Wednesday, May 29, 2013

A Second Pair of Hands

UPS drops off a huge box. I stare at it realizing I can't move it in on my own.

"Need help?"

"No, it's ok, I've got somebody inside."

UPS man stares at me for a moment, looks at my stomach, looks back at me and stands there puzzled before shrugging and walking off.

It's as if he was waiting for hands to burst forth from my vagina and grab the box. What a story that would have been. 

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Of Cooking and Clots

It's been quiet since we got home. No more bleeding, no feeling like the strange life form in m belly is trying to split my ribs apart, just your standard pregnancy pains. There's still the nasty business of passing all the clot, but that's nothing compared to how it feels when your placenta tears itself away from your uterine wall. That's good, because I have no desire to go through all that again.

Clot passing feel like mild menstrual cramps. I'm sure the thought makes all the men reading grimace, but get over it fellas. Women have periods and they involve cramping. Clots can come out in big ole hunks or little bits, it depends on how they're feeling. The difference is obvious though, so seeing it happen is no cause for concern.

The worst part of the recovery is being limited in what I can do. I'm a decently active person (or I was before pregnancy made me feel like all energy had been sucked from my body by some celestial vampire reaching down from the stars to steal whatever life I have for its own use.

I rode my bike until 7.5 months, only stopping because my husband was hit head on by a cab while riding his bike. After that I walked the mile from the train station to work and back. Slow, sure, but exercise is a good thing. Now most of my days are spent feet up on the couch. I realize rest is the best thing for my body right now, but man can it be boring. To keep busy I've been trying to catch up on all those little things I couldn't do while working; paperwork, filing, finishing the artwork for babby's room and even...cooking.

Cooking. That thing I don't do because who has the time for it when they work full time and commute? Or at least, that's what I tell myself. In large part that IS the reason but in the back of my head, I have all these voices telling me that a modern, independent woman shouldn't learn these basic domestic skills because that's falling into the old framework of what it means to be a woman. Nevermind that we all have to eat, and that cooking is a good skill to have regardless; I have to constantly battle with the idea that engaging in such skills is a sign of domesticity and failure, not a desire to eat tasty food. Or even a desire to save some dough. Eating out is easy, but it's pretty damn costly as well. Maybe this whole eating in thing is worth a look, eh? Maybe cooking is far less stressful when you actually have time to do it.

As it turns out, I am find it to be an enjoyable endeavor, at least so far. Without the stress of having to cram in a meal and everything else I might need to get done in the short time between 7:30 and 9, I can be far more relaxed about the idea of taking time to make food. I can even make food I WANT to eat, rather than settling for whatever is in the freezer and takes less than 10 minutes. Who knew such things were even possible?

I'm sure the novelty will eventually wear off, and all I'll want is to have someone cook for me, but in the meantime, I'm going to try and enjoy this.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

How I Nearly Had an Emergency C-Section When All I Wanted Was Tea pt 4

Sunday morning. We're exhausted. My poor husband has been with me all weekend, sleeping on a  pull out bed in the room, while nurses flow in and out, checking my contractions, my meds, the baby's heartbeat and anything else they need to. They've given him pillows and blankets to help him be comfortable, but it's a hospital. Sleep is difficult, to say the least.

Sleeping in a hospital room is a lot like sleeping in a hotel, only your bedroom door is constantly being opened so you can be poked and prodded to make sure you're alright. It's loud, it's busy and it's generally not restful. The idea of a full night's sleep in our own bed sounds glorious. The question is, when is that happening? I have my mind set on tonight, but I realize a lot of that is up to how everything is looking.

Admittedly, this is an interesting turn of events. Just the other night I was looking at a C-Section and now, here we are, looking to head home. I'm not bleeding anymore, and haven't been since really early Saturday morning. My contractions, while on going, have settled into more Braxton Hicks type pattern, a huge change from the labor contractions I was having Friday night. I don't even feel them anymore. Haven't for over a day.

