The night before my shower, Nick, Colleen (mother-in-law), and I were headed out to dinner with Nick's cousin and boyfriend. It had been a LONG day at work and I had been having what I thought were braxton hicks contractions all day, so we were going to just do a quick meal and then head home. Literally right before we walk out the door I stop to go pee, and realize that I'm spotting ever so slightly. I immediately holler at Nick (and do the obligatory "Look!" Again, pregnancy really is throwing the mystery and romance out of this marriage...) and ask him to grab my phone so I can give Celia a call. I leave her a message letting her know what's going on, and then we decide to take off for dinner. We're still in the car when Celia calls back, and in her wonderful, calm, accent-y sort of way, she reassures me that, "Everything is fine, Eggmund is fine, you are fine, and all is well....Now call the midwife immediately and I'll be at your house in five minutes.". Cough. Sputter. Ack. I (of course) start crying, call the midwife (who tells me to go straight to labor and delivery), and then apologize profusely to my sweet MIL for ruining the evening. We drop Colleen off for dinner so she can still enjoy time with her neice, and Nick and I heads to L&R to meet up with Celia and get checked out. They hook me up to a fetal monitor as well as a contraction monitor and just watch for a while, and it turns out I was having pretty regular contractions (every 2-4 minutes). They ended up giving me a few doses of meds to stop the contractions and help me get a little more comfortable, and diagnose me with a yeast infection (which was the culprit for the spotting). After a few hours they sent us on our merry way, which involved a quick stop for a Wendy's frosty before heading home.
Lessons I learned from this experience:
1. Listen to Celia when she tells you to go in and get checked out with the midwives when you mention you "think you might be getting a yeast infection" but then you "think it suddenly cleared up on its own". Yeah, going in and getting it checked out during regular midwife business hours probably would have been easier. But where's the excitement in that, I ask ya?
2. That old lesson your mom taught you about always wearing good underwears cause you never know when you're going to be in a wreck? Yeah, that applies during pregnancy too. They told us to go straight to L&D without stopping by home first, which meant I was in the open backed hospital gown wearing blue panties with a rubber ducky on the front and "YOU QUACK ME UP" printed across the arse. And if you think Nick and Celia let that slide without mentioning it to everyone, you are severely out of touch with my 'labor support team'.
3. Stay hydrated at all times. Because a) dehydration definitely adds to your contractions and b) everyone on previously mentioned 'support team' somehow gains free license to look in your pee cup and pass judgment on your urine color/hydration levels once you enter the hospital.
4. There are slits in the hospital gowns at exactly boobie level. But they are only on one side (right). And while you sit there trying to figure out why there is a slit in only one side (meaning only one boob keeps popping out), your loving doula will come over to try to investigate this mystery by peering down the hole and staring at your nipples. Results: hole is for EKG leads, and Celia and I have reached a whole new level of familiarity.
5. Nick and Celia only need the time it takes me to go pee to come up with a combined set of new "rules" for me to follow (they call them "rules", I call them "edicts". Where's the democracy here, people?!?) After my potty trips, I came out to 1. no more working out 2. leaving work by 3:00 every day (which, after one more bathroom trip, somehow morphed into leaving work by 2:00 every day.) These two are not to be left alone to discuss my pregnancy. They are both stubborn, hard-headed, and unaffected by my charms of persuasion. Nielly no likey.
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