Im sending this to you, because when i went through it i had very little resources on the web to draw on, and at the time i found it quite emotionally taxing and hard, and felt quite alone… When i was 26 weeks pregnant i had some upper right quadrant abdominal pain, and i thought nothing of it! Round ligament pain perhaps? I didnt do anything, however about 24 hours later i was in agony, vomiting and writhing on my bathroom floor! My husband called the hospital and we went to A and E, where i was diagnosed with appendicitus, which occurs in roughly 0.1% of all pregnancies, and is the most common cause of surgery in pregnant women. The next morning i underwent an emergency surgery to remove the appendix, however due to the pregnancy i had to remain awake, during what is major stomach surgery – it involves an 8 inch incision, and then removing your large and small intestine in order to find the inflammed appendix, which could rupture at any time! I was awake the whole time, and baby was kicking all the way through! There is a high risk of preterm labour also, so after the operation i spent 10 days in ICU being monitored. During this time, i remained on an an epidural for pain relief (however in terms of pain medication i was given less than an average appendix removal op!) Also i had terrible pain because of excess air within my stomach after the operation… but was able to have my stitches removed about a week after the operation, and was back on my feet (although slowly!) by 2 weeks! The biggest ongoing problem is the stretching of the scar tissue as my pregnancy continued to progress. It was initially very neat and tidy (i was lucky enough to have no infection) but has become quite lumpy and raised as i’ve got bigger … however i hope it will return to normal after the birth! I just wanted to post my story as proof that everything can go ok in an appendix removal during pregnancy! Im currently 36 weeks and baby looks fine! Thanks!
Updated here.
