Travels, Germany Days 1-2

In the middle of May Miguel and I had the opportunity to take a two week trip to Europe. Well, the whole trip really started because Miguel had a business trip in Berlin and we decided to make a longer trip out of it which was awesome because then I got to tag along! 

Anyone who knows me well knows how absolutely terrified I am of flying. We're talking I have to be seriously drugged to fly. Well, being pregnant changed the whole being-able-to-take-drugs thing. Ahhh! The prospect of flying without my medicine freaked me out. I prayed everyday for months and had my family praying diligently for me as well. I had this fear that I would fall asleep and then wake up mid-Atlantic and have a full blown panic attack and then have to be zip-tied to the seat by an air marshall. I have flown to Europe on multiple previous occasions and logically knew that I would be fine... but logic doesn't always ease irrational fears. 

Pre-flight selfie in Savannah airport

The view from our room. By the time we woke up the streets were already abuzz with people, many of which were riding their bikes to work. 

We had upgraded our seats to "Economy Comfort" on our Air France flight from Atlanta to Paris so that we would be comfortable. Economy Comfort my a#%! For starters, I had this lovely metal box where my carry-on item and feet were supposed to be. It was about the size of a computer box. When I asked the flight attendant about it I was told it was the power box to the monitors on the back of each seat. Sigh. So that was disappointing.

 

Also, look how little my seat was. I don't consider myself a particularly large person so I cannot imagine how many others feel sitting in this tiny space!!

The flight went surprisingly well in terms of my fears. We had smooth air and I was able to drift in and out of sleep. Apparently I slept half the flight leaning on the poor girl next to me... which I didn't know until Miguel informed me about a week later. Oops!

We flew into Paris and I really enjoyed the pretty farmland views as we approached our landing. Reminded me of a quilt.

We had a quick stop in Paris, just about long enough to go through customs, find our gate, and grab a quick pastry from a snooty French airport bakery employee before boarding the plane to Berlin. Our flight to Berlin was quick and easy. I'm pretty sure Miguel and I slept the whole flight. We landed in a rainy Berlin completely exhausted but also excited to finally be at our destination. A quick cab ride later we arrived at our hotel, The Intercontinental Berlin. 

All the two of us really wanted to do was crash into bed and sleep eternally. However, we knew that was bad when fighting jet lag so we compromised by taking a strict one hour nap. After a glorious, too-short nap, we peeled ourselves out of bed and hit the streets of Berlin to explore. 

First thing we came across of any interest or importance was the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church which was just about two blocks down from our hotel. The church was built in 1890 but badly damaged in a bombing raid in 1943. They've preserved the damage and made the ground floor into a memorial hall. Berlin has such a hard, scary past and it was pretty alarming to see such a huge visual reminder of that past in the middle of a busy, commercial intersection. Like, "oh hey, did you forget where you are? Yeah this is Berlin and this is our history".

Walking around the city we also started to notice a large number of decorative bear statues. I later asked the hotel concierge about the meaning behind the bears and was told that the bear is the city's heraldic animal and the arms up pose is a pose of welcome. They were everywhere! We actually ended up getting a Christmas tree ornament of one to remind us of our trip. 

It was fun walking around Berlin, but the part of town we were staying in was pretty dead being a Sunday evening. Most businesses were closed and the area was mostly commercial property so not too many people were out and about. We did, however, find a fun, very 'German' restaurant to eat at for dinner!

Miguel had requested that we eat at an authentic German restaurant for our first meal in Berlin and I had no objections. Zur Kneipe felt very authentic German! The restaurant was filled with solid wooden everything and had small compartmentalized sections. Even the wood paneling felt very German-themed. The walls were covered sporadically with framed old photos of family and history. It was so "German" that it almost felt like we were eating at a restaurant in Epcot rather than a real life German restaurant in Berlin. I loved it!

We stumbled in pretty early in the evening, so we received a lot of personalized attention because we were the only patrons at the time that were not family. We struck up conversation with the owner who was thrilled to learn that we were from Atlanta (during our travels we found more people knew Atlanta than Savannah so that's what we went with. Thanks 1996 Olympics!) and with broken English told us she had a cousin living in Atlanta. At one point in the evening she even called her cousin and had us talk to him! Haha! He seemed very confused about the whole thing but was a good sport. 

Miguel ordered homemade sausages and I ordered a potato and asparagus dish. I avoided cured meats on our trip which was really sad... but the health of the baby is and was worth it! My potatoes were good and whatever gravy they provided was so yummy! And y'all, Miguel still talks about one of the sausages he ate that night. It was the meal highlight of our whole trip for him!

