Thursday, June 16, 2011

Emergency Room: Proving It's Better To Be Safe Than Sorry.

In the words of Foreigner, "Urgent! Urgent! Emergency!"

Turns out that sometimes back pain during pregnancy is more than just back pain!

So after 3 days of constant lower back pain and some random, quick, stabbing uterine pains, I decided to head to the emergency room and have them see what's what. When it comes to Spencer, I'll happily deal with people calling me a wuss since back pain and tailbone pain come with the territory of pregnancy. Something felt OFF. I may have never been 31 weeks pregnant before but I know my body. We've had a lot of ups-n-downs together, and something wasn't clicking. Better to be safe than sorry and the people who really know and love me and Spencer backed up my decision to go.


One thing I learned is that hospitals don't mess around with pregnancy. Right there in the Emergency Room is a telephone that goes straight to the maternity ward if you are pregnant and ill/injured. It was like passing GO and collection 200 bucks! Maybe I should back track and say I spent several hours in the Urgicare on Wednesday night because my doc was in surgery and the back pain and lack of sleep were making me a little batty. Of course, as Urgicares are typically useless, they told me to rest and go to the ER if I felt any worse. Hence how I ended up on the maternity floor of the hospital (so I got to check out where Spencer will be born!!) and in a bed within mere minutes. Nice rooms, nice nurses, nice doctors...I felt like I was in backwards land.

So my awesome nurse hooks me up to a monitor and gives me a clicker to push every time Spencer moves while we wait for the house doc to show up. It's during this time that I'm told I have a "busy baby" because he was putting on quite the show, getting his groove on several times a minute almost the entire time I was chilling there. Thank technology for Smart Phones because I couldn't get a hold of my husband so I had to entertain myself. Lots of Facebook, lots of Solitaire, lots of texting, and lots of hitting that little clicker to mark that Spencer was well and rocking out!



Before the doctor even showed up, the nurse told me I was having small contractions. This was news to me! Is that the weird stabbing feeling I was...feeling? Were they just so mild that I couldn't tell? What does this mean for Spencer? It's TOO SOON! We don't even have the car seats yet! We only have one box of diapers! Needless to say, I was feeling a lot of anxiety and I was miffed that while he has a 7.5 month pregnant wife, my husband still doesn't keep his phone near him when he's sleeping. Grrrr. And booooo.

The doctor arrives and looks at the print out of my boy's heartbeat and contractions and it looks like they're every 12 minutes. After an exam...yep, the exact one you're thinking of...I'm told that my cervix is shut so I'm not in "clinical or active labor". That's a good thing because he is NOT done cooking. I need to keep him in there a while longer where he's safe. The test they did was to determine if I was at risk of going into clinical/active labor and the results would be back in 1-2 hours, so there I sat, trying to decrease my anxiety while waiting for my husband...who was finally on his way. I was an unhappy mommy.


My OB/GYN was paged and she said if they test results looked a certain way (what way, I'm not sure as I'm not a doctor), I could go home but she wanted to see me in her office ASAP. The test results DID come out in my favor and the contractions DID slow down a bit so I was sent home with information about pre-term labor (and a really fancy cup that measured my fluid intake), which I guess is my diagnosis.


I've been instructed to do a whole slew of things I've already been doing like:
- Drink 12 or more glasses of juice or water a day.
- Empty my bladder often.
- Lie on my left side to rest or sleep.
- Ask my doc how long I can be on my feet and lie down the rest of the time.

I also have to watch out for:
- A tightening in my belly every 15 minutes or sooner.
- Low, dull backache.
- Menstrual-like cramping.
- Pressure if the vag, as is the baby is pressing down.
- A change is discharge (YUM!).
- Flu-like aching all over the body.

What do you know...I have 4 out of 6. Do I win a prize?

Yep. I win a cat nurse who is watching over me, even as I type this very entry!!!



I also win a trip to see my OB/GYN on Monday to discuss what's gone on, see what's what, and make a plan. Hopefully that plan doesn't include bed rest because I'd feel better having a little bit more in the bank before I have to abandon ship. My plan was to work until my water broke on my office floor, ensuring that all of my maternity-leave weeks were spent with Spencer and not spent sitting on the couch, bored to tears (believe it or not, I sometimes get tired of TV...but don't tell my TV that).

So that's the Emergency Room drama that took place. Every day is an adventure, indeed!

2 comments:

  1. Whoa..what a week. One thing's for sure, and that is you don't mess around with bad vibes while prego. You made the right decision. Think of it as dress rehearsal for labor. All of those monitors and pics reminded me of our last month with Pickle. Hope you get the thumbs up from your OB on Monday.

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  2. Yeah, I've been freaking about every little thing since Thursday. I want Monday to get here so I know what's what.

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