Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Mom and Baby are Okay

Brian told me that when ever you have some unexpected medical news, you have to start your conversation with the current status. So last night he called both of our parents and began the conversation with "Mom and baby are okay..."
Now if that was the first thing you heard, where would your head go? Delivery? Some dramatic line of events that lead to a successful c-section?

Let me start my post with: Mom is still uncomfortably plump and baby is happily kicking away in-utero.

I hate when they give me an OB appointment in the afternoon. I nearly never remember it. Thus, I took extra care to remember my 3 pm appointment yesterday. My morning/afternoon ended up rather busy so by the time I was on my way to the OB I had the dog in the car with me. My normal appointments are hardly even 20 min long, which is not great but a reasonable amount of time for the dog to wait in the car. (Yes the windows were cracked and it was not hot outside. I even changed parking spots twice to make sure she was in the shade.) But we got there a few minutes late, so I ended up waiting 20 min in the waiting room anyway. When they took me I kept my mouth shut because southern people love to chat, and I only asked two well planned questions, as to make my appointment as short as possible.

note- the next part may be a TMI moment if you are squeamish or a guy.

All week long I had been looking forward to seeing if I was making any progress towards labor...

So she "checked" me to see if my cervix was dilated. She happily announced I was 1 centimeter, then she took her hand out and I felt an odd sensation of other fluid come along with her hand. Did she break my water? No. That would have been awesome.
Apparently in the check she had poked or scratched or something a little too hard, and rather suddenly I began to in her words hemorrhage blood. Fun. Now I'm bleeding, a lot, and have people opening and closing the door with my legs spread eagle while they run to get more supplies to suture the tiny tare causing the problem. And my poor dog is in the car.

The wonderful part was, I did not have to ride in an ambulance to the hospital like my OB wanted, because for some reason Brian came home from work early. So he was able to come and take me and take care of the dog.

After a super fun night of observation in the hospital, I stopped bleeding, did not go into labor, and had a low but survivable blood pressure. So they released me this morning.

What have I learned from this situation? Bring lots of pillows when you have to go to the hospital, don't take your dog to doctor's appointments, and you must begin all phone conversations with your current medical status.

Sadly, after all the craziness all I can think is "Dang it! We were so close!!"
Maybe at next week's appointment she will break my water instead of poking holes next to my cervix. ;-)

Happily Brian learned that hospitals are boring and he gave me my thanks for carrying my child gift early... I am now the proud owner of a sweet iTouch. I love you honey.

6 comments:

Usandthings said...

1. I never got any thanks-for-carrying-my-child(ren) gift. Brian, could you talk to Tyler about this?
2. Yes, bring your own pillows and make sure 1. Brian is in charge of making sure they are nowhere near the bed during the actual delivery, because then they will have to be disposed of because who wants to clean that up? and 2. they have a very distinct pillow case so no one mistakes them for hospital pillows and tries to steal them while you're in the shower, or something.
3. Congratulations on being 1 cm. I wasn't even that far with Lillian after like 12 hours of labor.
4. I've had a little bit of baby fever, but things like this clear that right up. Good luck, and I hope your baby comes early.

Audrey said...

well blech. I hope the kid comes soon. I started bleeding at 34 weeks and spent 4 days in the hospital before going home on bedrest and then having Greta at 37 weeks. I don't really like hanging out in hospitals, I just feel gross all the time. So, with Jade I did a 24 hour discharge.

T. Scott Saponas said...

Glad Mom and Baby are doing well!

Eileen said...

Yes...starting the conversation with the current medical condition was a good idea! So glad everything worked out ok and we are back to all that fun anticipation! I CAN'T WAIT, I CAN'T WAIT! Love you!
Mom

Brian said...

For the record, the phone call I got from Steph started with "I'm at the doctors, I am bleeding, and they are going to take me to the hospital in an ambulance..." In her defense, she really didn't know at that point if "Mom and Baby are okay." The drive to the doctor's office was probably the scariest 5 minutes of my life.

The Cannon Family said...

Oh my goodness! Glad you're ok! And, fun gift - tell Brian to talk to my husband as well :o)