Wednesday, September 17, 2014
I guess I should really start on the 16th, because that’s where things went a bit haywire. I had spent the last couple days feeling kind of meh, but it wasn’t unusual. Some days had been better than others, but I assumed that I had hit a slump. That Tuesday, the 16th, I just wasn’t feeling well. There was a heaviness in my pelvis and I felt bloated and gross and just generally meh. But i was pushing thru.. and there i sat at work… miserable. I must’ve gone to the bathroom 800 times to try to relieve the bloating. Finally I decided to email my doctor. in addition to the bloating i was now starting to get cramps in my stomach and it was getting annoying. Google said it was just my uterus expanding (yes, Google itself told me that… if you don’t believe me then write your own version of this story). I bought that. so I got up and changed positions… closed the door and lay on the floor in my office… anything to make this annoying pain stop. In my email to my doctor I specifically assured her that I was not feeling my uterus tightening (a symptom of pre-term labor) because Google also told me how to check for that and I was all clear on that end.
I finally couldn’t take the discomfort… took an early ferry home… took care of a sick cat, made dinner, and laid down on the sofa until BJ came home from work. The cramping in my stomach wasn’t letting up… i stood… i sat… i laid on the floor some more with the sick cat… nothing was helping. I kept trying to go to that bathroom to do something… anything… but nothing was going on. We went to bed and i told BJ i wanted to sleep on his side (closer to the door because i kept having to get up to go pee because I kept drinking water…
Around 5am on September 17th I had my brightest idea ever.. i would eat an apple… because apples move your bowels and since clearly i needed to poop (my latest Google-assisted diagnosis). So i ate an apple and went back to sleep POSITIVE that I would wake back up cured. 6:30… POOP!!! but no relief… i laid back down and decided that i couldn’t go to work in so much pain. Tried to sleep some more and then, for some reason… I decided to make an emergency appointment. It wasn’t because I thought i was having a baby… it was because I just wanted to pain to stop.. could i take a tylenol? could i take something stronger… i just wanted my cramps to stop for a little bit.
Luckily there was a 10:30am appointment with a doctor that I had never heard of… so? I was gonna get tylenol clearance!! I laid back down for a bit, got up, showered, got dressed, told the cat i’d be right back. Threw my ID, health insurance card and one debit card in my pocket, and headed to my appointment. By this time the cramps (yes i still thought it was cramps, sue me) were getting worse. I took the route that required the least amount of time on the highway because it just didn’t feel safe… i arrived at the appointment, parked a block away (because i wasn’t paying for parking in a damn lot) and walked my crampy self to my appointment… I signed in.. agreed to a flu shot and sat and waited in the waiting room… the pain came and went… i took slow deep breaths and quietly suffered thru it…
My turn came… i gave a urine sample and sat and waited to talk to the doctor. She asked some questions… i said my cramps came and went… started in my belly, moved around to my back… then it would subside.. and that i had been going to the bathroom a lot… a lightbulb went off… bladder infection!! Yes, that was probably it! Lets get another urine sample! cool… that makes soooo much sense… But first… since you’re here… let’s do a quick exam of your cervix… *shrugs* sure why not… what woman doesn’t like a good pelvic exam?!
The doctor performing the exam came up looking like a ghost (that’s an ungood thing). She said she needed a second opinion and could i just lay there while she went to get another doctor… *sigh* fine.. sure… whatever…
10 – 15 mins later the next doctor came in… first speculum wouldn’t stay open and pinched my skin… second one was cold as hell, but it worked… She quickly removed it, did an exam with her hand… took some sort of sample and told me very bluntly “we’re going to admit you to the hospital”… uh what? Apparently my cervix had dialated a couple centimeters (you know… from all the CONTRACTIONS i had been having) and my amniotic sac (“water”) was pushing thru the opening… *looks at the camera* Oh…
So genius me is like cool… i parked a block that way… i’m gonna move my car (because i wasn’t paying for a damn parking ticket) and then i’ll go in. She gently touched my arm in a way that clearly said
So i called bj, told him i was being admitted and walked a half block the other way to the hospital. They checked me in in RECORD time and immediately put me in a bed and elevated my feet above my head… Shit got real, real quick… i was in pre-term labor, and they were going to do everything they could to keep the baby in. BJ showed up and they hooked me up to like a million IVs.. What do i do if i need to go to the bathroom? Oh… use the bedpan… ugh… so unpleasant.
sometime around 5pm or so i felt a gush of water… fuck.. my water broke… up until then the idea was that as long as the water was in tact, the baby was in a safe environment and maybe we could keep him there for a couple days… because i was going to be there for a couple of days… BJ, call my job… tell em i’m out the rest of the week… cool ok… chill for a couple days… keep the baby in… but then… water everywhere… ok so… let’s keep the baby in 24 more hours.. that way more steroids for his lungs… The doctor from the NICU came in and delivered so much bad news about babies delivered at 24 weeks i wanted to simultaneously cry, scream, pull his eyebrows off his face, and beg him to say at least ONE positive thing… but instead i took it all in… thanked him… assured him i didn’t have any questions… and tried to forget everything he said. I don’t even know where the packet of info he gave us is… I told myself that I was NOT having this baby today or this week so that shit he was talking didn’t matter…
a little bit of time goes by and now i’m on drugs to take the edge off the contractions.. The best nurse in the world, Carly, told me that if i felt any pressure along with the contractions to just let her know… *shrugs* whatever… I’m on drugggggsssss (disclaimer – they weren’t really that good). Shortly after she left the room i went to shift my position to get comfy… water shot out (TMI) and then.. pressure… i pressed the emergency button and tried to calmly explain what had happened. She was back in that room in 3 seconds and about 7 seconds later the doctor, and the team from the NICU descended on the room (the shit was kinda cool except for it was the worst possible thing ever). I was specifically instructed to only listen to Carly, BJ and the doctor. The doctor told me that the next time i felt pressure not to bear down yet (they were still getting into place).. the pressure came… i told them as calmly as i could what was happening… i was tense… Carly told me to relax my face… my sarcastic side wanted to say RELAX YOUR FACE…. but it just wouldn’t come out… I relaxed let it past and then the next wave of pain came… i told them again… someone grabbed my leg and they told me to bear down… It didn’t feel good… at all.. I think i expressed something to that extent… BJ was on it… he was the only voice i heard… you can do this… i know you can do this… do you think you can do it… yes… i know i can do it… good… good… it was time to bear down again… The baby’s head is out… his body is out… you did it!!! huh? did what?? I just fucking had a god damned baby!?!??! Someone said ‘the time is 21:05’. That… relax your face.. and you can do this sum up that entire experience for me. There was no time for an epidural.. there was no tough decisions that needed to be made in the heat of the moment… only a beautiful, but terribly premature baby boy that was on his way to the NICU. I sent BJ off with him and just laid back to try to take it all in… and pass a placenta and all this other gross stuff… The Dictator had arrived and was still making all the rules…
A true Parran/Douglas baby if i ever met one…
Gangsta Mittens 
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