Labor and Delivery: The Dress Rehearsal

To start – yes, the baby is still fine and still in utero. But I did spend the day at the hospital. Here’s what happened.

Since I tend to be a bit toward hypochondria, I’ve been pretty proud of how many of the randomly occuring aches, pains and just plain weird feelings that I’ve shrugged off in nearly nine months of pregnancy so far. Yes, I’ve had my share of calls to the doctor, but nothing I’d call excessive (would the nurses there agree? I’ll never know). But this morning, I found myself experiencing some jarring, semi-intense pains that I just couldn’t ignore.

I tried to, at first, figuring maybe it was just intestinal or something off in the baby’s positioning. For awhile, I just waited and tried to get on with my work. When it didn’t improve, I went to the bathroom, in case that might help. It didn’t. Then I did some standing and stretching that probably looked pretty odd to anyone passing by my cube. It didn’t help, either.

I didn’t necessarily think the pain was labor related, because although I’ve been having regular Braxton-Hicks contractions for weeks, the pains were mainly concentrated in one place – on my right side, around the middle/top of the giant bump that now encompasses my giant uterus and a big mashup of the rest of my major organs.

That’s what made me nervous. Because I was also feeling mildly nauseous – I had the morning before, too – I started thinking, as any good hypochondriac would, about appendicitis. I knew the appendix wouldn’t be in its normal place – it’s higher up than usual these days – and I started getting a bit anxious.

My next step might have been ill-advised, but I’m a researcher at heart, and Google was right there at my disposal. I looked up appendicitis during pregnancy and confirmed my fears that it could indeed be a very serious issue that leads to serious, even fatal problems, in mothers and babies if not treated promptly.

So I figured OK, I’ll just call the doctor’s office and see if they think there’s any reason for concern. By then, it was about 9:30 and I’d had the pain since a little after 9. But when I called, the person who answered informed me that the doctor wouldn’t be in until 1 and they’d leave a message. I was dumbfounded, especially since that was the second time this has happened. The first time,  I thought it was just because I was calling around the Memorial Day holiday, but seriously, was this regular practice? Telling a patient who’s 37-weeks-plus pregnant complaining of sharp abdominal pains that the doctor won’t be in for more than 3 hours and that’s that??

I hung up in tears (damn those hormones!). At that point, I can’t say I was convinced I had appendicitis, but I was worried enough (and in enough pain) that I didn’t want to wait 3 more hours to find out. I texted Shelly and asked her to call me when she could, thinking she might have some advice. When I didn’t hear back, I got more upset and tried to think if I knew any other doctors I could call. Finding none (mental note: make more doctor friends), I called Andy instead. He tried to settle me down and suggested I call back the doctor’s office and ask if there was anyone at all who could help there.

So after taking a few short laps around the office in case walking might help, I called back. Apparently one of the doctors had just come in, and she told the nurse to tell me to head over to the hospital and get to Labor & Delivery to be checked out. I was shocked. I had thought the doctor would ask me more about my specific symptoms and we’d go from there, but I guess not! I called Andy, and we were off.

So here’s the thing – by the time I was in the car heading home, the pains had pretty much abated. I don’t know if it was that last bout of walking around that did it or what, but they seemed to be gone. Still, they’d told me to head in, so we met at home, threw my hospital bag in the car and made it up to the second floor a little after 10:30. I kept telling Andy that I felt silly, that they would think I was just one of those hypochondriac first-time moms, but he assured me that I’d done the right thing. The pains had been real, they hadn’t been like anything I’d felt before, and they’d lasted well longer than a few minutes.

It turned out to be a long day – we didn’t get out until around 5 – but it did have some payoff. First, there was the whole experience of being in the hospital and seeing how it all will likely go when I do go in for “real” labor. Second, they had me on the monitor all day, and I (and my doctor) was able to see that I am indeed having pretty regular, and not insignificant in strength, contractions (though apparently they are completely unproductive, as my cervix hasn’t thinned a bit, which is the main different between real labor and Braxton-Hicks). Still, good practice for the old uterus, right? That’s what the doctor says, anyway.

Third, we did find out a real potential issue that my doctor wants to monitor more closely. Apparently, one of my unfounded recurring fears – that my amniotic fluid was leaking or low – was valid after all. The levels they saw in the ultrasound were, in their words, low or on the low side of normal. Since the baby seems to be doing just fine (heartbeat strong and bopping around in there like a champ), they just want to monitor me more closely. So now I’ll be doing two doctor visists a week, with monitoring, and one ultrasound a week. It starts with my regularly scheduled visit tomorrow morning.

