Before I was pregnant I had never had heart burn, indigestion, trapped gas or  anything of that nature. I had heard it was quite common though, so when I started having some gas issues in early pregnancy, I drank some peppermint tea and that cleared it up pretty good. Well as I progressed along, I was still doing okay, nothing more than some minor constant nauseousness and on occasion, morning sickness. Once 6 months hit, the game changed a little.

I started having what I thought were bouts of extreme heart burn or chest indigestion. I had these attacks typically at night when I was laying down for bed. I didn’t think much of it, even thought the pain felt like I was having a heart attack. I would drink a couple swigs of ginger ale, burp a bit and feel better. This happened about a total of 3 times from 6 months till I gave birth. Now the thought of it being my gallbladder never crossed my mind. I had never had any issues before with any of this, so I didn’t think twice about it after I finally gave birth and everything else stopped.

Fast forward 2 weeks after Sadie was born. I have another “indigestion” attack. This time it was different though. The pain wouldn’t stop. The other times it would only last for a few minutes, and then fade away. This time it stayed. It lingered. The intense pain went away, but everytime I would breath I could feel a catching pain in my upper stomach. It happened on a Friday afternoon. I decided I was just going to let it ride and see if it got better. Another day passes and the lingering pain is still there. Finally Sunday night comes and I start to noticed changes in myself . My skin was starting to yellow. My urine had turned bright orange. I start to google my symptoms and it was all signs of gallbladder attacks and gall stones bulking a duct. My body was dumping bile.

I call my mom and asked her if she can come get Sadie, I had to go to the hosptial. It was about 11 o’clock by the time I got there. They did an ultrasound on my chest to see if it was indeed my gallbladder. It was. There were able to see that I had 3 stones and one was blocking a duct and wouldn’t pass. So they set me up with a room and gave me some pain medicine. I guess since I was still taking the pain killers from my c-section, I hadn’t realized how painful it really was. 

The next evening I went into surgery. The procedure is typically done microscopically and through your belly button and 3 tiny incisions in your stomach. Well of course, because of just giving birth 2 weeks prior, everything was still trying to get back into place inside. So they couldn’t go through my belly button and I had to get another larger incision above it.

It’s funny. I went from really never having surgery (besides wisdom teeth) to having 2 major surgeries within a 2 week period. I was lucky to recover quickly. I spent the next week and a half at my parents house since I couldn’t take care of a baby and a house full of animals alone. Max had taken those first 2 weeks off to help with the baby and didn’t have any more extra time to help during the day. I am so fortunate to have parents who were able to help me take care of me and my daughter. I am also so lucky to have a partner who was there to support me through all those crazy changes I was having to deal with.

On a brighter note, here’s a cute picture of Sadie 🙂

With Love,