Don't freak out
That's how I started the phone call I made to AJ at work on Monday afternoon.
"Don't freak out, honey."
"What? Why?"
"I kinda have to go to the hospital."
"WHAT?"
"It's not that I want to..."
"What's going on??"
"This was not the best way to start this conversation. Let me start over."
Around 11:30 on Monday morning, I started feeling a bit of pain in the upper part of my ribs, on the left side. The pain slightly increased and spread to the left side of my back, kind of in the middle, just opposite of where I was feeling the pain in my ribs. I've read a lot about Braxton Hicks contractions, but the descriptions vary, so I wasn't sure if this was what I was experiencing. I wasn't sure if it was Braxton Hicks, too much of some kind of food (so indigestion or something to that effect), or my body telling me that I was stressing out too much (as I am wont to do).
I recalled reading that for Braxton Hicks contractions, walking around will help ease the pain. As it was roughly lunchtime, I figured it'd do me some good to walk to the nearby Subway to grab some lunch. Going before 11:45 ensures a short line, so I'd be in and out. And I was. I decided to call my mom on the walk back, with the pain not subsiding-- well, it came and went. My mom has five children, so she's practically a baby doctor. She's surely experienced everything. And had she answered the phone, I would have gotten answers and not inquired further. But she didn't answer, and her voicemail was full, so I couldn't leave a message explaining why I called.
So then I started talking to my co-worker Jackie about it, since she's a mom. But she never experienced Braxton Hicks contractions, so she couldn't tell me whether what I was feeling was that or not. She asked me if the pain was constant or if it would come and go. "It's coming and going." That seemed to concern her. "Oh, that could be real labor! Keep an eye on it and call your doctor's office before the end of the workday." Well, it'd better not be real labor. I've got three months left.
I called my mom again. No answer. No way to leave a voice message. Alrighty. Next step in my mind: I'm friends with lots of moms. Why not bring this to Facebook's attention? Because there's an idea. The responses I got ran the gamut, from me being totally fine, these pains being typical of Braxton Hicks, to having never heard of back pain being associated with these false labor contractions and being indicative of the real thing, to "everyone is different," but almost everyone insisted that I call my doctor's office. All the uncertainty in the air concerned me, compounded by the consistent plea for me to call my doctor. So I called. The office was closed for lunch. So I waited an hour, thinking it'd go away before then, but it didn't. So a bit after 1:00, I called the office again, and I was speaking to a nurse, who asked me all kinds of questions. The first few made sense, like my name, how far along I am (28 weeks, bee tee dub'), how long the pain had been going on (about an hour, hour and a half at this point), how bad was the pain (uncomfortable, not excruciating), how far apart was the pain I was experiencing (*wince* didn't time it...)... Then it got weird. Weird like, "What color is your pee? Is it clear? Is it a light shade of yellow?" "Um, it was some shade of yellow." "Did it have an odor?" Who asks that?? I had no idea to prepare for such questions. "...I didn't check." The nurse put me on hold for a few moments so that she could talk to the doctor.
Now, I thought that when I made this call, it'd be a simple and short conversation ending with, "Oh, yeah, that's totally normal. That's [whatever it was]. Have a good day, ma'am." But what I got was, "We cannot confirm that you're not experiencing contractions without having you hooked up to a machine, so we will need for you to come to the hospital. I will call the Emergency Room to let them know you're coming."
And that's when I called AJ. I let him know, "I don't think that I'm in labor, but they want to rule it out." He asked, "Do you want me to meet you there?" "Well, that'd be nice."
I updated Facebook, and I included in my status, "Mama, don't be like, 'Why'd I have to hear about this on Facebook?' because I tried calling you. Empty your voicemail! I'll try calling again on the road." I was able to get in touch with her, and it sounded like she was concerned when I mentioned the back pain. I told her I'd call her after we left the hospital.
Blah blah, registration, blah blah. We met with the nurse who was going to be checking up on my potential contractions. She asked where I was feeling the pain and for how long, so I told her about two, two and a half hours (at that point), and I grabbed my left side to indicate where the pain had been (but had mostly dissipated by then). She said, "Sounds like the gallbladder to me." I then moved my hand from the left side and pointed to my right, stating, "No, I got that taken out three years ago." Why does the nurse not know where my gallbladder should be?
Anyway, the nurse needed me to pee in a cup. Again with the pee! But I needed to pee anyway, so I told her, "Hey, you need my pee! I need to pee! We help each other out!" No smile, but I think she was laughing on the inside. I got to lie on a comfy bed, and she wrapped this belt around me that had some sort of amplifying device that allowed us to hear Nathaniel's heartbeat. It was amazing seeing the belt bounce around when he'd push at it. After a couple of minutes, the nurse read the read-out from the machine and said that I was not contracting, but she left me hooked up for another 20-30 minutes just to be on the safe side. After that, she looked it over again, concluded the same thing, called the doctor, and then we got the OK to go home. She said it was probably gas or just the pain of stuff stretching inside of me to accommodate the ever-growing child-in-the-making inside of me.
To conclude, I was not in labor. It's kind of funny because the typical me would have been freaking out about that at the first sign of pain, but I know that I'm having a healthy pregnancy and have no reason to think that I would go into labor three months before my due date. I just wanted to know if the pain I was experiencing was the Braxton Hicks stuff I had been hearing about, just so I could have an idea of what to expect over this final trimester. That was all. It was everyone else freaking out that started to get to me.