What does it all mean? It could mean nothing, and I could keep on trucking right through to D-day on July 4, or beyond. Or, as the doctor said, it could mean this might not be a 39- or 40-week pregnancy, and I’ll have the baby this weekend, or next week. He said he’d prefer not to induce, but if the fluid levels get lower or it seems to be adversely affecting the baby, then they’ll go ahead.

I hope they don’t have to – I’d rather things progress in their own time – but I’m certainly in favor of doing whatever they need to do to get little Lexy to us in perfect health. We’ll see what happens …

Meanwhile, a few notes on our hospital experience:

• I’m proud to report that even though I didn’t have a scrap to eat from my bagel at 8:30 until we got home around 5:15, I did not turn into my evil, bitchy, hungry alter ego. Three cups of apple juice goes a longer way toward abating hunger than I would have thought. Still, it really made me think that a light snack before heading into the hospital for the real thing might not be such a bad idea, for everyone’s sake.
• I’d really, really like to have a private room for my labor and delivery. I actually think you usually do there, but in this case they had put me in this “early labor” room, and three different other women came through there during the day. It’s just not really a time when you want to have to whisper to your husband and worry about disturbing someone.
• I’m really glad that (as of now) I’m not having a schedule C-section. A gal came through my room who was supposed to have one tomorrow but went into labor today. For whatever reason, they put her in my room instead of a regular room, and she had to sit through real contractions for a few hours in a room with complete strangers, separated only by a curtain. I don’t know if she didn’t want drugs or couldn’t have any or what, but it sounded like they were pretty bad, even though she did an impressive job of never raising her voice. You could still tell, though, with all the ragged breathing and the “oh, Madre,” comment when she was on the phone with a relative. I think what happened is that the surgery was delayed because her doctor was busy with 2 other C-sections, so they didn’t realize at first how long it would be. And then, when the anethesiologist finally came in to give her the spinal, he first launched into this long explanation of the procedure (actually stopping once to answer his cell phone, a call that did not sound work related from our end), and you could tell she was just thinking, “Get on with it!” We were (thankfully, not literally) feeling her pain.
• Getting an ultrasound at 37 and a half weeks isn’t as fun as the big 20-week event. By now, the baby is so big that anything you can get on screen – a head, a stomach, a leg  takes up the whole screen and just looks like this big, indeterminate mass. We did see the femur (it’s 7 centimeters long – yikes!), an eye (open – freaky), the spine and of course, the fluttering heartbeat that really looks, to me, like a bird. According to the ultrasound tech, the baby has a big tummy compared to her head and leg size. Just like mom!

So that’s the update for now! We’ll see what happens at tomorrow’s appointment, but I’m not expecting anything big. Still, you never know …

The Big Picture

No, I don’t actually have a photo to post of our latest awesome ultrasound – we need to scan it and get it digital, but that would mean actually hooking up the scanner, so we’ll see. But we do have a video and photos, and our little one definitely looks like a real baby now! Of course he/she would, but it’s still so hard to imagine that little life growing inside me, heartbeat and all. I can’t wait until I can feel the baby move – now that will be unreal.

We did get to see some cool stuff, though – but no guess on the sex. That’s fine. I can enjoy the anticipation for another 6 weeks or so. We saw the face, nose, mouth, legs, hands and arms (which did a little moving) and a little nubbin of something that will eventually tell us whether we’re having a boy or girl. The baby bounced around a little, too, which was fun to watch.

The good news is that based on the measurements the tech took from the ultrasound, everything looked to be within normal range. We still have to wait on the results from the blood test, which I expect we’ll get Monday or Tuesday at the latest. Then there’s another screening that checks for some more problems during our next visit … it never stops, does it?

Tonight we’re having dinner with one of my old college roommates and her husband. She’s pregnant with her second and about 8 weeks ahead of me, so it will be fun to compare notes and figure out more of what’s ahead. They found out recently that they’re having another boy, and they’re excited. As for me, while I do admit that at first I was really leaning toward wanting a boy for our first, I’m back to really not caring either way. There are so many advantages and fun things about both. Boys could potentially be less drama, but I feel like I could have more in common with a girl and be able to have a closer relationship. But as Andy says, it’s really more about the personality than the gender, and I probably shouldn’t make such big generalizations.

Some of my family members are already talking about planning a shower, though it wouldn’t be until the third trimester. Jewish people (which we are) traditionally don’t have showers, but times are a’changin’ and if someone wants to throw me on, I’m all for it! Andy’s mom will probably do one for his family and then my sister, Shelly and Laurie will do one for my friends. Fun!