Post North Carolina Editorial

Hello all! I have had such an eventful few months. I wanted to remember as much as I could so here I am. In late May I miscarried - no real problems, my doctor said come back in a couple of months pregnant again. So I went on my merry way to North Carolina for our month on the beach. Jory came out for the first week for the first time. he loved it - although nobody can say much for the humidity. After he left I played lots of golf, beached, pooled, gatored, aquariumed, rested and relaxed. I was spotting some while there, but figured I'd deal with it when we got home. I thought if I was pregnant, it would only be a few weeks. So we were to come home Wednesday night, the 14th of July, but once I got to the Raleigh airport, I realized with the delay I would be stuck in Minnesota. Deciding I'd rather be stuck in Raleigh, my parents, luckily, hadn't left to drive back down to Calabash, so they were able to take me back to my sister's house right outside of Raleigh for one more night. We got out the next morning with no problems (they had even oversold the Dallas to SLC leg, so we were lucky we got a ticket on that flight).

So we got home and I was pretty zonked Friday, but I did take a pregnancy test and it was positive. Saturday I woke up and had some terrible cramping - lasted about 1/2 hour but then went away. We had my SILs baby shower and it went just great, and I was fine until Sunday night. I thought I was going to die. I couldn't move. I was in my bed, Jory and Jonah just staring at me like I was breathing my last breath - which I can't blame them because I said I was dying. My good MIL and FIL came over, just in case we needed to go to the ER, and I called the doctor. He said I needed to have my rhogam shot (I'm rh negative) either way, but I should go to the ER if I am dying, but I was surviving by that point so I decided to tough it out.

The next day I had a dentist appointment and a neighbor was coming to bbsit for me anyways, so I decided to just go straight from the dentist to the doctor because the nurse hadn't called me back. I went in and was able to talk to the dr and nurse. They said have the rhogam blood taken (they need to make the shot from my blood), and have an hcg count taken to see how far long I was. Went back home around 11:30 and was still pretty achey. The nurse called me at about 1 and said I needed to come back for an ultrasound at 3 because my hcg was 3500! That is a huge number! So I went back in, and the tech, after searching all over, found the fetus stuck in my right tube. The thing that really got to me was I could hear the heartbeat. I had really talked myself into this being my last pregnancy, but to have that hard evidence of being pregnant was hard for me.

Because I have had 2 other ectopic pregnancies, I thought, okay, they'll send me right over to the place where people have chemo, that is where they give the methotrexate to dissolve the pregnancy, so I'll cramp a few days and be good. Not so. The doctor said that if they can hear the heartbeat, it is too far along and they need to do surgery because the methotrexate may not work fast enough and I could still rupture. So my MIL kept the kids and Jory got there around 6, just as I was going in. We talked about making it so we would be done - hard to decide in about 3 minutes, even though Jory was done a couple of kids ago (LOL). So the doctor said he would look at everything and if it looked like it would be bad on both sides, he'd take care of it. So Dr. Rigby, my anesthesiologist, nurse Betty, Dr. Stephen Terry (the best) and his partner, Dr. Lloyd (who Jory is probably related to) all scrubbed in to save my life. As it happened, my left side is just fine and still in tact - so more decisions to make. It was kind of relieving, I think being in the hospital for 2 days emotionally thinking of my future and having it be the end of that stage of life for me would have been hard. Not that I'm not done, but I think that will be good to be our decision.

So my MIL and SIL all hopped on board to help with the kids. I have had dinner brought in Thursday through last night (but we went to the in-laws for Sunday dinner). I really took it easy from being home from the hospital on Wednesday to Sunday. Yesterday, I decided while I was already dying, I had the post put in for my implant I needed. It is just because I had the rogue tooth that was causing lots of bacteria to build up because of how it was in my mouth, so I had it pulled about 3 months ago and in 2 weeks will have it done and my front tooth recapped - so Jory can't call me "gray-tooth" any more. Anyways - it killed, so I hung out yesterday afternoon with Jory, then today FINALLY got to some yard-work - I think my neighbors were about to kill me - the grass is looking really good, but our flowers and plants were horrendous!!!

My SIL, Kristi Kimball, had her baby girl, Lila, today - I guess she went in at 10 pm last night and had her about 11:30am. Not too terrible for a first baby, but she said on Sunday she was feeling some movement - even though she was not due for about 2 more weeks or 10 days or so. And my neighbor, Andrea, is having her baby c-section today so I will go to St. Mark's tomorrow to see all of these adorable baby girls!!

That's about my life right now - just trying to take it easy a few more days. One lucky thing is that the day we left for NC, I started one of those additional insurance plans to cover pregnancy - really they are for any hospitalization, but both of them will cover me for the ectopic pregnancy, so that should help out with some of the medical costs. Our insurance will also cover 80%- so we should be okay - helps with some of that emotional stuff.

So I hope to enjoy the last 3 weeks of summer with my boys. Eli has pinkeye - Jax may have it too, so we are all staying close for now. The boys have stuff at Dimple Dell, Jonah sports and both Jonah and Eli are doing a swim/water camp, so that will be fun. We are camping some - and hope to get out and go the next week or two.

Thanks for hanging with me!!