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2004-06-16 - 11.11am��previous entry��next entry
19 weeks, 5 days - hospital and shame!
Thank you all SO much for the advice and encouraging words!!
I am sooooo ashamed to update to tell you what happened! Urgh, where's a blushing smiley when you need one?!
Okay I went to the GP and he was supremely crap. He looked bored out of his skull and I had decided to exaggerate my cramps, so I marched in and said I was having cramps like period pains. He looked bored and said oh well never mind, that kind of thing! I said I was worried about my cervix. He said not to worry but he didn't reassure me at all and I was worried that he could be missing something important. He listened to Bean with a doppler and of course Bean was great. I said yeah but my CRAMPS!! He just said they don't worry about cramps, even bad ones (what?!!!!) because after the 1st trimester there isn't any risk of ectopic pregnancy. That's all he said. He wouldn't refer me. He said the only reason anyone would examine or scan me would be if I was bleeding. He asked if I was bleeding, and I said no.
Then - here's where I was super super awfully stupid and feel extremely incredibly embarrassed and ashamed and everyone has every right to think I'm awful - I said oh but I did have a tiny bit of brown spotting this morning. Ugh. I lied. Never lie girls. It's sooooo not good. Exaggeration is fine for this kind of thing, but never lie. Actually Katie told me not to lie but I was stoopid and I did it anyway. Tsk.
So here's what happened. Neil and I went to A&E at the hospital, where they practically severed my arm with an electronic blood pressure thingy (124/70, normal) and of course I couldn't exactly say, "Oh actually I lied, I didn't have any spotting. Sorry." Which I guess I COULD have, but I'm a wuss and one lie gets you in deeper and deeper at every turn.
They sent us to the maternity unit, who sent us up to the delivery suite!!!! Yikes! There were no beds anywhere else. They put me on a monitor and listened to Bean, whose heartrate was lovely and ranged from 146 to 153. We had to wait 2 hours and then a doctor came and asked me all those same questions about cramps and spotting and so on. I was trying to downplay the spotting by then! I just said it was soooo light and brown, not red, and it was earlier in the day and I'd had no further spotting. I feel so bad! I asked him about the cramps which were obviously the things I was worried about. He said he was more concerned with the spotting (argh!) and he said they would take some blood from me, take a urine sample (he asked me a lot of questions about peeing, which was good because I am constantly in pain or uncomfy in that dept so I was glad to have him cover that), and then he said he wouldl do an internal examination to look at my cervix.
I asked about incompetent cervix and he said such a condition is debatable (!!!) so no reassurance there. They wouldn't scan me. I can't believe it, I just wanted a scan to be sure my cervix looked fine and nothing looked wrong anywhere!
But instead I got blood taken (ow), and a remarkably painful internal, which at least I learned something interesting from - apparantly my cervix is a bit unusual in that the cells that normally line the womb (and therefore shed each time I have a period), have grown down my cervix and onto the outside. He said it's common for those cells to grow down the cervix a little, but less common for them to be on the outside of the cervix. He said that makes me quite susceptible to spotting, especially after sex or straining on the toilet. He asked when we last had sex, which was embarrassing because it was aaaaaaages ago!!! I mean like, when we conceived, that kind of thing! But anyway yeah, that was interesting to learn.
He said there was no bleeding at the cervix (obviously, oh the shame!), and then he noticed I am Rh negative. Oh boy. So guess what happened? I got admitted. My first ever overnight hospital stay since I was 2 which I can't even remember. I have a big thing about the idea of staying in hospital overnight, away from home and Neil. I was like, "Can't I just go home?! I only live down the road! I feel fine!" etc, etc! But they said no. And what's more I needed an Anti-D injection because of my "spotting" - see, deeper and deeper and deeper. Sooo ashamed.
I did try my very best to discharge myself around midnight, but my cramps got worse and I figured actually it might be a good idea to stay. Things were really painful last night.
