This is a continuation of my last post, so you may want to start there, if you wish\/dare.\u00a0 It’s kinda TMI though.\u00a0 This one isn’t too TMI (relatively speaking?), but it does get into some descriptive anatomical terms.<\/p>\n
So we arrived at the ER around 2:10 pm.\u00a0 I had never set foot in any<\/em> ER before, so it was totally a new experience.\u00a0 The waiting room wasn’t totally nuts, not as much as I’d expected.\u00a0 I walked up to the nurse where you check in, then waited to be called up for registration.\u00a0 This part was only a few minutes.\u00a0 I went up, got my over-sized hospital bracelet (really? it couldn’t have been put on any tighter?), which I would proceed to nearly lose (usually it was in my coat sleeve or something) multiple times over the course of the afternoon. <\/p>\n Even though I’d never been to the ER before, I knew well that going to the ER means a lot of waiting.\u00a0 Especially when this baby is either alive or not, and nothing they can do will change that.\u00a0 We found relatively comfy, relatively private seats by the window.\u00a0 Settling in, I started to get a little emotional (again).\u00a0 Tears were coming out against my will.\u00a0 I just could not lose this baby.\u00a0 I have people around me who are due almost the exact same time.\u00a0 I wouldn’t be able to face them.\u00a0 I have no sense of peace that our family is complete, but I don’t have another two years to dedicate to making another.\u00a0 I swear it feels like a full-time job (which I know, biologically speaking, makes no sense).\u00a0 But really, more than I want “another baby,” I want THIS baby.<\/p>\n The waiting is broken up a bit as they call you back for various things.\u00a0 It wasn’t terribly long before I was called back to triage.\u00a0 They took a brief history and vitals.\u00a0 My blood pressure was 129\/80 which they said was fine, but that is high for me.\u00a0 Maybe it was the circumstances.\u00a0 They also took my pulse, and I didn’t catch what that was, but I felt like it was probably going a mile a minute.\u00a0 Then that nurse (or I’m thinking maybe MA?) put together a container that had a cup for a urine sample and a couple of vials for blood.\u00a0 They told me I could go ahead and do the urine sample, but then the next nurse came in as the nurse\/MA was going out.\u00a0 It was a guy, so it was slightly awkward to discuss my vaginal bleeding with him even though I’m sure he’s heard it all.\u00a0 I just laid it out there as if he were a girlfriend or an obgyn, whatever.\u00a0 They asked about cramping.\u00a0 I hadn’t really had much, but as I sat in the waiting room, I had started feeling something.\u00a0 But sometimes I feel stuff anyway, like maybe uterus growing.\u00a0 So I wasn’t sure what to make of it.<\/p>\n The nurse also warned us that they had a lot of emergencies coming in (though the waiting room wasn’t overflowing, I also knew that ambulance emergencies come in a different way), so it could be a while.\u00a0 It’s fine, I expected as much.<\/p>\n Then I went across the hall to the bathroom.\u00a0 It’s hard to do a proper urine sample when your hands are full.\u00a0 Plus as a germophobe pretty much anywhere, I was compleeeetely freaked out to use an ER bathroom where God knows what bugs pass through, ha.\u00a0 So anyway, here’s what you’re supposed to do: spread your labia apart with one hand, wipe the area clean with a wipe they give you with another hand, then with your third hand (while still holding your labia apart), get the cup ready to pee into.\u00a0 Pee a little into the toilet (while hovering to not catch any strange and unusual diseases), then pee into the cup…some…but not too much…but not too little.\u00a0 Then finish peeing into the toilet.\u00a0 With my 4th hand, I was also holding onto a pad I was going to apply in case bleeding resumed\/picked up.\u00a0 Because I did not see any surface I trusted to put it down on.\u00a0 I thought I was smart to wear comfy clothes (sweat pants) to the ER, but right then I really just wished for POCKETS.\u00a0 Finally I finished, and I feel like perhaps I got some mystery urine on my pants from the toilet bowl (I tried to check beforehand, but sometimes it’s in unpredictable places).\u00a0 I pray to God it was actually my own that missed to cup somehow.\u00a0 I’m dubious.<\/p>\n So I exit the bathroom only slightly traumatized, take my purse back from Pete who had been heroically holding onto it for me, and we go back out to the waiting room.\u00a0 Our seats by the window are, of course, taken, so we find some other seats.\u00a0 We entertain ourselves for the most part.\u00a0 I’m starting to wonder if maybe I just have a UTI as often as I feel the need to pee.\u00a0 I am drinking water, but I didn’t think it was that much.\u00a0 But then again I am pregnant.\u00a0 Eventually I’m called back again, this time to the lab for blood work.\u00a0 I offer up my right arm, as usual. I mention that it’s taken a little bit of a beating lately, but it’s just such an easy jab.\u00a0 The phlebotomist looks and says either arm is fine.\u00a0 But I had my right one sticking out there, so I just stuck with that plan.\u00a0 Then he jokes, “But I don’t know, I’ve been kinda twitchy today.”\u00a0 LOL!\u00a0 I thought it was hilarious.\u00a0 I said it’s a good thing you’re saying that to me and not him (gesturing to Pete).\u00a0 They drew blood, wish I knew what for.\u00a0 One turned out to be another beta, which I kind of figured.\u00a0 The other one I’m still not sure.\u00a0 I wonder if it was anything redundant that I’d just had done on Monday (5 days prior) for my OB workup.\u00a0 The blood draw itself wasn’t really a big deal.\u00a0 The worst part was the horrible tape they use to keep the gauze over the injection site.\u00a0 I dreaded peeling that off.<\/p>\n We returned to the waiting area and found different seats again.\u00a0 It wasn’t long this time when my name was called again.\u00a0 “Erin G,” he said.\u00a0 I teased him a bit because the last guy didn’t want to attempt my last name either.\u00a0 I was really only kidding: “You don’t want to try my last name either?”\u00a0 I think it embarrassed him a little.\u00a0 But I totally get it because I hate mispronouncing my patients’ names.\u00a0 Oh well.\u00a0 Turns out I was finally getting my room in the emergency room: Room 15.<\/p>\n To be continued.\u00a0 Because it’s late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a continuation of my last post, so you may want to start there, if you wish\/dare.\u00a0 It’s kinda TMI though.\u00a0 This one isn’t too TMI (relatively speaking?), but it does get into some descriptive anatomical terms. So we arrived at the ER around 2:10 pm.\u00a0 I had never set foot in any ER […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/babyg.brainstormwarning.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/babyg.brainstormwarning.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/babyg.brainstormwarning.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/babyg.brainstormwarning.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/babyg.brainstormwarning.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/babyg.brainstormwarning.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":790,"href":"http:\/\/babyg.brainstormwarning.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions\/790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/babyg.brainstormwarning.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/babyg.brainstormwarning.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/babyg.brainstormwarning.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}