Well, I only have 42 days left to go until she's here but I haven't shared anything on here about her.
How I told Scott
I found out October 3 that I was pregnant. I had taken like 4 home tests just to be sure, and yep...it was official! I didn't want to just say "Hey Scott, we're gonna have a baby" I wanted it to be something special...its our first baby and I wanted the story to be memorable. I looked up "how to tell your husband you're pregnant" online and got a lot of fun ideas...ultimately I settled on "The Bun in the Oven" way. I planned to tell him on Tuesday October 5th.
On Monday, October 4th I wanted to be sure I was pregnant before I let Scott know so that night I took another home test from a 2 pack of them that I bought at Vons...it came out inconclusive!!! All of a sudden I was so worried that maybe the other tests were wrong. I decided to wait until the morning and just get up really early and take the second test in the pack. So on Tuesday morning I woke up at like 3 am to take the test...and this time it didn't work at all...it just showed the symbol saying the test was defective! I was so upset! It was 3 am and all I wanted was a pregnancy test that worked and said that I was indeed pregnant! So I hopped in our truck and went to the nearest CVS to get the top of the line, hopefully non defective, pregnancy test. I rushed back home and THANKFULLY it said that we were going to have a baby so I started baking the muffins for Scott.
I set up our video camera a took a video of me telling him. You have to skip to around 45 seconds for anything to start...I couldn't figure out a way to turn it on without Scott noticing so I turned it on and then went to wake him up. He was really sick at the time, he had had some food poisoning for a couple of days and was still not feeling well. I told him that I was baking and could hear some noises coming from inside the oven..."I think there is something in there and I'm too scared to look" So poor Scott dragged himself out of bed to come look at it. Just watch the video...understand that Scott isn't going crazy because he is also just trying to survive his sickness :)
(The Video isn't uploading right now...I'll try again later)
4 to 28 weeks
My pregnancy was great!!! I managed to miss morning sickness all together so I was relived by that since I was still working and didn't want to have to run to the bathroom to puke every day. I love my doctor!!! Scott and I decided we wanted Dr. David Vasquez in Redlands. He is associated with Beaver Medical and he also delivered all of my siblings and my sister's first baby. I figured that I personally know 4 people who came out just fine with his help so it seemed like a safe thing to me. I am so grateful to have such a knowledegable doctor to guide me through this pregnancy.
At 21 weeks we had our ultrasound that was scheduled by our doctor. We were soooo excited to find out what we were having and could hardly wait. At the ultrasound, the technician did everything she could, but Samantha would not cooperate. The technician was able to see her private area, but her left leg was positioned in such a way that it cast a shadow over her privates...so while we couldn't see any signs that she was a boy, we also couldn't see any signs that she was a girl. We were bummed, majorly.
I asked the doctor if he would do another ultrasound to find out the sex, but he said no, not unless there was a medical reason to do so...and knowing the sex is apparently not a medical reason.
So the next day we made an appointment at a 3D ultrasound place in Riverside...we were desperate to know. It was only $50 and we invited my parents to come too. When we got into the room, it was like we were in a theater. They had 2 long couches that probably sat about 16 people and then tons of standing room. It was great to get to see our little baby again, and thankfully she had shifted and we saw the "3 lines" (our friend Drew told us that if the baby was a girl we would see 3 lines). We were so excited...even though we had been thinking she was a boy, we were happy to have a girl.
Picking the name
Since we were so sure that she was going to be a boy (Scott Alan Brown, Jr) we hadn't really thought about girl's names. When we first got married, we picked out names for our kids, but the name that we had picked for our first girl just didn't feel right. We started pondering new names... but none of them seemed right. One night we went to Barnes and Noble to hang out and picked up some baby name books to look through. We found 2 chairs together and started reading names to each other. After about 20 minutes we came across Samantha...we kept on reading through the book but our minds kept going back to it. By the time we left Barnes and Noble that night, we had a name for our baby girl, Samantha.
Next up was the middle name. We again were having trouble coming up with something. We thought about a family name, but couldn't find any that went well with Samantha. Our friend Crystina suggested Jordan...we liked it right away..Samantha Jordan. It was just what we were looking for. It also happened to be Crystina's middle name so we like that it has a tie to someone we know and love :)
28 weeks to now
At 28 weeks, things started to go south a bit...on March 8th I found blood in my urine. I called the nurse advice line in tears and told them what happened. The nurse was very nice and helpful...she said it could be any number of things and that I just needed to monitor to see if there was any more throughout the day. I watched and it didn't seem to come back so I thought I was in the clear...wrong!!!
The following afternoon the blood came back so I called my doctor and made an emergency appointment for the next Monday. I worried and worried but I was at the point where I was just barely starting to feel her move so I felt a little reassured with each little movement she made.
