Married to the Empire

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Pain and Pregnancy

We spent a fun night in the ER on Sunday.  (And yes, that's sarcasm.)

I woke up around 5am Sunday with pain in my abdomen.  It wasn't too bad, but it was bothersome.  However, the pain became progressively worse as the day went on.  Being pregnant adds a whole new level of fear whenever there is pain, and by that evening, I was crying because I hurt and was running a low-grade fever.  I was trying to decide what to do, as I didn't want to run to the ER if it was nothing, but I didn't want things to get worse if it was something. 

I did what any normal person would do in this situation: I called my mommy. 

My mom said I should get it checked out.  Better safe than sorry.  If it's nothing, no big deal.  If it's something, they can take care of it.  So off we went to the ER at 10pm.  (We were actually going to simply do Urgent Care, but all the places our insurance approves were closed.) 

After a long wait, a room opened up and they sent me back.  They determined pretty quickly that it wasn't my appendix, nor was it baby-related.  (Thank you, God!)  They were thinking it may be my gallbladder, so they took a jillion vials of blood, then hooked me up with an IV.  (That gave me a whole new appreciation for what the cat used to go through, as that IV was cold.)  Then we waited.  And waited.  And waited

The doctor finally came in and told me that nothing showed up as being wrong.  My platelets are low, which I was expecting, as it's a long-standing problem of mine and all the physical signs were there that they were low again.  But they're not dangerously low.  He's still not ruling out the gallbladder, so I'm choosing to eat a bit more blandly for the time being.  I believe I was a bit dehydrated, as I felt better after an entire bag of IV fluids, and I was sent home with a note that had "Drink Plenty of Fluids" circled. 

So, it was $50 worth of nothing, which is good, of course.  I just felt terrible about dragging Steven out for nothing because he had an 8am CPR/First Aid class in Dallas in the morning.  And we didn't get to bed until 3:30am.  He survived, of course, but I still felt bad about it. 

The one cool thing to come of this is that Steven got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time.  Seeing his face during that was priceless.  He sort of killed the moment, though, when he said it sounds like I'm giving birth to an alien. 

6 comments:

Catherine said...

I'm so glad everything was okay in the end! I would have been extra nervous, too.

*carrie* said...

I second what Catherine said. Hope you can get some rest and that you won't have any more pain.

r said...

The peace of mind is worth it! The alien comment cracked me up, if only because I said mine looked like the alien baby from Men In Black and got scolded by the midwife: "She does not!". I meant it in the best possible way! She was really cute. :D So was the MIB baby.

Molly said...

Glad everything was ok! I laughed at the alien comment, too. AJ and I both thought that the first four ultrasound pictures looked like aliens. No one else thought it was funny, but our baby looked like the Alien/ Predator hybrid. It is a fun way to keep things in perspective.

Jen said...

Glad everything was ok! The alien comment had me smiling too. They do look silly and sound pretty strange too.

Anonymous said...

Sorry you had the pain. It is not easy to be pregnant. Our bodies go through so much. I had gallbladder problems too. Only my problem did not start till about a week after I gave birth. I thought I was in LABOR and that a baby was going to come..it was really scary..turns out it was the gallbladder and a few weeks later I had it removed. I had 2 major surgeries in less than 6 weeks. A c-section to give birth and then a gallbladder surgery.
I sure wish you were having a pregnancy that was a little better. Take care of your self and always get a pain checked out.
Roxie in Texas