A Long Hard Road

So I haven't updated in a while. It's been busy.

Baby is definitely a boy and definitely totally healthy. His name is Sean. We found out at the 10.5w scan that he was a he, but they wanted to wait until the 16w appointment to confirm. It's confirmed. He's now 23w today and a very active child. I feel him move a lot everyday. I'm carrying low and in front, just like Jamie and Charlie. I feel like he's trying to stretch out in all directions like Jamie did, too. I just hope he doesn't find the ribs like Jamie did. Ouch.

Michael successfully defended his dissertation and is now a Dr. He has a job in Tacoma and the family is moving with him. Except for me. I'm staying to finish my dissertation. We've rented a house there, and it's very nice from what we can tell from the website and Bill and Cheri visited it and they said it was very nice as well. It has a big yard for the kids and dogs. We're getting this house ready to sell, which means lots of work. But I can't do any of it. Being pregnant limits some if it but the kidney stone limits the rest.

So the stone. I have a huge 1.5 cm kidney stone at the base of the ureter just above the bladder. So they put in a nephrostomy tube and I have a urine back strapped to my leg. The Sunday before Michael defended, they had to take me to the emergency room because I was in A LOT of pain. I've never been at a 10 on the pain scale before, but now I have. It was scary bad. They found it was a kidney stone blocking the flow of urine into the bladder and everything was backing up, the kidney was swelling and causing terrible terrible pain. So with the tube in urine bypasses the ureter to exit out my back. Let me tell you, having that thing inserted was very very painful. Very painful. But then life got much better after that because the pain started to go away. My back felt like someone had taken a meat mallet tenderizer to it. But after almost 2 weeks it felt better and bearable. And 2 weeks later the tube became completely blocked and I had to be rushed to the hospital again. This time they changed the tube, again it was VERY PAINFUL. No painkillers except a local, and while it must have helped (I'm guessing here) it was still really really painful. But mercifully only takes about 5 minutes to do. (Oh, and no signs of infection, which is great!) They're going to change it every 3 weeks to avoid the pain and emergency of another blockage. I've felt again like someone took a meat tenderizer to my back, but it's better. It's still really painful sometimes and I get tired easily and it's been a week. I'm hoping if they do the change with the kidney isn't swollen in terribly painful that it won't hurt so much next time. I have 2 weeks to find out. I've been drinking water all day everyday, lots and lot of it, but still the tube got blocked. Not happy about that I can tell you.

Oh, and while I was in the hospital the first time, the week of Michael's defense, there was a huge storm and the power went out at home. There was major damage. And it didn't all get fixed until last week. Nice.

They can't do anything else to treat the stone until after Sean is born. The treatment for such a huge stone is to put you under completely, go up the whatsit, open the join between the ureter and bladder, blast the stone with a laser, pull out what they can, and put a stint in. The stint stays in a week, and is taken out using only a local. Sounds like a fun day out, huh? But they can't do it while pregnant mostly because all the messing with stuff can bring on labor. So okay. We wait. Jamie keeps asking if the stone is out, and several times he wanted to kiss my owie to make it better. He's come up with ways to get rid of the stone, and to a 3 year old mind it makes perfect sense. I only wish it worked that way.

The kids are stressed by all the changes, but are great kids and doing what they can to help us and have fun. They helped paint shutters yesterday and had great fun doing it. They were really proud of themselves for being so helpful. Of course, for bed time they commenced with WWIII, but that's normal variation for a kid under so much stress, right? I thought so.

I have lots of complicated feelings about the move, and I'm pretty sulky about all the pain I'm in and paranoid about possible further pain and blockages, but I'll save that whining for another post.