Then Friday March 11th rolled around.
That night I started having some pain on my right side that was getting progressively worse. It was like a sharp, stabbing but it was constant. I tried lying in all different positions and around 8 pm called the nurse advise line. The nurse said that I should try to stand it if I could and just wait for my appointment to Monday...I didn't want to seem like a wimp so I said okay and went back to writhing in pain. The pain got so bad that I started vomiting from the pain. After I had pretty much emptied my stomach, around 10:30 pm, I called my mom in tears and told her what was happening, she told me to immediately go to the hospital because it sounded like labor. I didn't doubt my mom, but I wanted to call the nurse advice line again to see what they said. I called and got the same nurse as before...I updated her that now I was throwing up because of the pain. She asked how I was handling it and I repeated that I was still in pain and now throwing up (apparently she wasn't listening when I told her that the first time). I told her to hold on because I was going to throw up again and now she said that I should go to the hospital, I hung up on her mid throw up...I was soooo mad.
So Scott and I jumped in the truck and headed for the hospital. Since I was sure that I was in labor, I told Scott to just take me to the nearest hospital which was Riverside Community near downtown Riverside. We checked in and headed straight to labor and delivery. They checked me right away and thankfully I wasn't in labor. They gave me some pain medicine so that they could do some tests to figure out what was causing the pain. The next morning they transferred me to an actual room so I was able to rest better (gurneys are not comfy) and wait for them to let me know what was going on. On Sunday, the doctor came in and told me that they found that I had a kidney stone the size of a marble in my right kidney. He said they were going to discharge me and that I would need to see my normal doctor for treatment, they also weren't going to give me any pain meds to take with me because it is "common courtesy" to not interfere with another doctor's patient...lame. He said to take some extra strength Tylenol until my doctor prescribed something.
So we went home Sunday afternoon. I was alright at first, they had given me some IV pain medicine right before I checked out, but once the medicine wore off, I was starting to have pain again. Sunday night was pretty much the same as Friday night. This time I was just waiting, counting down the hours until my doctors appointment the next morning. I'm not sure how I survived it, but in the early morning hours I decided to head to my parents house and wait for my appointment there since Scott would be going to work soon. My dad drove me to my appointment and my doctor prescribed Vicoden for the pain. He said my only options right now for a stone that size was pain management. I filled my prescription and my mom came to pick me up and take me to their house to rest. I took 2 Vicoden at 9 am and waited for them to kick in...I took another 2 at 1 pm and waited...still no relief. I called my doctor again and he said it wasn't safe to have my blood pressure so high because of the pain so he said that I now had to go to the hospital.
This time I went to Redlands Community and was checked into labor and delivery around 3:30 pm. They gave me some IV pain medicine and did more tests to verify what the doctor at Riverside Community said. Scott came to be with me after he got off of work and my mom went home. I was still in the initial examination room until about 2 am, then the doctor came in and said they were admitting me so I would be moved to an actual room in the recovery area. That was a relief because Scott and I were both tired, and again, gurneys are NOT comfy.
Tuesday morning they did another ultrasound and had a urologist come to see me. The urologist said that it wasn't actually the marble sized stone that was causing pain, he said that I had at least 1 smaller stone that was trying to pass and that was what was causing the pain. As far as the cause of the stone itself, he said that pregnant women are more prone to them though since there wasn't a history of kidney stones in my family he said another factor was stress...not good :(
So the plan for the time being was to try to get me to pass the stone. They gave me lots of fluids, lots of pain medicine, and just tried to get me through it. By Thursday afternoon, they still hadn't spotted the stone in the strainer so it was time for different options because I didn't want to spend all of the time until I delivered Samantha in the hospital. The urologist said that they would put a stent in my ureter to help keep the smaller stone from rubbing against it and that that would help prevent pain. They scheduled the operation for Friday afternoon sometime. The operation went well, it required no incisions and only took about 20 minutes. The anesthesiologist numbed me from the chest down, which he said is what they do for an epidural so I got to experience that numbing before Samantha gets here (I decided it is Definitely something that I want when she is being born).
Saturday afternoon they released me from the hospital, again with no new pain meds. By Saturday night I was in pain again and had to wait until Monday for my next doctors appointment to get a new pain medicine. My doctor prescribed Percocet this time and it worked a little bit...though not very well for severe pain.
Since then, I have been back in the hospital 3 times...I had more bleeding, some clotting blood, and pain that I couldn't handle.
It has been a rollercoaster ride this whole time...but I just keep in mind that it is all worth it! We are sooo excited to meet Samantha and have her here with us.
Also...I am sorry there are no photos with this one...I am resolving to take more photos from now on. I just am not very good at remembering, though I always have my camera with me so I am going to take more photos from now on!
