Normally Thanksgiving can be described as a time of thanks, a good time with family and friends, cold weather, turkey, green bean bundles, mashed potatoes, and by far one of my favorite times of the year. This year, however, there was none of that for me. This Thanksgiving goes down as one of the worst I have ever had. This Thanksgiving could be described as, cold, IV fluids, hospital stay, throw up, and DEFINITELY no turkey, potatoes or green beans... A 12 hour drive to check myself into the hospital for 2 days. BLAH!
So what happened you ask? The stomach flu... just a little stomach bug... Damon, my sister and I drove all day Tuesday to arrive in Sioux Falls, SD at about 9:00pm. I didn't feel great all day, but I thought that was just the result of being about 7 months pregnant and traveling 12 hours in the car. And food never settles quite right in the car (plus, it is all crap food). Went to bed that night feeling fine, but glad to be in a bed and get some good sleep! Woke up the next morning to ice storms! I love the cold when I am up north! We then got on the road to go visit my grandparents (about a 30 minute drive). Got there, still felt great! We arrived and gave everyone big hugs and then my grandparents told us we had 3 options for food 1)McDonald's 2) Burger King or 3) Hardees... BIG SPENDERS! :) Hehe! So, we went to Hardees (for those of you southerners, Hardees is MUCH better up north!). Damon and I had about another half hour drive to Jackson, MN where we were going to be staying for the remainder of the holiday with my aunt and uncle. We hung out with them the rest of the day and my other aunt and her boyfriend, along with my cousin arrived later and we all went to dinner! Steak tips and twice baked potatoes! YUM! :) We laughed and laughed the whole time! So, the next morning was Thanksgiving. I woke up and didn't feel great, but I thought, I will just take a shower and get ready (we had family pictures) and I will be fine. We got a call that my uncle was sick with the flu so pictures were cancelled. I was excited because that meant that I could take my time getting ready since I wasn't feeling great, but I started to feel worse and worse. At about 11:00, everyone left to go to Thanksgiving lunch, but I told Damon that I needed to stay behind and sleep a little longer. That's when it hit! I started throwing up. After the first time, I knew that it would be easiest if I just went into the hospital to nip it in the bud, get some fluids and nausea meds and enjoy the rest of the time we had with family! Little did I know... Got to the ER, got all the meds, started to feel better, got ready to be discharged (even had the IV taken out). Then, as we were signing the papers, I started to feel HORRIBLE again! I told them that I wanted to wait for a little bit so I didn't have to come back in later. In a half hours time, I got sick again. They decided to admit me overnight. Got my upstairs and hooked me up to fetal monitors. (They wanted to check on Collins since I was getting dehydrated.) When they did this, the nurse said to me, "Did you know that you are contracting every 2 minutes?!". I said... "umm.. no". I just thought that was my stomach cramping from being sick! They weren't really worried because you can contract when you are dehydrated, but everyone was relieved that they didn't send me home! Slept the entire night (well, as much as you can with nurses coming in every hour) and was ready to go home the next morning. Ate something, felt good... and then about 2 hours later, got the most horrible heartburn I have EVER had (it felt like my food didn't go past my chest and my throat was on FIRE)! And I got sick again... so they wanted to try again at lunch before discharging me. Same thing happened... Finally, I put it together and told them about the heartburn. They gave me some meds, but they take 24 hours to kick in, so I had to stay the next night as well. Saturday morning, woke up, felt good and was discharged at about noon. (I didn't eat anything because I just wanted to get out of there). We got right on the road to head back to Little Rock-- drive 6 hours to Kansas City, checked into the hotel and finally I ate something (noodles and baked potatoe)... and kept it down! Then promptly, I asked for a piece of chocolate cake! :) Finished the drive on Sunday... and returned to work on Monday.
So, as you can see, pretty much the worst Thanksgiving ever. However, now that I am out of it, I can look back and see what I was thankful for. I am so thankful that I have a husband who loves me so much, was willing to be there with me and even hold my hair back when I was sick! I am so thankful for my family, who was willing to come and sit by my side in the hospital, when I know that is not where they wanted to be. I am so thankful for the doctors and nurses who took great care of me and Collins. And I am SO grateful that God protected both Collins and I. Things could have been much, much worse.
And the great thing was, I already had my high risk ultrasound follow up scheduled for Monday when I got back, so we were able to check on Collins after the whole ordeal! She is growing like a weed! She is about 3lbs, 3ozs right now. Her little feet are about 2 inches long! And she is measuring about 1 week ahead of her expected due date, which means we may get to meet her sooner than we think!! :) YEAH! I can't believe how much this little girl is already changing our lives!
No matter what you are going through, I hope that you can see God's blessings in the midst of your life. Let's remember not to skip over Thanksgiving and go right to Christmas. We have so much to be thankful for!
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