Triage room #1.

Gah. I have spent hours upon hours upon HOURS there at this point between when I was pregnant Simon and now this baby. Always the same, darn, boring room.

Yesterday, after a marathon pukefest (a bug acquired from Ben... who apparently had QUITE a mild case, as did my husband), I started having constant, mild contractions in the late afternoon. I wasn't keeping anything down for more than two minutes. I was SOOO thirsty and then the contractions actually kinda started to hurt. So, a quick call to the doctor yielded the answer I expected... the all-too familiar trip to L&D.

I was fortunate my mom was around to take me because Tom was still at home sick AND taking care of the boys. (also fortunate Tom had such a mild case compared to me AND it happened on the same day, so he was already home from work)

I thought it would be an hour of iv fluids, in and out. Ummm no. At one point, the nurse heard me on the phone with Tom theorizing about when I might be home and she peeked around and said, "Tell him it will be hours." "Hours?" I squeaked. "Yep. Hours."

Fantastic.

Hours on that too small triage bed with nothing to do but sleep uncomfortably and watch liquid drip into my hand, oh and talk to my mom and the nurse (who was pregnant with triplets!), which made the whole affair more tolerable.

Apparently I was worse off than I had thought. The nurse said she'd never seen a pregnant woman as dehydrated as I was, which I find both unbelievable and a little scary. They put an two anti-nausea medications and an acid reducer in the i.v. line along with THREE BAGS OF FLUID. And I had to keep getting up and peeing so they could check the levels of something or other. (ketones, I believe) The goal was to get them down to zero and I started off with them off the charts high. So it was a long road... four hours or so.

Then I got home, exhausted and achy and tried to go to bed, but the acid reflux had made a major come back and I just couldn't sleep because it burned so badly. Around 11:30, I had to throw up AGAIN. I won't go into too much detail, but what occurred during THAT incident was disturbing enough to make me wake up my doctor... turns out the color black is less need for alarm than one might think (though I don't suggest Googling it), but nevertheless QUITE disturbing.

The doctor told me to take a Zantac with a tiny amount of water, wait awhile and then take a Zofran. After that, I was finally able to both get some sleep AND keep sips of water down. So far today I've had some water, some ginger ale and a couple popsicles. I'm under orders not to try to eat ANYTHING until this evening and even then, just some crackers or toast. I'm starting to finally get a little hungry, but I have no desire to throw up anymore, so I'm sticking with the popsicles as instructed.

So yeah. Good times on the pregnancy front. Through it all, the baby has been fine. They said he looked great on the monitors with heartrate and and whatnot. And he moved the whole time I was in the hospital and most of the night... so I guess he's none the worst for the wear.

There were two women in triage with me -- one about as far along as me with a high fever and flu symptoms. Blech. She got to escape way before me though...

And then there was another who was only seven weeks and spotting, so really, life could have been much, much worse... I felt very sad for her as she sat waiting for her lab results and thankful for a healthy baby, even if I am uncomfortable right now. :(

Labels: sick