I have had the cerclage for three weeks now! Yippee! Only seven more days until we reach our first bedrest goal of 28 weeks.
So, Friday was an interesting day. Remember those nighttime pains I’d mentioned? Thursday night they reached a new height of ow. Now, part of that may be because I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in about three days, but they kept me awake ALL NIGHT LONG. So, we called the OB’s office at 8 on the dot and left a message with Dr. E’s medical assistant. Ha! It was the Friday before a holiday weekend. Guess who’s OB and medical assistant weren’t in the office? Two and a half hours later, I called back and expressed my concern at not getting a return phone call considering the whole cerclage/bedrest/high risk thing. That’s when I learned that out of a practice of 6 doctors, only one was in the office and apparently she was actually across the street delivering a baby and the on-call nurse (I’m guessing this is the assistant of the one doctor) was up to her eyeballs trying to deal with the patients in the waiting room. But, my voicemail got forwarded to her and she called me back. Of course, this wasn’t really as helpful as it could have been since she just sent me to L&D for “just in case” monitoring. I could have done that. I really wanted to get a doctor’s opinion on this pain since I’ve been having it since the cerclage was placed. But, I’m not one to turn down the offer of peace of mind, so Shannon fixed himself a box lunch, grabbed his laptop, a phone charging cable, both of our toothbrushes, and I stuffed my crocheting into my purse along with chapstick, and a comb (can you tell we’ve made a few trips to the hospital? Shannon takes our toothbrushes to all doctors’ appointments now…just in case.) We made it to L&D shortly before noon and they walked me down to triage (at no time did anyone offer me a wheelchair, which seemed odd. Well, someone unrelated to this visit did wheel me out when we were leaving, but that comes later in the story) and we went through the routine of undressing, gowning up, and getting strapped to the heartrate monitor and toco monitor. At least this time, they can put them where they are supposed to go. The last time anyone had to check me for contractions, I had all of my staples and sutures in so the monitor couldn’t go at the top of my uterus.
Miss Olivia Moonpie, who had already spent so many hours practicing her soccer kicks and barrel rolls that I actually googled “pregnant baby moving too much,” continued to put on quite the show for us for the next four hours. At least she was polite enough to stay on the monitor the whole time. The contraction monitor never moved much from the baseline. After two hours, we were actually ready to go, but we had to wait for the lone doctor to stop by. As the second step in the “let’s just be safe” approach, she wanted to check my cervix/cerclage. Silly me. I thought we might go for the wonder-wand as usual. Oh no. This was a visual inspection requiring a speculum. Now, on a normal exam, speculums cause me a significant amount of discomfort and cramping. No one warned me that at 26w5d pregnant, sleep-deprived, with a hyper alien baby inside me that I would actually feel like getting a foley catheter in my bladder was less painful. Shannon has had to recount everything that was said during that exam because I couldn’t hear them over the screaming in my brain. But, everything looked great and we were turned loose.
At one point, Shannon took a break since he wasn’t strapped to a bed, and walked down the hall I’d been on prior to and after my abdominal surgery to the nurses’ station. Several of the nurses and at least one patient care tech recognized him, remembered me by name and were stunned to hear that two days after leaving them, I’d ended up back in a hospital. Since we were there, I wanted to stop by and say hi. Those nurses and PCTs were fantastic and I’d intended on making a bunch of cookies to bring to them after I was released from their care. Best laid plans, y’know? So, for the first time, they got to see me walking and standing upright. I think the phrase was, “You look human!” We chatted for a few minutes before everyone realized I was still standing and the nurse who had been my favorite (I know you shouldn’t play favorites, but while almost everyone who took part in my care was outstanding, this one nurse was miles above the rest) sent Shannon off to get the car, grabbed a wheelchair for me and pushed me to the door herself. Turns out, they’d been asking Dr. E for updates on me, and not only did this nurse remember how far along I should be, she remembered “Olivia Moonpie” and that my mother had been here from out of town, along with about 10 other little things that had nothing to do with me as a patient and lots to do with me as me. She made me promise that if something happened to prevent me from delivering there to bring Olivia Moonpie in for a visit as soon as she was able. That won’t be a hard promise to keep.
So, I don’t know if I mentioned it, but we took our house off the market right after I came home on bedrest, which was about a month before our contract was actually up. We just couldn’t figure out how we would manage showings or even actually moving with me down and out. Our realtor, who has been fantastic the entire time, not only pulled our house out of the listings first thing on the Saturday the we emailed her, when she came to pick up her sign and take down the lockbox, she brought enough Lebanese food to feed a small army. Now, I have to admit, when she offered to bring food, I was expecting grocery store deli type stuff. Not really anything I’d be looking forward to, but the gesture was so nice I didn’t want to turn it down. What I didn’t know was that she was Lebanese and that her family has a restaurant nearby. Can I just tell you how good fresh pita and hummus and chicken shwarma and tzatziki and a few things we never did identify taste after so many hospital meals? Shannon was at the office when she came by, so she let herself in with the key in the lockbox so I wouldn’t have to get up, she fixed me a heaping plate, cleaned up afterwards and put the stack of three huge takeout boxes in the ‘fridge all the while just chatting and keeping me company. As she left, she offered to bring food by anytime and to be available to help me if Shannon wasn’t home. She’s also been checking in via email. Nice to find nice people.
So, that’s where we are. 27 weeks. I’m starting to feel antsy about not being able to move about and really hoping that maybe, once we pass 28 weeks the restrictions can be relaxed a little bit. It would be lovely to be able to sit in a bookstore for an hour just to get off the couch and out of the house. I’ve had two nights of deep sleep and almost feel like a completely different person. And I just found out that Shannon has been keeping a bar of excellent dark chocolate a secret from me. Time for Olivia Moonpie’s afternoon sugar rush, wouldn’t you agree? 🙂
Our Own Creation 