I also ordered a pickle which Miguel pointed out could have something to do with the pregnancy. I hadn't thought of it at the time when I decided I wanted it, but that actually is a pretty odd thing for me to order.

After dinner we crashed into bed, I don't think it was even eight o'clock yet. We slept hard for a couple of hours and then were both wide awake around 2 am. Jet lag wins again.

Monday we had to drag ourselves out of bed for an early start as Miguel's conference started that morning.

Zombie-like we made our way down to breakfast. The breakfast spread was amazing and after the first morning played a key role in motivating me to get out of bed the following days. At one point in our trip I asked Miguel what his favorite thing about the trip had been so far, and he replied, "Breakfast!". Haha! The buffet truly was quite amazing. It was like the Disney World of breakfast buffets. Miguel really was in absolute heaven. They even had a whole Asian food section! 

Miguel developed a pattern of eating in rounds of three. His pattern was eggs, sausages, potatoes, pretzel with mustard, and yogurt to start out. Next he moved on to Belgian waffles, pancakes, pastries, and maybe an omelet. Then came the Asian food (which we both agreed wasn't breakfast at all) lo mien, stir fry and some soup. As for me?  For the first time in over 8 months I allowed myself to eat (and very much enjoyed) gluten and dairy! Croissants with strawberry jelly and some slices of cheese was my thing. 

 

After we ate Miguel headed off to his conference and I headed back to the hotel room to get ready for the day, er uh, nap. I climbed into bed to "shut my eyes for a minute" and ended up sleeping (heavenly, deep sleeping) for a couple of hours. Oops! I didn't end up leaving the hotel until around 1 pm. I was okay with that though because my docket for day 1 was pretty light and I had mentally accounted for a nap. 

The only thing I had planned for myself on Day 1 was to spend the afternoon exploring KaDeWe. The Kaufhaus des Westens is a Thai owned department store with over 60,000 square metres of selling space and more than 380,000 articles available, it is the largest department store in Continental Europe. 

KaDeWe was crazy! Designer EVERYTHING! Like Harrods but felt much bigger to me! There were nine floors in total I think. The first floor was the beauty department and I immediately felt overwhelmed walking in. Every beauty brand you can think of was represented plus many more I had never heard of. On the perimeter of the first floor were little, individual "shops" like a mini Tiffanys and a Hermés. I walked around each floor and explored all the way to the top. 

The food floor was astounding! Again, the only thing comparable that I have ever seen is the food floor at Harrods, but like I previously said, this was bigger! I attempted to capture the grandeur of it all, but I think the photos failed miserably to do so. There were chocolatiers, bakers, butchers, a whole cheese section (which smelled awful!), seafood, etc. etc. etc! 

There were also many little restaurant/soda shop type booths to eat at in each section.

I purchased a mini baggett and some chocolate croissants to share with Miguel later.

After I explored the food floor I went one floor up to the top floor which was a food court type of thing. It was more of a buffet style, think Piccadilly set up, but much nicer and high quality food. I picked out some items and people watched while I ate. 

I obviously didn't take this photo, but this is the top floor where I ate.

I headed back to the hotel to meet up with Miguel after he finished up his day at the conference. For dinner we decided to head to a place we had learned about doing research before our trip called, White Trash Fast Food. The restaurant was in a different part of town than our hotel and we had to take the metro for the first time to get there.

A fifteen minute metro ride later we were in a completely different feeling part of the city! The streets were covered with graffiti and the people were very gothic. Maybe it would be more accurate to say they were a mix of gothic and hipster... but more gothic than anything else.

White Trash was off the beaten path. Everything was in English which was nice but it was also local and not crawling with tourists

I ate a burger. I was so glad to eat meat! I'd been having a hard time bc I couldn't eat the brats, sausages or deli meats that seem to be very prominent there. The burger was ehh. I chalk it up to having to be well done though. Miguel enjoyed his burger and massive stein of beer.

One thing that shocked me about Berlin was the amount of smokers!!! I would expect that in Paris maybe, but seriously, the smoking was O.U.T of C.O.N.T.R.O.L!! Berlin is a very beautiful city and very lush and green, however, if you looked at the streets and sidewalks they were covered with littered cigarette butts! While at dinner I was even more shocked to see a family of four with the parents smoking in their daughters' faces! Over the week we spent in Berlin I saw more and more shocking instances with cigarettes and children. I saw a mother holding her toddler's hand while she also held a cigarette effectively blowing smoke directly in the poor child's face! 

