Well, I’ve taken my first official trip to Labor and Delivery as a pregnant lady. We had a bit of a scare last night when at around dinner time, I started to get a bizarre pain shooting up the back of my [already swollen] left leg. At first I ignored it, but (as happens more and more often) the hypochondria got the best of me, and I called the non-emergency line at my OB’s office for peace of mind. Unfortunatley for me, my OB had other ideas. She was concerned that with my excessive swelling and recent road trip, in addition to the pain shooting up the back of my calf, I was at increased risk for Deep Vein Thrombosis and had to be seen immediately.
A few weeks ago, for no apparent reason, I had the words Deep Vein Thrombosis stuck in my head. Like how you’d get a song in your head, only it was those three words just repeating over and over in my brain. Which was odd, because I had no idea what Thrombosis meant, and still have no idea where I heard the words to get them stuck in my head in the first place. But the crazy person in me who believes in the power of attraction was paralyzed with fear when I heard my doctor mention them, because, well…I was afraid I’d brought it on THE SECRET style. (For the record, Deep Vein Thrombosis, or DVT is a blood clot, usually in the leg, which as it turns out can lead to pulmonary embolism if left untreated.)
Anyway, we rushed over to the hospital, and got a little preview of what it will be like in a couple of months when it’s time for the main event. They immediately forced me into a wheel chair (seemed extreme, since I had walked there from the parking lot) and I was wheeled up to L&D, where they checked me into a room, and had me get in one of those sexy hospital gowns and hop in bed. Really the whole nine yards – which for whatever reason I wasn’t really expecting. Also, they hooked me up to the baby monitor. (I don’t think the little one liked it, because she kept kicking the monitor with all her might.) My doc had called ahead and ordered a full scan to be done on both of my legs to rule out DVT. Being at the hospital, all monitored up, I started to relax a bit and Scott and I watched reruns of Roseanne on Nick at Night and ate cafeteria food while we waited for the technician to come up and do the leg ultrasound. Every few minutes, we’d be distracted from Rosie, Jackie and the gang when the Resident and/or nurse would come in and ask how my contractions were doing. Which I thought was weird, because I wasn’t having contractions – I was there because of the pain in my leg. Only as it turned out, I was having contractions. Fairly regular ones, so we ended up having to stick it out in the North Tower until they calmed down a bit…but I digress.
Eventually the vascular ultrasound dude made it upstairs and did a very long, very intensive scan of my legs from my crotch to my enormous cankles. I’m thrilled to report that there were no deep clots to be found, and the pain did eventually start to fade. I’m still not sure what it was, but I do feel like a little bit of a jerk for being THAT GIRL who calls the doctor and rushes in to the hospital without actually having anything wrong with her. And I left the hospital under explicit instructions to avoid sitting in chairs whenever possible…seriously. Walking around is cool, but if I must recline, they prefer I sit on the couch with my legs slightly elevated. Oh, and I gotta go back there if I feel anything like it again. Which hopefully I won’t.
As we were being discharged, Scott stopped the Resident and inquired about the baby’s heartbeat. Apparently he’d been calmly watching it rise and fall for the past four hours, and not wanting to worry me, kept it quiet until he was able to bring it to the doctor’s attention. Turns out it was normal “accelerations” and she’s doing quite well, but my heart melted just a little bit to see him stepping into his role as protective father already. Man, I love that guy.
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