Pregnancy # 2

Today is John Daniel's 5th birthday. I have already written about pregnancy # 1 and # 3 so I can't leave out number #2. I found out I was pregnant in January of 2004. I wouldn't say it was planned but I wouldn't say it was an altogether oops either. I was so hoping that this pregnancy would be different than the first but it was NOT! I started vomiting at about week 7 and didn't stop until well after week 14. I was in the middle of planning Emily's second birthday and just knew it would all be o.k. until February 19th (her actual birthday), I woke up feeling terrible, could not keep anything down, and had to call my OB who made me come to the office immediately. I was admitted to the hospital for the first time on Emily's 2nd birthday for dehydration and hyperemesis. I remember crying to my friend Debi and getting her to call all of our friends to cancel Emily's Elmo Birthday party :( Before I went to the doctor that day, I called my friend Harriet and she said she would come get Emily. She took Emily and her son, Brenn, to Emily's music class that she was in. She made cookies for them all to share. What a great friend. Harriet kept Emily all day until John could get off work that evening, come see me, and then go get her. The doctor went ahead and ordered a PICC line to be placed in my arm as I had had with my first pregnancy. I went home the next day with the PICC line and fluids. I once again had home health care. This time the PICC line actually lasted until I no longer needed it. I remember in early March, my aunt Ginger planned a "make up" Elmo party for Emily at the park and included my grandfather in the celebration because his birthday is in March. We have a picture of them blowing out the candles together. Half the cake was decorated "Elmo" and half of it has grown up flowers and such. During my first trimester I had some labs drawn and my thyroid level was really out of whack! This got me a referral to an endocrinologist. I had to then see her along with my regular OB doctor about every 2 weeks. She watched my thyroid levels very closely but never put me on any medicine. She checked my thyroid for tumors by ultrasound but never found anything and decided that my thyroid had gone crazy due to the constant dehydration and vomiting. I actually think the vomiting and dehydration was the worst with John Daniel but it lasted the shortest amount of time, thank God. With the girls, I have vomited longer. Thank you God for good friends. Karen Hollenbeck, Debi Bearden, Kim Bailes, Harriet Brewer, Rebecca Cummings and all of our family members were lifesavers. My girlfriends really took care of Emily when I was so sick...it was really hard having a two year old and feeling that bad!!! Emily would hold my throw up bucket for me...she got so use to seeing me sick! My friend Harriet took me to Radiology Associates and had a friend of hers scan me to find out the sex of the baby at 18 weeks. They saw boy parts and we were so excited!!! We went straight to Target and bought a baby blue onesie and took it home and gave it to John. He was so excited! Once I started feeling better, I did really well. We even helped with Camp Charis as Medics for a whole week when I was about 6 months pregnant. We slept in a camper and stayed the whole week in the hot sun. At about 28 weeks, I went into preterm labor. I started having contractions one night and went to L & D. Sure enough I was having pretty regular contractions. They tried to stop them first by giving me a shot..it was horrible. It made my heart race and I got all flushed and IT DID NOT WORK. So I was admitted to the hospital again and given Magnesium Sulfate to stop the labor. I was in the hospital for four nights while they stopped the labor, watched the baby, and gave me steroids to get the baby's lungs ready. After that I had a pretty normal pregnancy and actually never went into labor again. I had to be scheduled for an induction about 4 days after my due date...go figure!