We enjoyed our meal but were excited to head back to the hotel and catch up on sleep!

Hopefully it won't take me a super long time to knock out the next few blogs about our trip! I need to try and do it while it's still kinda fresh in my mind!!

Goodbye Appendix, Hello Parenthood!

So my appendix broke up with me in early April. Not a fun experience. That Sunday I woke up feeling a little "off" but decided to push through and go about my day. Miguel and I did some yard work but around noon I started feeling really awful. My whole abdomen began severely cramping. It felt like I was doing a plank... this went on for hours and hours. By 9 o'clock that evening I just burst into tears because I felt so rotten. I took some pepto-bismol hoping that I was just experiencing a stomach bug that hadn't yet made me be ill. I tried to sleep but rolled around until about 2 am when I got up and desperately tried in vain to make myself get sick. With no luck and still in severe pain I called Urgent Care and my parents and they both suggested I go to the doctor and get checked out. I was really hoping I wouldn't have to do that because then it was 1) acknowledging that something might actually really be wrong with me and 2) I didn't want any expensive medical bills. 

Urgent Care took my vitals, did a urine test, and prodded around my abdomen. This is when I first started noticing that the pain was more intense in my lower right side. It didn't matter where I was pressed on my abdomen... it would cause a shooting pain in my lower right. The Urgent Care nurse practitioner did a great job putting up with my hyper paranoia btw (I'm always certain I am on the very brink of death due to some medical issue I have imagined). After examining me they decided I better go to the ER. Booooooo! Thanks for the $150 nothing. I should have just gone to the ER to begin with, but I really wanted it to just be a stomach bug and nothing more ominous. 

So Miguel took me to the ER. Which I was dreading. But thanks to it now being 4 am we were ushered right back into the ER and into our own examination room.  I changed into the flattering XL hospital gown and began the fun ER experience of waiting and waiting and waiting. 

I was finally seen by a nurse and the ER doctor (which, by the way, was the only ER doctor there during the night shift). They examined me, took vitals, ran both urine and blood tests, and hooked me up to an IV. Eventually I was told that they thought the pain could be caused by appendicitis or an ovarian cyst that may have burst. So I was wheeled to get some x-rays done. 

Lovely bed head going on here...

(I feel like I should mention that we have these photos because we were sending them to my parents with updates. We weren't just passing time trying to document the experience)

While we were in the x-ray waiting room a nurse came in and retrieved me and took me back to our ER room with no explanation other than "the doctors decided not to have you x-rayed". Then began the waiting game all over again. 

Eventually the ER doctor came back in and told us some very exciting news.... We were PREGNANT! 

Ittttty bitty baby! Only 6 weeks!

Ahh! We couldn't believe it! We were thrilled but also scared as the doctor delivered this news as if it was bad. We were kinda holding our breath waiting for the other shoe to drop. The doctor explained that the blood work showed levels of hCG indicating a pregnancy but that due to the pain I was in they were concerned the pregnancy was ectopic. Ahhh, talk about a roller coaster of emotions. Neither of us had slept in almost 24 hours at this point, I was physically drained by the pain, and now our emotions were being tugged in a billion directions. 

For the next hour we waited for the 1 ultrasound technician in the hospital to become available. During this waiting time the ER staff changed shifts and much friendlier and much more energized staff started to assist us. I was really grateful. I was also given some morphine and had some temporary relief from the pain. 

Eventually we were seen by the ultrasound tech. I was shaking so violently at this point. I'm not sure if it was from the chilly ER, the nerves, the stress on my body, or emotions. The ultrasound tech layered me up with blankets and was really sweet and encouraging. Miguel held my hand as we anxiously looked at the ultrasound screen for any signs of a baby or ectopic pregnancy. I was pretty pessimistic at this point and was sure the ultrasound was just going to confirm the fears the doctors had expressed. Almost as soon as the ultrasound began we saw the pregnancy sack in the uterus and the technician pointed out our baby to us! Praise Jesus! Seriously! I was gobsmacked. Tears of relief swelled in my eyes and I just kept asking the technician if everything was okay, if that was a good thing etc. She was really kind and showed me that she didn't see any ectopic pregnancy (though she reminded us that she wasn't really allowed to say that and that we really would have to wait for the radiologist to read the images). She tried to measure the baby but the pregnancy was so new that it was too small to even measure. 

