Kidney Stones

Did you know Kidney Stones were common with pregnancy? Yea, I didn't either. Until now.

The week after I got back from Nashville, that Monday, I had my 21 week ultrasound. Everything seemed fine and dandy except for the fact that all of the sudden while I was in the waiting room waiting for my appointment, I realized I had to pee. Then before I went in for the appointment I had to pee again. After the 20 minute appointment I had to pee a third time. As my doctors appointment was on the opposite end of the island, by the time we got halfway to the ferry, I had to pee again. We stopped at Leif's brothers house. When I got to the ferry terminal I peed again. I peed on the ferry. I peed when I got to work. Do you see where I'm going with this? 

I thought this was a symptom of pregnancy. A very common symptom at that. Therefore I didn't think anything of it. Well, I had a long commute home, on a bus, that doesn't have a bathroom, and is on a highway for 70% of the time with no where for me to get off. Therefore, I did the stupid thing of not drinking any water. I thought hey, I keep peeing, so I must be ok. 

I drank some water when I got home however, in the morning, I had that awful commute again. When I got to work I started to drink some water and I noticed that the feeling of having to pee was getting worse. I would literally pee, stand up and feel like I had to pee again. Then I felt like I had to pee all the time. It was horrible!

I had dinner with my old colleagues from MAC II that evening and did not want to cancel. I stopped drinking water and headed from Tribeca to the Upper East Side. We sat down and had a lovely dinner. In the two hours we were there, I had to pee about 6 times.  As half of my old colleagues were a bit older, they kept joking how I'm not supposed to have this issue until I turn their age! I told Randi, if this is what pregnancy is going to continue to be like, I don't know if I can finish this! She then proceeded to tell me about this horrible kidney stone epidemic she had the day before flying to India for two weeks. TWO WEEKS IN INDIA WITH KIDNEY STONES?!?!?! KILL ME NOW. Thankfully she passed it the night before leaving. However, I was still sitting there absolutely miserable. Finally, during dessert, I had to pee again. Now I knew something was wrong because I NEVER miss dessert. This time, after I stood up, I started to feel sick, hot and uncomfortable. I went outside and told the gang I had to leave. 

They insisted someone left with me and got me home, or at least helped me in some way. But, I said no and left as quickly as possible. I got into a cab immediately and told Leif something was seriously wrong. Then I called my Mom... the only thing that did was freak her the f**k out! Miraculously this was the first and only time that I can remember in our relationship that Leif and I were both in Manhattan, after work, at the same time. He was working at the MET Opera and I was trying to enjoy dinner with friends.  

I said, Leif, I'm heading to the MET. I need you to come out. I was laying down rolling around in the back of the cab trying to find a comfortable position but nothing was helping. We made it to Lincoln Center and I managed to pay and roll out onto the side walk when I saw Leif running my way all decked out in his tuxedo. He asked me if we should go to the hospital and I said yes. He asked if I could walk five blocks and I said no. 

I guess it was my lucky night because there just so happened to be an ambulance parked out front of Lincoln Center. I guess it kind of makes sense. The opera tends to attract the older crowd...

Anyway, we hopped in, they asked too many questions which I was extremely happy and proud to know my husband knew all the answers to.  Thank goodness because I was in no shape to answer. I was 21 weeks pregnant and something was seriously wrong!

Two minutes later, and I am not joking about that, we pulled up to Mount Sinai West and they brought me up to the Emergency Triage. From there they basically made me change into a robe, pee into a cup and strapped all of these electronic devises to my belly to make sure the baby was ok. I could have told you right there the baby was fine because he was having a serious party in my belly!  

I felt horrible. The pain was so immensely intense they decided to give me morphine. Before they were able to, they had to make sure everything was alright with the baby. During that time, I vomited my little heart out. I had not puked since Freshman year of college when I had mono. I don't puke. This is when I knew something was really wrong!

I felt a little better after that but still decided to take the morphine. They had called for an ultrasound and MRI. I asked the on call doctor what she thought it was and her first response was kidney stones. Excuse me...Wasn't Randi just tell me about her kidney stone fiasco? This could not be happening to me. I had never had kidney stones before. Then she said, Kidney Stones are fairly common with pregnancy...

As we had no idea when I was going to get an Ultrasound or MRI, Leif decided to head home to let our poor doggies out as we knew it was going to be a few hours for myself. There was literally nothing left he could do.  Around 2:30am they informed me that I would have to get my tests in the morning and they were going to admit me for the night.  Around 3:30am, I was moved to my room, given some antibiotics and told to sleep. 

Around 6am I woke up. Yay, 2.5 hours of sleep. I knew the only person who would be awake at that time was Aunt Nancy. She was very glad to hear from me as well. We chatted for a bit until the nurse came in and told me they were getting ready to take me to get an ultra sound. She also handed me a strainer and told me I had to pee into the strainer. Well, I knew right then the doctors diagnosis from the night before was correct. There was definitely "gravel" as they call it in my strainer. The pain had gone. They kept me on fluids and I was discharged that evening around 6pm. 

I had to stay home from work the rest of the week. On Friday I had my normal doctors appointment. They were to give me the all clear to go back to work that following Monday. I was cleared and told to keep hydrated or else it could happen again. There was no way in hell I was letting that happen again. 

The first thing I did after my doctors appointment was buy panty liners just in case I had any accidents on the bus with my new plan to drink myself to death.