And I thought first trimester was hard...

So, my first trimester was comparatively easy according to most people I've talked to. I never really got sick, I always made it to class and work, and my tiredness was never so bad that I couldn't get through the day. And honestly the fatigue was the worst pregnancy-related symptom I'd experienced...until Friday night.
Daniel and I had our good friends Jessica and Brennan over on Friday night and we were just sitting and talking when I started to get a little bit of an uncomfortable twinge in my lower chest/upper abdomen. I though it was simply because I'd been sitting for too long--which has been the case the before--so I stood up and started walking around the room, hoping it would work itself out like it has in the past. But it didn't, so I kicked Daniel off the couch so I could try laying down. But it still didn't get better, and after awhile I realized it was actually getting worse.
Eventually, the twinge became a pain, and then it became a rather sharp pain and I started to get worried. I called my mom (it was late, but my dad's travelling so I knew she would be up still) but she didn't know what it was. She suggested I go into the emergency room--chest pain is never good. But I decided to wait and see if it was just a false alarm. That was a stupid idea.
The pain got worse, so I tried calling my doctor--who didn't answer, by the way...shouldn't there always be someone on call?!--and then Jessica tried calling her sister-in-law, a doula, to see if she'd ever heard of it before. She still didn't get through, and I tried my sister-in-law, Abby. She didn't quite know what to make of it so we made one last call: the emergency room. As soon as they heard the words "chest pain" and "pregnant" they ordered us to come in immediately.
So, I struggled to the car--the pain was making it extremely difficult to breath--and Jessica and Brennan followed us to the hospital. I was immdiately declared first priority and they started hooking me up to an IV, oxygen, EKG, and it seems like more cords than I could count were stringing off my now hospital-gowned body.

Of course my first concern--and (thankfully) they're first concern--was the baby. They checked her heart rate to see how she was doing, and she seemed just fine and dandy. She was moving around like a wild child (something I've heard my doctor and ultrasound technician comment on in the past) and appeared to be doing just great! They checked my blood oxygen levels, and even though I was barely breathing my oxygen checked out ok. So they turned their attention over to what was wrong with me.
They pumped me full of morphine, twice, and it proved to do nothing. The pain got to the point where I was having muscle spasms throughout my entire body, and I couldn't catch my breath. I felt so bad that I was writhing in pain, uncontrolably, while they were doing an ultrasound on my inwards. I wanted to just lay still for them, and hold my breath when they told me to, but I was physically unable. I kept trying to apologize, but I'm pretty sure it was indecipherable amongst my moans. The pain was indescribable, and it brought me to tears and vomiting after awhile.
Finally, Daniel and his Dad were able to give me a priesthood blessing. I can't forget the short and simple words Royce said. I don't normally share these thoughts in this medium, but I want to express how truly grateful I am for the blessings of the priesthood in my life. I know without a doubt that that was the turning point for me.
I'm foggy on the timing (and about everything else that happened after I stopped seeing straight), but I know that after the blessing the doctors found a pain killer that worked and although the pain was still ever-present, I was finally able to breath and relax. They reviewed my ultrasound and ruled out all of the terrible possibilities they had been thinking were sure diagnoses. My gallbladder, liver, kidney...everything checked out. Only then did they realized that my stomach and esophogus tissues were swelling. Esophagitus was the final diagnosis.
Apparently, the heartburn that has been afflicting me (I'm pregnant, you know...) has been a little more extreme than it should be. It has occured with such frequency that I didn't know it was slowly eating away at my stomach and esophagus linings. I've had hearburn since I was twelve, and I know it plagues most pregnant women so I simply learned to ignore it. Bad idea. The swelling of the tissues was putting extreme pressure on my chest cavity walls and on my other organs surrounding my stomach and esophagus. And that's what was causing the pain.
Well, once they figured out what was wrong, it took less than an hour for them to pump me full of prescription strength pepcid and send me home teetering and leaning on Daniel with a prescription for more.
We made it home by about 4am and gratefully went to sleep.
So, here I am, still in some pain most of the day, but slowing getting over the whole ordeal. They said it'll take about a month for my esophagus to go completely back to normal, and I've taken to carrying a massive ziploc bag full of tums with me everywhere I go, but I'm really none the worse for wear. It was just scary. And I'm extremely grateful that my little girl is still ok and that I'm going to be able to continue with the pregnancy without a hitch.
But hey, if labor pain is that bad, at least I know I can handle it for five hours (without any relief between contractions even...) without any meds! Bring it on!

Surprise! Baby tricked us...

So, remember how I said the baby is a boy. Yeah...about that...the doctor was wrong.

See, what happened was we had our last appointment just before we went home to Virginia. I knew Molly was going to announce her little girl, and I was hopeful that we might be able to announce the sex of our baby too. So, the doctor (who was running ahead of schedule anyway) oblinginly did a quick ultrasound and told us he was about 90% positive it was a boy. I was right there with him, and I saw--what we all thought were--baby's little boy parts. So we ran with that and made the announcement. I was only 15 weeks pregnant though.

Well, today we went in for our 18 week appointment with an ultrasound technician. She's been doing amazing work with ultrasounds for something like 20 years (have ultrasound machines even been around that long?) and is an expert on how to do what needs to be done with that little probe thinger. She was really a lot better than my regular ob-gyn, it was immediately obvious.

Anyway, as we started the ultrasound, Daniel and I told her that the docter had already done an earlier one and told us what the baby's sex was. What she said next floored me: "Well, then I hope he told you it was a girl."

Yup, it's a girl! Surprise! To all of us. My mom was so funny on the phone when I told her. She had this excited, shocked, and "I don't know if I believe you..." tone to her voice. My dad just sounded amused.
No, we're not going to call her Georgette, or Georgia or anything other female form of George. Her name is Carolynn Lee Gibson. Carolynn is a combination of my grandma Meppen's name (Carol) and my mom's name (Lynn) and Lee is the nickname for Emile my grandma Cowdery has used her entire life. So I'm getting all of the important women in my life in one name! I'm really excited; not just about the name, but about having a little girl. It's already taken some mental adjusting though...

And just because I've already been asked once, I'll clarify: No, we absolutely are NOT disappointed. We're ecstatic! The only let-down is the fact that our children won't have that older brother influence that Daniel and I both wanted so badly for them. But we both only had older sisters, and we turned our alright, didn't we?

...and now I have to go and change all of my baby registry items.