This whole deal wasn't supposed to happen. I have no risk factors for placental separation. The attending Doc says these sorts of things are a 1 in 200 chance. They do just happen, but, when they do, they generally only happen once. I still have a clot floating around, and I will need to be very careful, but odds are good the rest of the pregnancy will be uneventful and go full term. I'm cleared to go, and will probably be discharged by 5pm.  WHOO! Modified bed rest is in my future. I can't work, but I can at least get up to use the restroom, get myself some food, and light activity. I can't sit down normally for a bit, lest the pressure on my cervix cause problems. I have to recline. Can't ride in a car too long, but I can make it back and forth to my appointments. In a few day slight walking, around the block, will be fine. Just don't do too much. They don't know what caused the tear in the first place and no one wants to see it happen again.

So that was it, that was my weekend. A simple trip for tea turned into a near C-Section and a weekend stay in the county hospital. The lesson here, kids, is weird things can happen. You need to be ready to act when they do.

I want to say thanks to all the nurses and doctors who helped me through the weekend. I seriously had a great nursing crew. They were patient, answered all my questions and were a pleasure to be around. They were everything I always heard nurses could be and they were great at it to boot. Everyone who was on shift came out to say goodbye when I left. I need to send them all flowers or something, seriously.

I did get my tea too, by the way. A nice tall jasmine lime arrived once I was able to eat real food and drink things again.

How I Nearly Had an Emergency C-Section When All I Wanted Was Tea pt 3

Who puts a damn clock on the wall right across from a hospital bed? That's what I want to know. What savage, deranged mind puts a huge fucking clock on the one wall you HAVE to stare at? In a labor and delivery ward no less. Probably the same jackass that decided it was a good idea to tell a pregnant woman she can't get up to use the restroom.

The long night continues.

Magnesium sulfide is a helluva a drug. You flush intensely warm, like you're on fire, you get a headache, the room swirls a bit and your eyes track slowly as you try to move them. It makes you tired but sleep is hard. It's more like a fevered dream than sleep and it is dreadfully short. Spurts of sleep and wakefulness punctuated by a mouth and lips so dry you'd think you'd kissed the Sahara. But it does its job well, if not achingly slow. It's a muscle relaxant, and a heavy duty one at that. Over the next 24 hours I get to know it well. Too well, in fact. While it surely, but slowly, is stopping my contractions, it's also building up in my system. Other side effects include double vision and barfing. I discover this my second night. I have to close one eye to focus on anything. I spent the whole day doing nothing because I couldn't read, or draw or even watch TV due to seeing double. It's like being drunk but far less pleasant.

Now things are spinning and I feel my lovely ice chip breakfast lunch and dinner coming back to haunt me. Ice chips, how dare you forsake me?! We were so good together! Come back! Wait, no, on second thought, don't. That'd be gross. Just stay down or...nope. Ok. Burn less on the way up next time. How rude.

Maybe we should cut back on the mag, the nurse suggests. You seem petite to me.

All the blank stares in the world could not summarize my feelings upon hearing this. It was hilarious and mind bendingly ridiculous all at once. I'm not even 130 pounds pregnant and I seem "a little petite." I thought about laughing, but wasn't really in a spot to do so. Who wants to barf again? Not I.
 
Since my contractions are on going although far more spaced out, there's some debate about cutting the dose in half. In the end, the nurse wins because I look and feel terrible, and things have calmed down considerably since the night before. Baby is still doing just fine, and it's looking less and less like I will be having surgery and more and more like baby is staying in place for the next 7 weeks. I get my second steroid shot, just in case, but at this point, if the cutting back on the drugs doesn't cause any major issues, we're ingood shape. The hubs and I are hopeful. He sits with me and waits for the side effects of the drugs to calm as my dosage is lowered. Perhaps we can actually go home tomorrow. That would be fantastic.


How I Nearly Had an Emergency C-Section When All I Wanted Was Tea pt 2


I look at the pee cup they handed me. It's red. This is just damn embarrassing. Here I am, trying to give a urine sample and instead I have a blood sample with some urine mixed in. Hell, I bled all over the damn floor and am frantically trying to clean it up. I'm in a hospital, for god sakes, how unhygienic can I possibly be?! It strike mes that being upset that I bleed all over a hospital floor is ridiculous, but I'm not trying to leave a bio mess here.

