Welcomed Visitors

Last Sunday Mike parents Dave and Sherrie came to visit us for a week. To me they are much more than just my parents-in-law. I’ve hear that some people just don’t get along with their in-laws, or that they don’t like them at all. A lot of times I have heard people almost complaining about having them in their home. I love being around Sherrie and Dave. They are fun and I feel like I can talk to them as if I were talking to my own parents. Maybe it is because I lived in their house and we are used to each other. We are so far away from both sides of our family that it really feels good to be able to spent time with them. Having our kids around people who love them and care about them is such a blessing.

Thank goodness my kidney stone pain went away right before they came on Sunday night, so we were able to go out and do fun things together.

On Monday we went to see the Gibbs Gardens. Mike always wants to go see gardens although I am not the garden type. Going to the outlet mall would be my kind of outing. However, I have to admit that the gardens were very impressive. We spent most of the day walking around beautiful landscaping stuff. We came back home to rest for a bit and give poor baby Mika some time out of her car seat. Then we went to the international farmers market. We love that place because you can find almost anything you can think. We bought some Mexican pastries, German chocolate, delicious shrimp dumplings, some type of French cake, and my favorite new thing Baklava (I had to look it up to spell it correctly). We then came home and ate dumplings and all sorts of treats.

Tuesday we went to an animal safari. It was super fun and scary at the same time. These animals are so used to humans that they come up to you and demand food. We were told not to feed certain animals like zebras and ostriches because they might bite. One zebra came to the window while I was distracted looking the other way and when I turned around she was terrorizing my poor Lisa. This zebra had almost her entire head inside the car and was showing us her teeth. Lisa was screaming and covering her eyes. I quickly rolled the window up. We were laughing hysterically but we were also a little scared. Lisa was fine and continued to feed the animals. To Lisa all the animals were just giant Ellas. The lesson we learned is that you shouldn’t use your own car. You should rent one of their vans so you are not worried about the long horns damaging the side of your car. We came back home and ate at a Mexican restaurant. Real Mexican food is hard to find and we love this place that is close to our home.

To stay true to their nature Dave and Sherrie worked for the next two and a half days fixing one of the bathrooms in our home. For some reason I knew that they were not going to spend a whole week without doing some type of labor. We are very grateful for the work they put into making our home look better. Between me having to take care of two kids and Mike working full time and going to school there isn’t much home improvement going on here. Thank you, and sorry that you felt you needed to do something other than relax.

Friday Night we went out to eat real Chinese food. We came home and ate Costco’s chocolate cake and tried to watch a movie, but we were all very tired and went to sleep.

Saturday morning they went back to Utah. We are grateful for the time we had together. My kids never see their grandparent so this week was awesome. Lisa loves Ama (Grandma), she is not sure about Apa (Grandpa) but by the time they left she was asking us where they were. Hopefully we can be together for Thanksgiving.

 When Grandma and Grandpa were here for baby Mika's blessing we forgot to take pictures so I made Mike put on a shirt to take at least one. Its blurry and Mike is actually wearing shorts underneath, but now we have ONE picture.

The one where I passed a kidney stone

I never would have thought that there was something more painful than giving birth, but there is. Remember some posts ago I said I was a wimp because I am afraid of being in pain and how much I begged to get an epidural? Well my friends I just discovered that I am in fact a master of pain.

It all began Friday at 3 in the morning after I fed Mika. I tried to go back to sleep but felt a little sick. I stayed in bed awake for a little bit; I saw Mike get ready to go to work and leave a little bit before 6 am. At around 6:30 I went downstairs because I just couldn’t go back to sleep and there is where it all started. I started having lower back pain followed by a horrible pain in my stomach. I have NEVER felt something so horrible. I thought it was a very bad tummy ache and decided to drink some chamomile tea, which does wonders for my tummy aches by the way. It did not go away; it actually got much worse. I waited because I knew Mike was going to take Tuesday after Memorial Day off of work to spend time with his parents and I didn’t want him to have to leave work early on Friday. I couldn’t stand the pain. My kids woke up and I had to feed them and it was excruciating having to do normal things while being in so much pain. I wanted to keep moving and at the same time I also wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. I felt pain whatever I did and I also started getting scared because the pain was so bad I thought I was going to pass out. Right after I fed Lisa breakfast and was able to put Mika in her swing I had a rush of so much pain that it made me run to the bathroom and throw up. Because I had thrown up I thought I really had a stomach bug or something. I decided to call Mike. He told me to call the insurance’s nurse line and then let him know if they thought I needed to see a doctor. Well they obviously told me to go see a doctor. I called Mike again and by that point I was screaming and can barely speak. Because of my history with pain tolerance I think Mike didn’t think I was in so much pain, so he took his time finishing up thinks at work. One hour and a half later I called him and screamed at him to get home and take me to the emergency room. I could barely nurse baby Mika and I was crying out of pain and fear because I didn’t know what was going on.