We were eventually wheeled back to the ER examination room and for the first time in hours Miguel and I felt some sort of joy and relief. I was still in a lot of pain though so that was still a concern. Over the next few HOURS we were seen by many different OB/GYNs, mostly residents. We got some helpful information, though the doctors still seemed to think the pregnancy was ectopic, even though we told them we saw the sack in the right place. I think they doubted us. The doctors explained what surgery would entail if the pregnancy was ectopic and once again Miguel and I were in a sort of limbo of emotions and expectations. 

Miguel started entertaining himself with hospital gloves etc while we waited and waited and waited.

After what seemed like an eternity the radiologist finally sent over the results of the ultrasound and ta-da! the pregnancy was healthy and in the correct location! That was great news, but we still needed to figure out why I was in so much pain. So onto option B and meeting with a surgeon. Again we waited for a lifetime and met with the residents who couldn't really do anything but guess what was likely going on and wait for their boss to come in and examine me. To no ones surprise the surgeon and doctors thought I had an irritated appendix. But here's the pickle, you find out you're newly pregnant and you're given the news that surgery is required and may harm your precious little miracle that you all of a sudden want to desperately fight to protect. We were really scared and nervous, but also knew that the appendix needed to come out.

During the whole waiting process my pain had started to decrease. This kinda alarmed the surgeon who said that often happens after the appendix ruptures. If that was in fact the case then they could just drain the fluid from the burst appendix and then operate on me after the baby was born to remove anything left over. This would be excellent if we could avoid having surgery and the risk that would put the baby under. However, to determine if the appendix had ruptured they needed to do a CT scan. We were absolutely against this idea because we didn't want to expose our baby to any kind of radiation. Miguel and I decided to opt instead for surgery.

Over the next couple of hours we were visited by many OBGYNs and surgeons all of who really encouraged us to have the CT scan in hopes of avoiding surgery all together. We were told that the risk to the baby would be greater under stress of surgery so close to the uterus and also under anesthesia. We were also presented with documentation regarding CT scans and the amount of radiation I would receive and at what levels of radiation are dangerous to a fetus. We decided to go ahead with the CT scan and hope that we didn't have to have surgery!

Over the next hour I had to drink that awful contrast. Honestly I was just SO thrilled to finally be able to drink something that I really had to be careful not to drink it too quickly!

This was a huge pitcher

After I finished the contrast I was wheeled back to get the CT scan. The technician was so nice and assured me he would use the lowest levels of radiation possible. He stayed true to his word (the surgeon said the images were blurry because of it). Whomp whomp... the appendix hadn't burst... so that meant surgery. 

They took me back to surgery pretty quickly. While they started prepping me to go back to the OR everything final set in, all the emotions from the 24+ hours, the lack of sleep, etc. It all added up and I just broke down into tears. Miguel was so incredibly sweet to me. He held my hand, encouraged me, and prayed over me. I cried all the way back to the OR and the last thing I remember is a surgical nurse wiping the tears from my cheeks before I got all loopy. 

Surgery went well. They got my appendix out laparoscopially and and drained out the surrounding infected fluid. I'm also so grateful to our community group who came and sat with Miguel while I was in the OR. 

We spent the night at the hospital where they kept an eye on my blood pressure. It got super low... at one point getting to 58/29! Yikes!

We also had this really fun beeping noise to listen to through the night. Cause sleeping in the hospital isn't uncomfortable to start with... 

I was released from the hospital Tuesday afternoon. It felt so good to get home and shower. And then a few hours later my mom arrived from Atlanta to take care of me. Nothing is as comforting as having your mommy there! She stayed for a couple of days and was an excellent nurse! She even brought me snacks in bed! (Though I hardly had any appetite for over a week)! 

My grandmother also got me beautiful flowers to help lift my spirits and let me know she was thinking of me from afar! Thanks Gramma!

Saturday of the same week was my birthday so I had planned a get together with some Savannah friends to celebrate Friday night. I really wanted to feel better for my birthday dinner and decided I still wanted to go. In hindsight I shouldn't have gone. About an hour and half into dinner I started to feel really bad. I got pretty pale and dizzy and just absolutely drained! I ended up being the first one to leave... which is sad haha.  But I was so grateful to everyone who came out to help celebrate the last birthday of my 20's (ahh!)

The whole week was a whirlwind and insane. I'm so thankful that we live in a country and time with modern medical care and that I have such a loving spouse, family, and friends! Glad I'm all healed up and looking forward to our little one's arrival in December!