I have a somewhat shameful confession.
I was never all that understanding of pregnant women coming in to the ER for abdominal pain. My response always used to be, "What do they expect us to do this early? They're pregnant! They need to suck it up!"
I definitely learned my lesson today.
My shift started out like any other; lately I've been having low back pain on the left side that was really bugging me, but I put it to baby-growing and stuck to tylenol. But today, the pain got progressively worse, and then it started to radiate around to my belly, where it would cramp up. I've been having the regular old cramps since I got pregnant, but today was different. And truth be told, it freaked me out.
Now, I have to admit I wrestled with saying anything for a good two hours while I was at work. But the doctors and nurses there know me way too well, and they know that you can tell a lot about what's up with me just by looking at my face. So after three nurses and at least one doctor asked if I was okay, I figured maybe I should speak up.
Well, that led to me being promptly checked in to see one of the docs. All of a sudden, I was one of those expecting women that's doing exactly what drove me nuts!
It was at that point that I realized that the little spark inside of me mattered a lot more than what anyone thought of me at work. I didn't care if the cramps ripped me in half and left me puking like the kid from the Exorcist; I wanted to know if my baby was okay. It was all I cared about. So I was poked and prodded and peed in a cup, and had an ultrasound, and thank goodness, everything was perfect. Everyone at work babied me (I'm spoiled rotten there) and the doctor gently told me to get the hell out when I asked if I could finish my shift.
I'm really thankful for the people I work with. They're like a family away from my family most days; they all genuinely care and are as excited about this baby as probably anyone in my family. It's nice, and I definitely learned a good lesson not to judge why anyone would come rushing in. Maybe it was a lesson I needed to learn.
Funny story of the day: Girl came in and even after two urine tests, a blood test, and an ultrasound solemnly swore to us that she'd never had sex, even though there was a fetus in her womb. Ariele and I were talking about this "phenomena" when I said, "Well, she could be right. I mean, I've only heard of one other case like that. Granted, it was pretty famous. They even wrote a book about it."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Amy and I were wondering what the dr.s said was the actual cause, we thought it a bit early for braxton hicks. Take it easy, you only get pampered this short time in your life. Then before you know it, it's the baby this and the baby that, can i hold it, can i feed it, never once will anyone really look at YOU again. Never mind that you just grew the kid they wont stop talking about.
They said it wasn't anything to do with the baby, which made sense since the next day I was sick with basic stomach-flu-ish stuff. I think the back pain just blended with the abdominal pain and I thought too much, as I often do, and it resulted in a complete freakout. Also, Braxton-Hicks can start as early as three to four months for some women and be entirely intermittent or fade completely, only to return in the third trimester.
Post a Comment