My Night in Triage

Yesterday was a fun day. My mom came over about 4pm to pick George and I up to go to my nephew's baseball game. George was asleep and did not appreciate being woken up from his nap. He screamed the whole way to the game and continued to scream for another 20 minutes or so. I needed to go to the bathroom but George wouldn't let me put him down so I carried him over to the bathroom area. I was walking on the sidewalk when I stepped in a puddle created by the drinking fountains. I immediately slipped, George hit his head on the drinking fountain and I landed hard on my legs/butt. Not only did this hurt and pull some muscles, but it was embarrassing and I hit my little boys head which made him start crying again. But I still had to pee. So I walked to the bathroom with my wet pants (from the water on the ground and a little bit of leakage, if you know what I mean). There was no toilet paper. For Heaven's sake. After doing my best with what I had in the bathroom, I waddled George over to the park and thankfully found one of his wonderful cousins there that took his hand and let George take him where ever he wanted. Thank goodness for Tayen! I could not have gotten off the park bench to follow George around even if I wanted to. I was holding it all together until I saw my sweet brother walking over to me and he asked me what was up. Of course I started crying. I'm such a boob.

I collected myself again and then my mom came over. Geeze. I started crying again and we sat for a while and I told her what happened and where it hurt and everything. We decided to go home. I had experienced a fall when I was pregnant with George so I knew I needed to call the doctor and see if she wanted me to go to the hospital to get check out. Also, I wasn't sure my water hadn't broken since my pants were wet and didn't seem to be drying in the pelvic region like they were everywhere else. The on-call triage nurse said to head on in to the hospital. I wanted to go home first and tell Glen and change my pants. Glen and I got in one car and my mom took George in her car. Thank you Grandma! We had to go through the ER and they finally got me all hooked up to the machines around 6:40pm and said I would have to be there for about four hours. Luckily my mom didn't have anything she needed to do so she was able to take George home and stay with him until we got home. Glen had a Young Women activity he was to teach for so I had some time to myself. I would have gone to sleep but there was nothing suitable on tv and people kept coming in to check things. I had a pelvic check and I hadn't progressed since my last appointment and there wasn't any amniotic fluid.

I was having regular contractions but they didn't hurt. They were coming every two minutes. They figured I was probably dehydrated so my doctor told the nurses to give me a liter of fluids and take a vial or two of blood to see if the baby was bleeding into my blood. They didn't think he was because everything looked great on the monitors. Because I was dehydrated, the first nurse tried getting a vein twice, once on each wrist. These were painful. It hurts worse when the needle is coming out I think. Then another nurse came in and tried on the top of my hand. She couldn't get it either. It was decided that instead of the IV, they would just make me drink lots of water and have a phlebotomist take some blood from a vein in my arm. The phlebotomist came in and didn't say a word before stabbing me and digging around until I couldn't take it anymore. She then asked, "Would you rather I tell you when I am going to prick you?" Um... yes please. So she went to the other side and found a better vein and there was no pain with this one. I started having painful contractions, which in a way was really exciting. I've never started labor on my own so it was almost fun.

Then the ultrasound tech came in and did a biophysical profile on the baby. Everything looked great. My doctor said I could go home. I was still having contractions until I laid down in bed and then they only lasted another ten minutes or so. I was feeling fine. Then I woke up about an hour later needing to go to the bathroom (I drank about 60 ounces of water at the hospital). I couldn't move. It took me two minutes to get out of bed and it was the most excruciating pain ever. I had to do this four times in the night until I finally moved into the family room and onto the couch. I didn't get much sleep after that but it didn't hurt as bad to get up off the couch. I am still in lots of pain but not if I don't move. Thankfully it's a half-day for Glen so I will probably end my work day when he gets home and do my best to fall asleep sitting on the couch. I'm exhausted. After a sleepless night with George and then a sleepless night last night I just need a few hours of rest. Anyway, hopefully you made it through all of that!