Tuesday, December 9, 2008

An Unexpected Trip To The Doctor

What a weird morning! Obviously, sleeping is difficult when you have a belly full of babies in the way. So I sleep fine until I wake up for my first bathroom run. That's usually at about 2 am. From that point on, I make a bathroom run about every hour to hour and a half. It stinks! I'm exhausted when I "wake up" and every time I get out of bed, I dread laying back down in bed because I know it's just going to be uncomfortable again.

So, usually sometime between 5-7 am, I tend to wake up, and try the living room couch (which isn't any more comfortable). Today, I woke up at about 7 am, and I felt a bit queasy. I kinda thought that it might be that I was just hungry and dehydrated. So I turned on the Today Show, and started drinking lots of cold ice water. I woke Shawn up at about 7:30 and asked him to go buy a loaf of bread, since we ran out yesterday. I told him I didn't feel too good, and he asked if I was going to call the doctor. I said, I wanted to wait and see if getting some food in my system helped any. I also had this pain underneath my right rib cage, and it wasn't contraction pain. It was a constant, dull, crampy kind of annoying pain. I had this once before, and felt our little boy move, and the pain went away immediately, so I figured it was just him again with a hand tucked under my ribs. 

Ok, so Shawn came back, and made some toast for me and I felt slightly better. The rib pain was still there, so I figured I would go to the basement and try to lay on that couch or recliner because it's slightly more comfortable. Before I went downstairs I took a swig of orange juice (bad idea) because I figured I needed some vitamin C. 

So now I'm laying on the recliner, and I'm very thankful that Shawn didn't clean up Bridget's popcorn bowl from last night, because I ended up needing it to puke in. Weird! I hardly ever puke. Immediately after that was over, I felt a ton better. The rib pain was still there. By now it's 8 am. Bridget was still asleep. I told Shawn I was going to lay down for a bit, take a shower, then call the doc. So I did that while Shawn got Bridget up, fed and dressed. By the time I got out of the shower, my rib pain was gone, and my nausea was gone, but I was hungry and didn't feel like eating anything. Kinda reminded me of the first trimester. 

When I called the nurse, she said come in right away, so we did. I must have puked out 2 lbs, because since Thursday, I've lost 2 lbs on the doctor's scale. The nurse kinda worried me, because she was so somber when asking me questions about what had happened all morning. I was nervous when she took my blood pressure too, because I knew if I was having this side pain, vomiting and high blood pressure it could be preeclampsia or Help's syndrome, and I didn't want to hear that. But nope, my blood pressure was perfect according to the nurse. Just before she left, she informed me that the protein in my urine was up and there was a trace of blood too (possible UTI or bladder infection or preeclampsia). Crazy! 

The doc comes in, and this was the more thorough doc, and he didn't seem too concerned about my symptoms, so that made me feel a bit better. He checked my cervix and said it hasn't changed at all. (Darn, that probably means labor won't happen for a while!) He did an ultrasound to check for all the babies heartbeats. Then pretty much said, "Well, if you feel better now, and the side pain is gone, then you're probably fine. Probably just a bug or something." So I said, "The nurse said there was protein and blood in my urine. What's the deal with that?" He seemed surprised. So he left the room to check on that, came back and said, "Why don't you go to the lab and leave a urine sample with them, just to be sure. It was just a very minute amount of blood detected, and our dipsticks aren't very accurate, so let's see what the lab has to say." I asked if there was blood, what does that mean? Would I be going to the hospital? He laughed and said, "No, it would just be an infection. Why? Did you want to go to the hospital?" We were standing in the hallway by the receptionist at this point, and all the gals (nurses, receptionists and myself) all said, "Yes! I'm ready to get the babies out." That was kinda funny.

Shawn and Bridget drove me to the lab, and I ran in and out in 10 minutes or so. We got a call from the lab within an hour of getting home. My nurse said I had a "whopper of an infection" and she called in the antibiotics to Walgreens for me. Weird! I had no symptoms of an infection unless nausea and vomiting are symptoms. 

I've been lying around all day (not unusual) and sleeping periodically (not unusual) and eating lots of chicken noodle soup (unusual), and I'm feeling much better. No more side pain, no more vomiting, just a slight feeling of yuckiness. I'm hungry, but there's nothing I want to eat. Who knows, maybe it's a mild flu. I never got my flu shot this season. I'm going to start the antibiotics at dinnertime, and it's only a 3 day treatment, so we'll see how that makes me feel. 

Darn, I thought I'd end up having the babies today...guess not. The "hurry up and wait" continues.

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