Anyway we got taken to the antenatal ward to a 5-bed room with 3 other pregnant women (all waaaay more pregnant than me). Neil came home and fetched me some overnight things and some sandwiches and drinks. Then he stayed till about midnight and went home :( So I have done my first real hospital stay! I was so nervous/unhappy about it at first, but it was pretty much bedtime and so I knew I only had to try to sleep and then in the morning I would be reviewed and hopefully sent home.
Weird thing - I am allergic to something in hospitals. I noticed it for the last year or so of my nursing degree. It was worst when I was working on the wards, and particularly when I was making a million beds, so maybe it's something to do with the bedlinen? But that makes no sense because the worst it ever got was during my 3 week placement in theatres, watching surgery all day. I just streamed and streamed. And so I did last night, urgh. I sneezed and blew my nose all night long, and I got about an hour of sleep. One lady was being monitored on a machine all night as she was being induced, and at 3.15am they brought another lady in for monitoring in the bed next to me. Breakfast trolleys started crashing around outside from about 6.30 so I was awake from then.
I did get up in the night to eat because I wasn't sleeping so I was getting hungrier and hungrier. This other girl who was waaay younger than me and 30 weeks pregnant, was up for a snack too, so we padded off to the delivery suite for some cereal in with our bumps and maternity nighties! :) That was kind of fun :)
But the rest sucked and it served me right. In the morning I was given an Anti-D shot in the butt which HURT and then I waited a couple of hours for the consultant to come round. She said since there had been no further spotting (oh man, I feel so bad!) I could go home. Actually it's pretty good that I didn't spot after the internal, given those cells on my cervix, so I was relieved about that. I didn't want any reasons to stay in hospital for longer. I was really crampy and pressurey low down during the night, even just resting in bed, but I asked about that in the morning and the consultant said if the cramps got severe or regular then I should go back in, and they wanted to see me at 24 weeks anyway. I still don't understand why I am in pain and crampy, or why the pressure feels so tight, but I did notice quite a lot more pain in my pubic bone than normal, so maybe I am going to have some Symphasis Pubis Dysfunction or whatever it's called (SPD anyway) and it's just starting to bother me? I don't know. I was glad to be given the all-clear though, and to be able to ask about the cramps and get reassured.
So now I am home, and sooooo glad about it! I feel so so so awful that I told something untrue and all that happened as a result. But I'm glad I got to be monitored for the cramping as well and they considered me okay to go home and rest even with the cramps. They said I should rest up, but I usually rest a lot anyway so I will continue doing that.
Neil came to get me - wow, I missed him so much last night. It was so weird without him. The midwife listened to Bean again with the doppler before we left and everything was fine there. Bean kicked me so hard all night, which was reassuring and comforting. Some of the kicks hurt but I didn't care about that one bit. I just was so glad to be able to feel that Bean was okay all night long. Actually Bean is kicking my bladder as I speak/type! :) I don't mind the discomfort anymore. I did have a whole patch last night where I worried that maybe I would lose Bean with cramps and pressure like that. So I love even the painful kicks! :)
I asked about scans and they said I am fine to wait until 22 weeks for my scheduled scan. I don't mind that if they said it's okay - it's only 2 weeks from tomorrow. I wasn't angling for an earlier scan to see Bean sooner, I was really worried about my cervix. I just hope it's okay and that the doctors were right about it, since they didn't do anything to check it :S The doctor who did my internal did say my cervix was firm and closed, which is good.
Okay I am needing sleep and food (breakfast was grim this morning and the milk was off!) and urgh, please feel free to tell me off, I've been so bad. My mum says I have been naughty but she thinks I have been punished! :) And I AM glad to have had the cramping checked out.
But there's my shameful story with a moral to be learnt - don't tell lies. They get you in trouble and they waste people's time. Plus it is stupid to lie. But I'm gonna try to stop beating myself over the head with it now. What's done is done. I'm glad to have had the official OK about the cramping and pressure. And there's nothing wrong with my urine again, so that's something. Weird how it still hurts though.
Okay back soon with a more normal update!
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