Because I haven't updated since we were still in San Francisco, let me give you a basic rundown of what happened once we got to the Family House. I was discharged on a Saturday, and the Family House sent us a Lyft to get us from the hospital to the family house a few blocks away. I looked a little crazy coming out in my wheelchair trying to hold all the beautiful flowers people had sent that I just couldn't throw away yet!
The Family House was amazing. I will be putting together a video tour of it really soon. The rooms were very simple with two twin beds and a bathroom. On each floor there are two family room areas with couches, TVs, and a beautiful communal kitchen. Each family is assigned a mini fridge and a locking cabinet for dry goods. Everyone pitches in to keep the dishwashers going, and there are family meals most weeknights donated by different organizations. The only funny things about the family dinners was that we had lasagna literally 5 days in a row one week, and then 3 days in a row the next week. We're still not sure if that was just the craziest coincidence or what, but I think I'm good on lasagna for a LONG time! They also provided a continental breakfast almost every morning, and we got to play with therapy dogs in the morning also. Not a bad way to wake up!
I spent most of my time in the family house sitting on the couch, watching TV, and reading books. I'll admit I was a little embarrassed to be sitting around a lot. Other families would be coming and going to the hospital for appointments, and when they came back--there I was. Still sitting. I wish I had a sign that said, RECOVERING FROM FETAL SURGERY so that people would know why eight hours later I was STILL watching the Fixer Upper marathon.
The people we met in the Family House were truly amazing. Nothing makes you grateful for your own trials like staying in a place like this. One of the families on our floor had already been living at the Family House for 9 months, and they are originally from Hungary. The mom and dad take turns traveling back and forth, and they are likely to be there for 2 more years, participating in a research study until their son will ultimately pass away from his condition. Many other parents are there with their kids battling cancer. SO many trials in one building. It truly made me grateful for my situation.
While most of my time in the Family House was down time, my mom and I did manage to get out a few times so I didn't die of boredom. Here are some things we did!
The Family House was amazing. I will be putting together a video tour of it really soon. The rooms were very simple with two twin beds and a bathroom. On each floor there are two family room areas with couches, TVs, and a beautiful communal kitchen. Each family is assigned a mini fridge and a locking cabinet for dry goods. Everyone pitches in to keep the dishwashers going, and there are family meals most weeknights donated by different organizations. The only funny things about the family dinners was that we had lasagna literally 5 days in a row one week, and then 3 days in a row the next week. We're still not sure if that was just the craziest coincidence or what, but I think I'm good on lasagna for a LONG time! They also provided a continental breakfast almost every morning, and we got to play with therapy dogs in the morning also. Not a bad way to wake up!
I also participated in some highly modified yoga at the Family House to help my back pain:
I spent most of my time in the family house sitting on the couch, watching TV, and reading books. I'll admit I was a little embarrassed to be sitting around a lot. Other families would be coming and going to the hospital for appointments, and when they came back--there I was. Still sitting. I wish I had a sign that said, RECOVERING FROM FETAL SURGERY so that people would know why eight hours later I was STILL watching the Fixer Upper marathon.
The people we met in the Family House were truly amazing. Nothing makes you grateful for your own trials like staying in a place like this. One of the families on our floor had already been living at the Family House for 9 months, and they are originally from Hungary. The mom and dad take turns traveling back and forth, and they are likely to be there for 2 more years, participating in a research study until their son will ultimately pass away from his condition. Many other parents are there with their kids battling cancer. SO many trials in one building. It truly made me grateful for my situation.
While most of my time in the Family House was down time, my mom and I did manage to get out a few times so I didn't die of boredom. Here are some things we did!
First of all, we ate a lot. There were several good places to eat right around the Family House, so we sampled just about everything!
This place was called Peasant Pies Cafe. They served the cutest pot pies!
The Spark Social Food Truck park was just down the street, and it was amazing!
The Best Taco award for San Francisco goes to Publico! It was literally a hard shell taco within a huge flour tortilla taco. So. Good.
