And now for a long post.
The last couple of days have been eventful. Let us start at the beginning, and let me also start by saying that everything is OK now. Monday my stomach was kind of achey all day, but since different parts of me are achey all the time now, I didn't think much of it. It didn't hurt any more to eat or not eat, so I ate as normal and took it easy. Monday night at about 9pm, Jon came home and I had a glass of water. The glass of water put my stomach over the edge for some reason and I was in serious pain from then on. Like a constant stabbing in my stomach, two inches above my belly button. Good times. I went to bed and tried to sleep it off, but by 11pm I knew it wasn't happening. At midnight the pain moved to my lower abdomen/intestine area and it was excruciating. As bad as any gallbladder attack I had before that pesky organ was removed. I was shivering and feeling faint from the pain, laying in bed moaning and crying. I took some milk of magnesia and promptly threw that up. I knew the problem wasn't baby-related, but I was freaking Jon out so I called my on-call midwife number to see what I should do. They thought the pain was bad enough that I might need to go to the ER, but since I am 20 weeks along, I should come to their labor and delivery triage center first to make sure the baby is ok.
We put on our shoes and headed to St. Joseph's hospital. And, of course, like any time I have serious medical issues, the pain seemed to resolve by at least 50% by the time I arrived at the triage center. I felt so stupid. Much like I felt when I was having gallbladder attacks, and the attack would be over by the time the doctor saw me. Ugh. Anyway, they wanted to check me out anyway. I got one of those contraction monitor things and nothing was going on. I got a urine test and a blood test and everything was normal. They gave me a "G.I. cocktail" to calm my stomach, and that helped. Two hours later, at about 3:30am, we went home. My stomach still hurts a bit, but it is just uncomfortable, nothing like Monday night. I wasn't throwing up, like if it was food poisoning, I was blocked up, as if it was constipation, and I didn't have any other bad symptoms. Just a really bad gastrointestinal...something. It's a mystery, and I'm not super happy about that.
But to continue the story. As Jon drove me home at quarter to 4 in the morning, his phone rang. It was our landlord. She wanted to know if we were home because our dogs had been barking FOR THE LAST HOUR. She lives above us, for those who don't know. Oh man. We felt so bad. We had no idea they would freak out when we left. They were quite for the first hour and a half we were gone, but something spooked them and they barked for an HOUR. In the middle of the night. I'm sure it was instigated by Sophie, because Tucker would sleep through anything. We figured they would just go back to sleep after we left. So we apologized profusely, told her why we had left in the first place, said we'd be home in five minutes, and got her a really nice bouquet of flowers the next day with another note of apology. And that is why dogs are a menace.
So now Jon and I are devising various strategies to deal with the dogs if I go into labor in the middle of the night, or if I'm still in labor when the middle of the night rolls around. The chances are very good I'll be spending at least one night in the hospital, possibly two or even three. We have a lot of friends and family in the area that we can ask to help, but they all have their own responsibilities. We can ask people to drop by and feed them, and we have dog walkers with keys to our house who can take them for a mid-day stroll. But the middle of the night is hard. We may ask one of Jon's single, lives-nearby, doesn't-hate-our-dogs friends to be "on call" to come sleep at our house in the event we have to leave. I think having someone there will keep them from freaking out and barking and getting us evicted! They don't bark when we leave in the middle of the day, just this one time at night. Fun.
But to finish the story, I had a regularly scheduled appointment with my midwife the morning after the hospital visit. I went in and everything is looking great. I'm finally gaining weight (three pounds in four weeks!) and all vital signs point to healthy. Excellent. My next appointment is on Tuesday for the ultrasound!
No comments:
Post a Comment