A Dirty Tale

Well, here goes nothing. If you have a weak stomach, you may not want to read this!...lol Here's what happened to me whilst in the hospital recently...

I called my fertility clinic the morning of July 3rd and said to the nurse, "I think I have to see the doctor today". I had talked to the same nurse the previous week and told her about the pain I had been feeling after the egg retrieval. She said, if it gets any worse to call early in the morning and she'll get me in to see the doctor. That's what happened. She told me to come in right away.

So, I had a quick shower, called work and told them I was going to be late because I had to go to the hospital and get checked (little did I know I was going to be three weeks late). Off we went. They weighed me on the scale, took my waist measurement and then the doctor came in and took a look at me. I looked like I was already 5 months pregnant at this point. My belly was full of fluid and hard and it was difficult to move around.

She examined me. Poked my belly, listened to my lungs and said, "looks like we're going to have to admit you". I agreed and so it began. I thought to myself, "well, looks like I'll get a day or two off of work". Ha ha More like 15 days! They did the paperwork, I went to the ward that I would be staying in, they made me fill out some more paperwork and then they showed me to my room. Of course I had nothing with me, because I wasn't expecting to get admitted to the hospital! So, they had to give me one of their lovely hospital gowns to wear. I looked beautiful in it.

The next day I had to get chest xrays and scans done. Apparently my ovaries were as big as softballs. Scary stuff. I had fluid on my right lung, thus I found it hard to breathe. Fluid everywhere in my abdomen. It was too soon at that point to see if I was pregnant yet. It was only 3 weeks and 3 days. Too bad, would have been nice to see something.

Over the next two days I gained a whopping 22kgs/49 pounds. My ovaries weren't very happy. By the second day, my RE enlisted the help of an urologist. He told me that my ovaries were leaking fluid into my abdomen and that they will stop when they feel like it, so we just have to wait it out. Great. My ovaries have always had a mind of their own, but this was a bit ridiculous.

By the third day, they decided to put a catheder in. Let me tell you, never, ever, ever agree to this if you have a choice! This was the worst thing that happened to me whilst in hospital. It's bad enough that they shove something up your urethra, but then they blow a balloon up at the end so that you can't pee anymore and it all gets collected in this bag... My poor pee pee! Talk about pain. For some reason, my body didn't cope well with this invasion and every time I felt the urge to pee, I had this overwhelming pain that felt like the balloon was trying to be pushed out my urethra. I wasn't ready to push anything out of my body yet! If this is what labour is like, I'm not looking forward to it. After a day and a half of this and my constant complaining to the nurses and the doctors about how much it hurt and it was stressing me out and I couldn't handle it anymore. They finally took it out. I felt a hell of a lot better after that. I NEVER want to go through one of those again.

I couldn't eat anything. My stomach was squashed to the size of a pee under all of the fluid. I would take two bites of something and be full. Talk about another way to have your stomach stapled. I also got really nauseas. I had to get injections to help with the nausea, or the two bites I did get down, wouldn't stay down for long. One day I was the worst, I had a half a cup of orange juice and two bites of an apple for breakfast and that was it all day long. That night when the urologist came to check on me, I almost threw up in his face. My husband grabbed the barf bucket quick enough and all I threw up was orange juice. I had about 5 hurls all at once, but not much came out. This was the last night that I had the catheder in. I ended up spraying pee all over the bed and my nightie in the pressure of it all. That's when the urologist agreed it was okay to take it out.

WARNING: TOO MUCH INFORMATION IN THE NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS. SKIP IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH!

The next little lovely thing that happened was when I shit myself. Yep, that's right, I shit myself. Talk about embarrassing. I wasn't eating well, and I had started taking my metformin again, but my body doesn't seem to like metformin when I'm not eating right and it usually results in cramps and liquid shit. It was no different in the hospital. Only this time, I couldn't get out of bed quick enough, unplug my drip, wheel it into the toilet and pull down my pants in time. I literally filled up my panties with shit. I tried to pull them down over the toilet, so that it would fall into the toilet and my panties would just have a stain. They had a stain alright. I just ended up throwing them in the garbage. Needles to say, I needed help. I got it on the floor, down the back of my legs, all over my clothes. It wasn't pretty. I had to call the nurse to help me get undressed and have a shower and get clean clothes on. I stopped taking metformin that day and told my doctor that I wouldn't start back up again until I was feeling well enough to handle it.

The whole time I was in hospital, they had a drip going. They said that my blood tests were showing that I was dehydrated, even though I had gained so much fluid in my body. It just wasn’t going to the right places and doing the right things. It seemed like the more fluid they put into me, the worse I got. My belly was so huge at the worst stage that it looked like I was 8 months pregnant already. The fluid started to shift after awhile and went from my abdomen, down to my thighs, hips, and around my chest. I was tight everywhere. I certainly wasn't expecting to get stretch marks in my first trimester, but there you have it.

On the fifth day I was there, they did an HCG test as well and confirmed that I was pregnant. I cried when the doctor told me. I couldn't believe that I was finally pregnant. She said that the OHSS tends to be exacerbated when there is a pregnancy involved. No shit, Sherlock. At least it wasn't for nothing. I could handle the rest from then on out knowing that it was for a good cause. I was pregnant. Both doctors told me that the OHSS wouldn't affect the baby at all, so no worries there. He/She is just happily swimming around in my uterus without a care in the world whilst I go through hell for it! That's okay, that's okay, I don't mind. I'll be sure to tell him/her in future what I had to go through for it...lol

After a week in the hospital, I finally seemed to be turning around. I started to loose some of the excess fluid. The urologist shook my hand on day eight and signed off. I was over the worst of it and would be getting better every day now. Thank God! I continued to lose fluid. My body was absorbing it, and slowly but surely, I started peeing it all out. During my last day in the hospital, I peed out 5 liters of fluid. It was heaven!...lol Never thought I would think of peeing as heaven. I was so glad that it was finally coming out. I didn't sleep well, of course, because I had to get up every hour to go pee, but at least I was getting better.

Once my RE saw my weight going down for a few consecutive days, she decided it was time to release me from the hospital. I was sooooooooo glad to be leaving. I decided I hated it there. At least I had a TV to keep my occupied, but I would much rather be at home in my own comfy bed. The beds there sucked royal shit! Well, I was in a room for the first several days that had a really good bed, but then they moved me to another room when they needed mine for someone else. I felt like I got downgraded...lol The first bed had a remote so I could change it to whatever position I wanted. The second bed was one of those old hand crank ones. The mattress was as hard as a rock and my back was killing me. I slept on the sofa in the room a few of the nights because it was more comfortable.

Twelve days later, I finally got to go home. By that point I had almost lost half of the fluid I gained and my skin didn't seem so tight anymore. Things were still hard when you poked them but at least I was starting to feel more comfortable in my own skin again.

As of today, I am officially back to my pre-OHSS weight and glad to be! Things are fluffy again instead of hard. Just as it should be...lol I'm almost feeling myself again. I still haven't gone back to work yet. My doctor gave me a note saying that I would be off until the end of this week, so I may just take it all off. We'll see how I feel. I suppose I have to get back in the game sooner or later. I'm not looking forward to it though. We'll see.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, try to get pregnant naturally if you can. OHSS sucks and I wouldn't suggest anyone go through it. Not that you can control it. I remember thinking to myself, "I'm not going to get that...I'm a strong woman...Only weak women have those kinds of problems"...lol Well, little did I know it wasn't up to me. My body was going to do whatever the hell it wanted. I don't know why I thought it would be any different than any other time. I can't control a damn thing!