I wander back out, undress as directed and sheepishly hand the cup to the nurse on hand. "Sorry, " I said, "I tried but this was all I could get."  She stops and stares at the cup. Her eyes widen. "Oh!" I've also kept the pad I had been using. I show it to her. She looks worried. Is that the only pad I soaked? Yeah, although I have a pair of pants and underwear back home that aren't looking to good. How long has this been going on? Man I don't know, 20-30 minutes? Longer with check in...45? Yes, I have cramps and pain, I feel like I need to push. No, scratch that, I feel like I need to push NOW.

They instantly check to see if I am dilated. No, thankfully, but it's hard to tell because there's too much blood in the way. Too much blood in the way? What a lovely thing to hear. My poor husband sits in the corner clutching the heap of towels we brought, looking worried. I keep telling him it's OK. Because it is. It will be fine.

The IV in my arm hurts. I look over and see that my arm is suddenly a big swollen mass of sub cutaneous fluid. Whoops! Looks like someone punched through my vein. I find this thoroughly interesting. The nurses think I am nuts. They get a new, working, line into my left arm while the docs check for a bunch of other things in my nether regions. I gingerly poke at the sub cutaneous pocket of saline now in my right arm and make flexing motions. Hey, might as well run with the absurdity, right? Joking is also a great way to releave stress. I think my husband thinks I'm nuts, but he goes with it anyway. Suddenly we have a diagnosis.

My placenta has detached. They aren't sure how much.

More ultrasounds of various types are run. They can't see a tear, so it must be a small one. Tiny even. That's good, but they have to get my contractions under control or baby will need to come out. I don't think baby's head was designed to bust through a closed cervix.

I am wheeled down the hall to my room where more nurses converge and start pumping me full of more drugs. Saline and dextrose, of course, to stay hydrated. Magnesium sulfate to stop the contractions, and then penicillin. Penicillin? If they have to cut the kid out, they need to reduce the chance of infection and oh, by the way, we're probably taking this kid out.

Wait what? You're what?

I get a steroid shot in my thigh. It's to help stabilize baby's young lungs. At 32 weeks he's too young to breathe well on his own and will need help when he's out. When he's out? What the fuck do you mean when he's out? He's not coming out. Suddenly, I'm signing C-section consent forms and meeting the NICU team. Ok, this shit is really happening. By the way, did we mention all the things that can go wrong when baby comes out this early?

I understand that they have to tell me all this. I'm not worried about baby's care though. This is a level 3 center, they can handle anything. Babies born at 32 weeks have made it just fine. But I don't want him coming out just yet. In fact, I am dead set against it. I tell my body to stop fucking contracting already. We really don't need to have a kid right now. Obviously, if a C-Section is what's best for him, OK, but, guys, trust me, that's so not how this is going down. I simply won't allow my body to continue being so silly.

My husband has stepped out into the hall to make phone calls. Those late night ones no one wants to make. He comes back in. I inform him that worst case, I'm getting a sexy sexy C-scar. He stares. If they can stop the contractions, I say, it will be fine, but if they can't, they're taking baby out. This weekend. Maybe even tonight.

It would be a traditional C-Section, I am told. Great. I don't even get the benefit of the little smiley face scar. I get the "rip my abdomen open up and down" scar. Well, on the inside, my doctor says. On the outside it would be a smaller scar. Oh good, I'm sure that will hurt much less. At least I'll have a good story. I'm sure I work in a bear fight to explain the scar. Think this is bad, you should see the bear...

I have 48 hours.

It takes the steroids 48 hours to provide baby the benefits his little lungs need to survive outside the womb. If they can't stabilize me by that point, baby's birth date will be pushed up considerably. Thankfully, despite all this craziness, he's shown no signs of distress. His little heart is happily beating away like normal as he continues to roll all around in my uterus. He has no idea what's going on. At this point, I am convinced you could drive a truck into my abdomen and he wouldn't notice. He's quite content to stay inside and do his thing. Thank god for that.

