A wild ride.

A lot has happened since I last wrote, huh? Well, let me give you an update, from the start:

2 weeks ago, we went in for our 20-week ultrasound. It was an exciting day! We found out the sex of the baby (it's a boy!) and got to see every little part of his tiny little body. He was amazing. growing right on schedule, he's ahead of schedule on length, and really really active. The ultrasound tech was getting a little frustrated because he wouldn't stop moving!

In that same ultrasound, they looked at my ovaries to make sure nothing had changed. Well, on my right ovary, we got a pretty big surprise. The cyst that showed up at 10 weeks, which was 1 cm at the time, had grown to 10 cm, and was now the size of a baseball. It had taken over my entire ovary and was doomed to rupture at any moment. After getting that news, we met immediately with my doctor, an oncology surgeon and came up with a plan. Last Wednesday, I went into surgery to remove my ovary and my fallopian tube, all while 21 weeks pregnant.

They had hoped not to make a large incision, but ended up having to cut me open about 6 inches vertically, going right over my belly button. When they saw what they were dealing with, they needed to go in with a hand, lift the uterus & baby up and over so they could get to my ovary, which had lodged itself underneath the uterus. Mid-surgery, the cyst ruptured. SO thankful that happened in the surgery instead of on a normal day! That would have caused some severe pain on my end.

Our fears were relieved when we learned that it wasn't cancer. There was a chance it could have been, because of how fast and how large it grew in such a short amount of time. But, we're so, so thankful that we have been spared another battle.

So, after the surgery, we went through a few rough days of trying to manage my pain with medication. The first night, nothing seemed to work, I was having a really hard time and I was consistently in pain at around a level 9 on the 10-level scale. It was brutal. They finally managed it with a morphine drip and some oxycodone. Needless to say, I was good and drugged. We ended up being in the hospital for 4 nights... much longer than we anticipated! But the nurses and staff in the Labor & Delivery ward were incredible and they took excellent care of me & my son. They put me in the maternity ward so they could consistently monitor the baby and my uterus, to make sure I wasn't going into labor.

We're now at home, after a really long 5 days. I'm recovering, but its painful and slow. I'm on some significant pain meds (extra strength vicodin, actually), and its helping me sleep and rest, which is exactly what I need. For the next 6-8 weeks, I'm considered a "high risk" pregnancy, meaning that I'm not necessarily on bed rest, but I need to keep my movement and activity to a minimum, so I don't go into early labor. I'm not allowed to drive for 2 weeks and I'm not supposed to go to work for 6 weeks. I'm terrified, actually. Sitting around doing nothing sounds absolutely dreadful to me, I'm hoping that I'll be able to work much sooner than that, providing that I'm healing appropriately. I love where I work, I don't want to be separated from it for too long. I love what I do and who I work for... I want to keep doing what I do and serving those people.

Anyway, that's the latest around here. Sorry for the compacted update, full of ridiculous news. But, I'm recovering and our baby boy is doing awesome. It's a stressful point in our lives, but right now, I'll worry about today.