.

I remember hearing stories from my friends that were pregnant when I was.  And most of them were like horror stores. Horrible nausea, throwing up everything, all the worst symptoms of pregnancy all rolled into one.  I would offer my condolences, while sighing on the inside that my pregnancy was going so smoothly.  I only gained 14 pounds and was feeling pretty great.  And then I started getting headaches.

I did some research and found out that headaches during the second trimester are pretty common.  It's all the extra hormones floating around.  The bad thing is that you can't take ibuprofen while preggers, only Tylenol.  And Tylenol made me sick.  So I would have to suffer through the pain.  But I never really thought much about it.  My appointments were going ok, and my blood pressure was like "a teenager" so the nurse always said.  Not that I would have even put headaches and blood pressure together as meaning anything at that point.

So in February I was 7 months along, celebrating my 28th birthday.  It was time for a trip to St. George to enjoy being Shelli and Tyler for one last weekend before we became "mom and dad."  It was a fun trip.  We stayed at a nice hotel, went out to eat for my birthday, did some shopping, lounged beside the pool.  And enjoyed the 70 degree weather at the beginning of February.  My legs were swollen, they were so fat that my skin hurt to touch, because the skin was pulled so tight.  And my feet were what I called my "Chris Farley" feet.  All fat and pudgy.  I honestly thought they were so swollen because of the drive down.  From being in the same position for 3 hours. At one point we stopped in at my brothers house.  He mentioned my legs and asked if everything was ok.  I thought it was and told him I had a doctors appointment on Tuesday when we got back to SLC.  Again, I didn't really think anything was wrong.  My brother didn't say anything else to me.  He did however mention it to my dad, that my legs were pretty bad.  But I didn't know that until after everything was done.

We went down to St. George on Feburary 3rd (my birthday), we got back into town on February 6th, and I went to work on Monday morning (the 7th).  I was not an exciting day I just went to work, I'm sure I laughed and told everyone about sitting by the pool in February.  Tuesday is when all the "fun" began.

I had my regular doctors appointment that day.  I always went in on Tuesdays, that was my day off.  I had to go in at 8 that morning for the extended glucose test.  My first test came back abnormal so lucky me I had to sit in the doctors office for 4 hours BEFORE my regular schedualed appointment.  I spent that 4 hours reading a book (a crappy one) and getting my blood drawn.  When it was time for my appointment, the took my blood pressure, and told me it was a little high.  Then the nurse said it was probably because of the sugar from the glucose test.  Ok, well that's not a big deal.  Once I come down off the sugar high things will be alright.  Then the doctor came it.  She was frazzeled and had a stack of patient files.  And told me how she had been sick all weekend.  I laughed and joked with her about the hectic life.  She listened to the babies heartbeat and asked how I was doing.  I then showed her my legs and asked what I could do to keep the swelling down, and if it was somthing to worry about.  She said that there wasn't anything to worry about, and to just put my feet up when I get home from work.  Well that was going to be easy.  Anything to get out of housework right :)

So after my appointment I came home and spent the rest of my day off watching TV and reading that crappy book.  It took me the rest of the day to finish reading the book.  I actually finished it at 10:30 that night.  Don't ask me why I remember that, but I do.  I think it was because my neck has started to hurt and I looked up at the clock and realized it was time for bed, and I hoped that sleep would take care of the neck pain.  Before we went to bed, I mentioned to Tyler that my neck was bothering me.  We both decided it was probably due to reading too much, and having my neck bent weird all day.  So off to sleep we went.  And  4 hours later I woke up with the worst headache I've ever had in my life.  I haven't cried because of a headache since I was a kid.  But this headache woke me up, and made me cry.  I took some Tylenol, because I couldn't handle it.  The Tylenol, made be throw up about an hour later.  I spent the rest of the morning ringing my hands, and rubbing my head, trying to forget about the pain.  I told Tyler about it a couple of times during the night, but he really didn't know what to do.  So he would hold me and then promtly fall back to sleep while I was silently freaking out.  I managed to make it through the night.  I think I only got a couple of hours of sleep that night.

At the time I worked the closing shift on Wednesdays.  I called Tyler after he had already made it to work, and asked him what he thought about me calling in sick that day.  He said that if I felt like I had to, that I should do it.  And that was all I needed.  I called one of my co-workers to see if she could take my closing shift.  Thankfully she said that it wouldn't be a problem.  And I tried to get some more sleep.  With little success.  About an hour later I called Tyler in tears, and asked if he thought his mom would take me to the insta-care.  He said she probably would.  So I called his mom and she came to pick me up.  My head still hurt but I was glad to be going to see the doctor to make sure everything was ok.  It would be another 2 days before anyone figured out that anything was wrong. 


I could keep writing, but this is going to be a long story.  So I think I will break it up a little bit.  For a couple of reasons.  One, it will give me a chance to process everything and organize my thoughts.  And two, to make it easier to read, on the off chance anyone actually decides to read it. :)