And that's my story. Did you miss me, LiveJournal?
"Don't freak out, honey."
"What? Why?"
"I kinda have to go to the hospital."
"WHAT?"
"It's not that I want to..."
"What's going on??"
"This was not the best way to start this conversation. Let me start over."
Around 11:30 on Monday morning, I started feeling a bit of pain in the upper part of my ribs, on the left side. The pain slightly increased and spread to the left side of my back, kind of in the middle, just opposite of where I was feeling the pain in my ribs. I've read a lot about Braxton Hicks contractions, but the descriptions vary, so I wasn't sure if this was what I was experiencing. I wasn't sure if it was Braxton Hicks, too much of some kind of food (so indigestion or something to that effect), or my body telling me that I was stressing out too much (as I am wont to do).
I recalled reading that for Braxton Hicks contractions, walking around will help ease the pain. As it was roughly lunchtime, I figured it'd do me some good to walk to the nearby Subway to grab some lunch. Going before 11:45 ensures a short line, so I'd be in and out. And I was. I decided to call my mom on the walk back, with the pain not subsiding-- well, it came and went. My mom has five children, so she's practically a baby doctor. She's surely experienced everything. And had she answered the phone, I would have gotten answers and not inquired further. But she didn't answer, and her voicemail was full, so I couldn't leave a message explaining why I called.
So then I started talking to my co-worker Jackie about it, since she's a mom. But she never experienced Braxton Hicks contractions, so she couldn't tell me whether what I was feeling was that or not. She asked me if the pain was constant or if it would come and go. "It's coming and going." That seemed to concern her. "Oh, that could be real labor! Keep an eye on it and call your doctor's office before the end of the workday." Well, it'd better not be real labor. I've got three months left.
I called my mom again. No answer. No way to leave a voice message. Alrighty. Next step in my mind: I'm friends with lots of moms. Why not bring this to Facebook's attention? Because there's an idea. The responses I got ran the gamut, from me being totally fine, these pains being typical of Braxton Hicks, to having never heard of back pain being associated with these false labor contractions and being indicative of the real thing, to "everyone is different," but almost everyone insisted that I call my doctor's office. All the uncertainty in the air concerned me, compounded by the consistent plea for me to call my doctor. So I called. The office was closed for lunch. So I waited an hour, thinking it'd go away before then, but it didn't. So a bit after 1:00, I called the office again, and I was speaking to a nurse, who asked me all kinds of questions. The first few made sense, like my name, how far along I am (28 weeks, bee tee dub'), how long the pain had been going on (about an hour, hour and a half at this point), how bad was the pain (uncomfortable, not excruciating), how far apart was the pain I was experiencing (*wince* didn't time it...)... Then it got weird. Weird like, "What color is your pee? Is it clear? Is it a light shade of yellow?" "Um, it was some shade of yellow." "Did it have an odor?" Who asks that?? I had no idea to prepare for such questions. "...I didn't check." The nurse put me on hold for a few moments so that she could talk to the doctor.
Now, I thought that when I made this call, it'd be a simple and short conversation ending with, "Oh, yeah, that's totally normal. That's [whatever it was]. Have a good day, ma'am." But what I got was, "We cannot confirm that you're not experiencing contractions without having you hooked up to a machine, so we will need for you to come to the hospital. I will call the Emergency Room to let them know you're coming."
And that's when I called AJ. I let him know, "I don't think that I'm in labor, but they want to rule it out." He asked, "Do you want me to meet you there?" "Well, that'd be nice."
I updated Facebook, and I included in my status, "Mama, don't be like, 'Why'd I have to hear about this on Facebook?' because I tried calling you. Empty your voicemail! I'll try calling again on the road." I was able to get in touch with her, and it sounded like she was concerned when I mentioned the back pain. I told her I'd call her after we left the hospital.
Blah blah, registration, blah blah. We met with the nurse who was going to be checking up on my potential contractions. She asked where I was feeling the pain and for how long, so I told her about two, two and a half hours (at that point), and I grabbed my left side to indicate where the pain had been (but had mostly dissipated by then). She said, "Sounds like the gallbladder to me." I then moved my hand from the left side and pointed to my right, stating, "No, I got that taken out three years ago." Why does the nurse not know where my gallbladder should be?
Anyway, the nurse needed me to pee in a cup. Again with the pee! But I needed to pee anyway, so I told her, "Hey, you need my pee! I need to pee! We help each other out!" No smile, but I think she was laughing on the inside. I got to lie on a comfy bed, and she wrapped this belt around me that had some sort of amplifying device that allowed us to hear Nathaniel's heartbeat. It was amazing seeing the belt bounce around when he'd push at it. After a couple of minutes, the nurse read the read-out from the machine and said that I was not contracting, but she left me hooked up for another 20-30 minutes just to be on the safe side. After that, she looked it over again, concluded the same thing, called the doctor, and then we got the OK to go home. She said it was probably gas or just the pain of stuff stretching inside of me to accommodate the ever-growing child-in-the-making inside of me.
To conclude, I was not in labor. It's kind of funny because the typical me would have been freaking out about that at the first sign of pain, but I know that I'm having a healthy pregnancy and have no reason to think that I would go into labor three months before my due date. I just wanted to know if the pain I was experiencing was the Braxton Hicks stuff I had been hearing about, just so I could have an idea of what to expect over this final trimester. That was all. It was everyone else freaking out that started to get to me.
And that's my story. Did you miss me, LiveJournal?