The Family House has passes to lots of great places around San Francisco for their patrons to use. We took advantage and hit up The Japanese Gardens, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Botanical Gardens. My mom's relatives I hadn't seen in a long time were able to join us!
The Japanese Gardens:
No pictured...the wheelchair I had to either push around or be pushed around in!
California Academy of Sciences:
The Botanical Gardens:
My mom and I took the Hop On/Off bus around San Francisco. It was a great way for us to see the city without having to do any walking. So, we pretty much hopped on and only hopped off once to eat lunch!
One of these things is not like the other...??
My mom and dad saw the San Francisco show "Beach Blanket Babylon" almost 30 years ago when they came here for a Ford trip. So, we went to see it and had a blast! So funny!
During our two-week stay at the Family House, I had two return appointments at UCSF; however, before I could get to my first one, we ended up back in the hospital for an afternoon. About two days prior, I started itching REALLY bad. My palms and feet itched WAY bad, which I thought was weird. Whose palms itch? I knew that my mom had suffered from a liver condition during her pregnancies that made her itch uncontrollably, so I was worried that I might have the same thing. I also wondered if it might just be a side effect of some medicine I was taking. I called the fetal surgery coordinator and told her what was going on. She said that none of my medications have itching as a side effect. When I told her specifically that my palms and feet were itching, that is when she told me I needed to come in immediately. So, we headed the 3 blocks to the hospital.
They did labwork and hooked me up to the baby monitors. When the labwork came back, they officially diagnosed me with cholestasis of pregnancy...my mom's same liver condition. Luckily for me, a medication has been developed since my mom's time that stops the itching for many women. Thank heavens the meds worked on me and within a day or two the itching had pretty much stopped. This liver condition increases your chances of having a stillbirth, so babies are usually delivered several weeks early, and they require weekly or biweekly non-stress tests. Because of Cedar's spina bifida and my fetal surgery, all of these things were already happening, so my care really didn't change at all. I just had to add a medication to what now looks like my home pharmacy!
I grabbed this for Cedar at one of our UCSF appointments!
At both of my appointments at UCSF, everything looked great. Cedar's fluid levels were amazing at 14-16cm every time. She was always very active, moving around and keeping that heartbeat nice and strong. On April 5 I had my second and last appointment at UCSF. This was the important one--the appointment that would determine whether I was allowed to go home or not. Thank heavens, everything still looked great and I had my final counseling session with Rachel--UCSF's amazing Fetal Surgery coordinator.
The hardest part of this meeting was discussing my work when I got home. I was hoping that after another week or so of recovery back in Utah, that I would be able to go back to teaching. I knew I would have to teach sitting down and extremely limit my physical activity, but I was prepared to do that. Unfortunately, Rachel made it very clear that this was a bad idea. This was the only time at any of my appointments that I cried. At this point, I wasn't sure whether or not I would be able to keep teaching, so at least finishing out this year with my students was really important to me. In the end, I had to admit that I knew being at school for 10 hours a day was not the way to make sure that Cedar was not born prematurely. My only job right now is to do everything in my power to keep her in there. My students and my administration have been amazingly supportive during all this, and the kids are literally directing the spring show by themselves. They are pretty amazing! Life goes on, I guess, whether I am teaching theatre at Kearns High School or not.
We finished the meeting, and I delivered all my thank you notes to the amazing doctors and staff at UCSF:
We got the go ahead to fly home, and on April 6 we arrived at the airport...to find out our flight had been cancelled. We had to wait 7 hours until the rebooked flight, which is the LAST thing a pregnant lady wants to hear, let alone one that just had fetal surgery. With my back brace on, and a good book, I survived and we made it back to Salt Lake City. I'll never forget Miles' face when he saw me at the airport! It was like he had seen a ghost and did a double-take! Being away from my kids for 4 whole weeks was incredibly difficult, but luckily kids are resilient and now I don't think they even remember or think about that time.
Spending time with my almost-middle-child:
Taking Riley to Kindergarten Orientation:
I am so grateful for the amazing care I received at UCSF and at the Family House. My care has now been taken over by the doctors at the University of Utah. And now...we wait!!
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