Headaches and Hospitals

If you haven’t followed Our Story, you might want to start at the beginning.

We gave it up.

At the last minute Sailor had applied to the University of Central Florida and was accepted into their nursing program. In a few short weeks we would be moving to Orlando!

Since I was already in Orlando we agreed I wouldn’t go back to Virginia, Sailor could oversee the move and be in Florida in a month.

I spent the next few weeks driving around with my future sister-in-law (although I didn’t know that at the time) looking for apartments.

I decided we needed a three bedroom apartment since baby girl #2 would be arriving at the end of the summer. I didn’t think a baby and a toddler would be able to share a room and I knew Sailor didn’t want to sleep with a baby in our room forever.

I finally found the perfect apartment, it was close to family… but not too close, in a nice part of town, and had tons of family friendly amenities.

It was double the rent from our Virginia apartment, but with the promotion and the raise I knew we could afford it. Sailor arrived in Florida and got  a second job at Macaroni Grill waiting tables to help pay for his school.

We settled in to our apartment and quickly realized that a bottom apartment is not always the best choice. The people who lived directly above us were loud. They played basketball… in the kitchen… at two in the morning. If that wasn’t enough they used a rope to climb to their second story balcony. A rope that dangled down right in front of baby girl’s bedroom window.

We complained to the management and they said they would issue a warning. It continued, and got worse. I was starting to panic. We were due to have baby girl #2 in a month and there was no way she would be able to sleep through all this racket!

After being ignored by the management company for several days, we decided to exercise our 30 money back guarantee clause in our lease. We could break our lease without being penalized if we moved out within 30 days. I had 10 days to find a new place and move.

I asked my mother-in-law to help find a new house. And I do mean house. There was no way I was taking another chance on an apartment!

My mother-in-law found a property manager who showed us several possibilites. Each possibility was worse than the last. I remember standing in one house with Sailor talking about getting a guard dog so we would feel safe living there.

My mother-in-law put her foot down right then and there. She looked at the property manager and told him we would not be living in any of these homes. Surely he had something more suitable for a family.

The property manager stood there for a minute and then told us he owned a home that was for rent. The tenants had just moved out and it wasn’t clean, but we could see it.

We drove to the rental and when we turned onto the tree lined street I was already sold. We walked into a small but cute house that was just perfect for our family. It had three bedrooms, a bonus room and a huge screened back porch. It was close to everything and right down the street from a park.

We signed the lease on the spot and made plans to move.

We didn’t have much money, since we had a deposit on the apartment (which we wouldn’t get back for a few weeks) and we had a new deposit on the house. We moved things over piece by piece and finally one afternoon we rented an open trailer to move what little furniture we owned.

That afternoon I was waiting at the new house for my dad and Sailor to bring our furniture over from the apartment. Sailor called to let me know they were on their way.

Shortly after he hung up I heard thunder. Within minutes the sky opened up and a tremendous thunder storm hit our area.

I started to panic. All our furniture was on an open trailer… in the storm! I knew from the amount of rain coming down that everything would be ruined. We only had a few pieces of furniture and they were probably all floating down the highway.

I waited for over an hour with no word from Sailor. I knew they had left before the storm, but I didn’t know what happened after that. My head started to hurt thinking about all our ruined furniture.

Finally after about two hours Sailor appeared at the door. My head was pounding as he walked in soaking wet. I asked about our stuff and he told me they had pulled under the overpass right before the rain began. They waited there until the storm passed. Our stuff was damp, but not ruined. It would dry out in a few days.

I was relieved, but my head would not stop pounding. As I watched them unload our furniture my face started to twitch. A few minutes later my arm went numb. I laid down on the couch hoping no one would notice that I was having a problem. There were still many boxes to unpack and beds to put together. I figured if I rested for a minute I would be fine.

But I wasn’t fine, my head stopped hurting but I had lost feeling on one side of my body. I tried to get off the couch but I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed. Sailor noticed something was wrong and asked what was going on. I tried to act like it was no big deal, but I couldn’t move one side of my face so it was pretty obvious I was in trouble.

Sailor picked me up (my whole nine months pregnant self) and rushed me to the emergency room.

After several hours at the hospital it was determined that I had a migraine that caused the temporary paralysis. They gave me a sleeping pill and some pain meds and sent me home.

I can’t remember which house I slept at that night, but I remember hoping it would never happen again.

I spent the next two weeks unpacking and getting the house together. Sailor worked at Macaroni Grill while we waited for baby girl #2 and school to begin.

One Saturday night I finished hanging all the pictures and joked that I could now go into labor because the unpacking was finished. I knew it wouldn’t happen any time soon because baby girl #1 was two weeks late, and I still had a week to go before my due date!

The next morning we hung out as a family before Sailor headed to work. After he left for work I started to feel bad. I couldn’t put my finger on it but something wasn’t right. To top it off I had to go to the bathroom about every 5 minutes.

I started to get concerned that I had a bladder infection.

Shortly before noon my mother called to let me know they were headed about an hour away to work on a house. She wanted to check in since Sailor was at work and they would be unavailable for the rest of the day.

I told her that I wasn’t feeling well and that I thought I might have a bladder infection. I asked if she could come over and watch baby girl while I went to the ER. I told her it wouldn’t take long, I probably needed some antibiotics and then would be sent home.

She came over right away and I was headed to the ER when she suggested I call Sailor at work and let him know where I was going. I didn’t think it was necessary to get everyone all worked up over a bladder infection, but I called him anyway.

He said we was leaving work immediately and taking me to the ER. I told him to stay at work and I would call if anything changed. Plus Sunday’s were great tip days and I didn’t want him to miss out on the extra money.

He was home before I could even get out the door and we headed to the ER.

Since the ER doesn’t like people to have babies in the ER they immediately sent me to Labor and Delivery. I told them I didn’t need to go to L&D and that I just needed antibiotics for a bladder infection. The didn’t really care what I thought and sent me upstairs.

When I got to L&D I once again explained that I just needed antibiotics. They wanted to hook me up to the monitor just in case.

I was hooked up to the monitor for almost three hours waiting for my antibiotics. The pain was getting worse and I knew that if they would just give me a prescription I would feel better in a few days.

While on the monitor I had five or six contractions over the course of three hours. Finally the nurse came in and told me that I didn’t have an infection and I wasn’t in labor so I would be discharged.

I was desperate. I begged Sailor to do something! I was in so much pain, something had to be wrong with me!

I’m not sure what happened next, but it was decided that they would check me before sending me home just to see if I was in early labor. A quick exam revealed that I was 8 cm dilated! I wasn’t going anywhere, we were going to meet baby girl #2.

They broke my water in hopes to get some regular contractions going. I begged for an epidural but it was too late. The baby was coming too quickly.

Less than five hours after we arrived at the ER for my bladder infection our baby was born.

I was in shock.

Baby girl…. was a BOY.