San Francisco day 2

Wednesday July 3, day three of our San Francisco adventure. I woke up with a really bad stuffy nose and sore throat. Great. Our first appointment was at 9:00 to visit with our FTC Nurse Janice and then our Anesthesiologist. Our anesthesiologist, Jennifer Lucero, walked us through the process of putting me to sleep during surgery and keeping my uterus relaxed throughout this whole process. We talked about the meds that I'd be on and the epidural I'd need and all sorts of things. It was a short appointment. After talking with her, my next appointment, a fetal MRI, wasn't until 1:30.  So we hung around campus for about an hour and then decided to go ahead and take the shuttle to where I'd have the MRI, which is across town at the China Basin campus. So we hopped on the bus and rode around downtown San Francisco. San Francisco is a packed place!! So many little tiny townhomes squished together on these narrow roads. Every house here is a townhouse, but they all look so different. All sorts of crazy colors and styles everywhere we went. I told Malone they must paint their houses crazy so they can find it because all the houses are so similar. VERY colorful houses here!  The bus ride experience was a combination between the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland and the bus ride Harry Potter took in the third movie where they go really fast and squeeze in between other buses. We literally squeezed through some of the tiniest places and zoomed through all this traffic, meanwhile it was extremely bumpy and swervy inside the bus. It was a crazy ride! I was so glad I wasn't driving, I could just close my eyes and find a happy place haha. It was so hot too, so by the end of the ride I was about ready to be sick. The ride took about a half hour to 45 minutes long, just to get around town.

We finally arrived at the China Basin campus for my MRI about at about 12:15, an hour early for my appointment. We decided to go ahead and check in and just wait there. About 10 minutes after I checked in they had a no-show and just decided to take me early, which was nice! The whole MRI experience is completely new to me. I had been fasting since 10am to help keep the baby calm and not move as much during the MRI. So by the time I would get done with the MRI I would be literally starving!  I had to get changed into these one-size-fits-no one pants and a couple gown tops to cover me front and back. The pants were literally 8x too big, I could barely keep them on! I walked into the MRI room and they had me lay down on this little table that wheels into the MRI. They strapped me in and made sure I was comfy because I was going to be a while. The first set of MRI pics were of the baby's head, which take and hour and a half to do. And the second round of pics would be of the baby's back, which takes another hour and a half. I was supposed to lay there in this narrow tube for an hour without moving! What?! At first I did feel a little nervous and not sure what to expect, but after a while I was able to relax a bit. I had to have hearing plugs put in my ears because the noise of the machine is soooo loud. Even with them in my ears, the banging and beeping the machine made were extremely loud, making it hard to relax. During the first round, we had hoped the baby would be calm from me not eating. But this was NOT the case. I have NEVER felt him move so much ever! He kicked and wiggled and kicked like crazy! I almost started to laugh it was so ridiculous. The first hour went alright and I was able to have a break in between sessions. The tech and I just laughed at how much the baby was moving the first hour. The second hour was a little harder to relax, since by then I had a hard time not moving. My back was getting tired and my arms were falling asleep.

FINALLY we were done. And we got done a lot sooner than expected too, an entire HOUR early! I walked out of the MRI place and I was tired and starving. We rode the crazy buses back to campus (which felt like FOREVER) and we got some food to eat at the food court. By then is was almost 4pm, and neither of us had eaten since 9:30am. After eating a late lunch we got in our car and headed back to the hotel. I literally passed out that night too.