 I told myself to hold on a little longer until Mike got home and he could take care of the girls so I could scream and moan in peace. Then I told myself to hold on a little longer so we could get to the hospital. Then I told myself to hold on until they called my name, took my information, history, and symptoms and took me to a room. Then I told myself to hold on until somebody showed up to see me. Then I told myself to hold on until that somebody put an IV for fluids and maybe give me something to take the pain away. Them I told myself to hold on until the doctor came and asked tons of questions while I cried my eyes out. Then I told myself to hold on until the doctor told the nurse to give me morphine. Then I told myself to hold on for lab work and a cat scan to see if they could give me something else because the two doses of morphine did NOTHING. At about 2pm Dilaudid (?) came. This medicine finally helped me feel better. I even took a nap.  

The doctor came back and told me I had a 7mm kidney stone, which at that point I knew because of the questions they have asked me. All this time I am worried sick about my baby Mika. She had had a total of two ounces of formula, one in the hospital and one the night I went home because I thought my milk was never going to come. Both times she threw it all up and cried so I never tried again nor she has needed it. With all the medicines they gave me they told me to pump and dump the milk for a few days so I could take the pain medicines they were going to prescribe me along with one medicine to help me pass the stone. I hated the idea but since I didn’t want to be in so much pain I was willing to give it a shot. Mike had gone home to feed the girls and put them down for a nap. Mika was so hungry that Mike said she ate the two ounces of formula sample we had at home. After he picked me up from the hospital we went to get a can of the same formula and to drop off my prescriptions, four medications total 2 for pain 1 for nausea and 1 to pass the stone. We went home and it was time to feed Mika again and then it all went sour. She was not having it. She refused to drink the formula. I wasn’t even in the room because she never takes a bottle from me anyway, even if it’s my own milk. Mike gave it a rest and the tried again and by then Mika was starving and was so upset, she was crying so hard and it made me cry too. Mike tried to feed her with a medicine dispenser and she took some but 10 minutes later she threw it all up and cried some more. She was so tired of screaming that she fell asleep. I was in pain again but I had made the decision to skip the meds. It had been 6 hours since I last had any medications and I had been pumping and dumping the milk so I called the pediatrician and poison control and they both told me it was pretty safe to breastfeed again.

I will never forget the moment when I nursed my baby again. She was nursing and smiling at the same time, relieved and comforted by her mother. I also felt relieve to be able to feed and comfort my baby. I spent the most horrible two days of my life and at the same time I have discovered that I am capable of more than I give myself credit. Friday night I was in so much pain I had to go downstairs because I was afraid I was going to wake my family up with my incessant moaning and the same happened all day Saturday and half of Sunday. I prayed so hard for the stone to pass before Dave and Sherrie got here for the week. We had been so excited to have family in our home and I didn’t want to ruin their vacation by being sick. The pain went away Sunday afternoon, just in time for me to be able to make dinner for them.

 I see it this way, Heavenly Father knows exactly what I am capable of doing, but he wants me to make the decisions that are going to lead me to know for myself that I am a strong woman. I feel so blessed now that I am in no pain at all. I am also grateful because even though we tell ourselves as mothers that we would do anything for our children it is nice to know that when that time comes we can actually do amazing things driven by the immense love we feel for them.

Kidney stone pain is like the most intense labor pain. The difference is that when you are in labor you know you are going to give birth to your child, you know that there is a happy ending to the pain; you know there is a purpose and a reason. In summary, I would take both of my kid’s delivery pain combined over these three days passing a kidney stone.

I am brave and I absolutely can do hard things.

 Photos not related to the post, except the first two.

Mika after nursing  for the first time in almost 8 hours

Mom was trying to rest when Lisa came wearing her super cool sunglasses.