The nurse staying in the room with me directs me to try and sleep. My husband too. I've never been in a hospital before and after all that fuss, how the hell are we supposed to sleep?



How I Nearly Had an Emergency C-Section When All I Wanted Was Tea pt 1

It was certainly not how I had planned to spend my Friday evening. Laying in a triage bed while nurses and a doctor worked to try and figure out exactly why it was that an otherwise healthy 32 year old with a perfectly normal pregnancy was bleeding like she was on her period wasn't ever high on my list of Friday night to dos.

I had been relaxing on my couch, watching old episodes of ST:TNG, when the restless part of me suggested a "late night" tea run. Peet's in Santana Row was open until 11 and I wanted to do SOMETHING. I stood up to hit the restroom before we left. At 8 months pregnant, that's normal. My life is the restroom. I felt something odd though. A rush. Something I hadn't felt for months. I assumed it was nothing. Yes, I had been having some very significant cramping and discomfort in my right side, for the past 20-30 minutes, maybe more, but I'm carrying a kiddo that never stops moving. You get used to discomfort. I remember mentioning it to my husband and explicitly stating that it did NOT feel like pre-term labor. Famous last words.

I got to the restroom suspecting nothing and looked down.

"Oh shit." I said, "That's a lot of blood."

And it was. I stared for just a moment, allowing my mind to take in that something had gone very wrong and then reacted. Get cleaned up, get a pad, get to the doctor. Panic is for suckers, we need to move.

There are few things people wish to hear less on an otherwise calm Friday night than, "Call 911. I'm bleeding and there's a lot of blood," but that's exactly what my husband heard when I poked my head around the corner. He stopped and stared. I'm pretty sure all color left his face, but I can't say I was paying much attention. I just wanted him to get the phone. He said OK, then stopped and pointed out that all calling would do was summon and ambulance, and we have a ER RIGHT HERE, so let's just go.  Sound plan. Does it take our insurance? He looked at me like I was nuts. Sure, I'm bleeding, and stuff going wrong and my first thought is "will we be covered?" Welcome to modern American health care.

We grabbed a few things, a jacket, my bag and him, not sure how much or how quickly I was bleeding, a lot of towels and headed out. The ER is literally a 5 minute drive away, but with all the construction going on, it took us a good 15-20 minutes just to figure out where the hell to go. My husband was panicking. I tried to keep him calm, even as I realized I was having real contractions in the car. I make a lot of jokes about pooping out a kid, but let me tell you, that's how a contraction feels. Like you have to take the biggest most urgent shit you've ever had in your life and you need to do it NOW. I knew better than to push, but man, what a feeling. After flagging down an ambulance driver and finally locating some small parking lot with a big red emergency sign, we made our way into the ER. "Let me do the talking, " I said. It was a busy night in the ER. People were everywhere in various states of boredom and distress. Some guy wandered by holding his side looking like an alien might pop out of it. I felt bad, knowing I was going to skip to the head of the line in front of him, but that's how it works. We walked to the registration desk. The woman looked at my belly and said "How many months?"

"Eight."

"And why are you here?"

"I'm bleeding. A lot."

"Can you walk? Follow me."

Sorry alien side guy, but I don't think they handle appendix issues where I am going.

We were lead to Labor & Delivery and left to check in. Here the hilarity began.  No I hadn't been here before, no not under any name and no, really I am not in your files. The two ladies at check in wrestled with a brand new computer system, arguing about how to use it and generally driving my poor husband nuts as they dithered about, rather than getting me to a doctor. It took a good 20 minutes to finally get checked in. We were both annoyed, but I played it off because, well look, nothing is changing and we just have to roll with the circumstances we have. I need him calm too. Someone needs to make sure he's alright. I have doctors that will fix my problems but he's all alone.

Finally, I am led to a triage room. Bleeding? Ok. Hey go give us a urine sample and all that OK? We'll see what's going on.

Well, ok, but I don't think this is going to go how you guys expect it to.