That little something extra

Wondering what that little something extra is?
Nope, it's not twins - though my husband was routing for that. My uterus was a little large at first, so they sent me for an ultrasound to double check the date and number of babies in there... just one baby, due January 27th, 2009.

I noticed toward the end of my first trimester that I was having some back pain, and it would come and go. One weekend it was getting pretty intolerable, and I took some Tylenol. By the evening, it came on suddenly and felt like I was getting stabbed in the back! The pain was spreading right around my side, and was really starting to frighten me, as it wasn't just my back. I didn't think it was premature labour, had never felt anything like this before! My 4 year old son said, "Is the baby coming out?" which I was surprised to hear, because I don't recall telling him what labour was supposed to be like. I told him the baby wasn't ready to be born yet, and my husband got on the phone with the on-call service. They quickly called an ambulance after putting me on the phone briefly. They said that they didn't want to risk something happening to the baby on the way if my husband were to take me to the hospital in his car (he of course made it there before the ambulance).
I was not allowed to take any more Tylenol in the waiting room, nor given anything else for the pain, nor was I or my unborn baby checked on again (aside from the initial triage nurse on arrival) until it was my turn - the next morning at 7:00 am. Thankfully, I prayed through the pain most of the night and was able to pass out at around 3:00am when the pain went away.

As the pain was not there when the doctor finally came to check me out, all he could say was, "It's probably kidney stones." And had me go for a kidney ultrasound to confirm... It was in fact, a kidney stone, measuring over 1 centimeter in size. For my American friends, that's almost half an inch.

I was told this is too large to pass - your average painful kidney stone can pass at 2 or 3 mm in size. I've read about one pregnant woman who actually delivered her baby,and at the same time also delivered/passed a 7 mm stone! Aside from that, I haven't heard about any pregnant women with stones this large. It was suggested I go for a procedure called Lithotripsy to have it removed. The urologist said there was only a 1-10% chance that I would go into labour. At my stage of gestation, this would mean a miscarriage, which is not something I'm willing to risk. So we have opted to wait until at least 37 weeks to have this procedure, if the doctor insists I go through with it. If I am able to drink lots and lots of water and keep the stone inactive until after labour, that would be best. I've had to cancel my midwife service, as the doctors feel I should be cared for by an obstetrician as I'll have to be monitored more closely and am no longer 'low-risk', although I'm not 'high-risk' either. So I've been interviewing doulas, so I can have someone else with me for the birth at the hospital to help ease some of this tension and let me relax a little. I don't want to worry about 'what if' scenarios, or any other complications that this kidney stone might arise, so a doula will help me to concentrate on the most important thing - the baby.