Another thing checked off ths list...

Just didn't think we check off "tour of Labor and Delivery" this way!

I just got out of the hospital. Tito and I went in on Wednesday morning at about 2:30am. Basically, I woke up at about 1:30am to pee, and felt some chest/left arm pain and tingling in my left hand. Pretty much exactly what I've felt before with my heart history. So I tossed and turned a bit in bed, thinking maybe I'd slept wrong on my arm. It didn't help. I would fall asleep for about 3 minutes, then wake back up. I got up and took some Tylenol, but it didn't touch the pain. So I finally woke Tito up and told him what was going on and he said we needed to go to the hospital to get things checked out.

So we drove to the hospital in record time and to the ER. After getting to the there, Tito went to park the car and I went into the ER. Standing there in pain, I opened up my jacket, thinking that if they saw my belly they'd react like it was an emergency. No dice. I stood in front of two registration ladies in an empty ER room for a good minute while one looked at the paper and the other was messing with her water bottle. Finally, she looked up and asked if she could help me. I explained I needed to see a doctor and that I was having chest pains and arm pain. She then said "Are you pregnant?" and I said I was 32 weeks along. She then said she needed to call L&D. So she called out for a transport, and they came out, misunderstood (they thought she'd said i was 13 weeks pregnant) and then said they needed to get me in down in the ER first. So finally, she registered me and they got me back into a room.

Once I was back in the room, things moved pretty quickly. Apparently pregnant ladies with heart conditions aren't seen every day so they freaked out a bit and suddenly I had about 5 people in the room starting an IV, taking blood, giving me an EKG, etc. They did a bedside check of my cardiac enzymes and the first test was negative, which was good. They took me in and gave me one chest xray (they shielded me well and only took one photo to protect the baby.) Then OB came down and hooked me up to a monitor. Heard the little guys heart beat right away. After the initial OB nurse came in, three OB docs came in. Asked me about my pain which I was still having. I told them I didn't feel comfy getting narcotics for the pain since it was bearable. Plus they wanted to give me Morphine and I'm allergic to that and Codeine. So they got my chest xray back and said that it looked like I had pneumonia. ??? What?? I had no other symptoms, except the occasional stuffy nose which I thought was pregnancy related. So then they said that they wanted to admit me for observation on the OB floor given my history and to watch the baby so I was brought upstairs to a labor room. If anything, they are nice rooms! :) Then the OB docs came in, asked me some more questions and then cardiology came in and said that they wanted to observe me as well but the only place they could put the fetal monitor and heart monitor on was in the ICU. So they shipped me down there. At this point, my pain was about a 1 on a pain scale (came down from a 5.) Cardiology came in and said that they didn't think I had pneumonia, that I just had some excess fluid and mucus in my lungs and that we couldn't trust the xray since it was only one. They also said they'd done the second draw of my cardiac enzymes and that they were negative as well.

I stayed in ICU for another 5 hours, unable to sleep, and just watching tv with Tito and finally was able to eat at about 11:30am (after being up for 9 hours.) Cardiology came back in with my OB and they discussed that they didn't think it was heart related which was good to hear. They said that they were going to test my cardiac enzymes one more time and then if they were negative that I'd go back up to OB for observation. In the meantime, my OB reassured me that I had done the right thing by coming in with the chest pain which made me feel better. The OB nurses had been coming in and out all morning and observing the baby on the monitor upstairs. At one point, I felt a really bad pain in both my back and abdomen area at the same time. I moved around and thought it was from the uncomfortable bed. Tito rubbed my back and it went away, then a few minutes later it came back and lasted about a minute. Then it didn't come back. About 10 minutes later, the OB nurse came down and asked if I'd just felt that contraction? So yeah, not fun. They weren't too worried about it but said they wanted to watch me. A little before I was transferred up to the OB floor, the nurse came back in and told me that the baby had had some heart decels for more than 2 minutes. So they brought me back upstairs, and hooked me up to the monitor and positioned me so I was only laying on my left side thinking that would make it better for the baby. Docs came in and did an internal exam and said that my cervix was closed, nice and high and the baby was head down. Enzyme tests came back negative, like they'd thought, and the pain was gone. Tito and I discussed that maybe that was my body's way of letting me know something was up with the baby.

They originally thought I'd be ok to go home that afternoon after some time on the monitor. But then the baby had more decels and they said I had to stay overnight. They did an ultrasound and while it was comforting for me to get to see our little guy again, and see how much he'd grown (and that he's 4 lbs now!) it was scary that I had to be there. When I had a moment, I had a little breakdown with Tito and just kept crying, saying that it was too soon and that I was scared. Tito calmed me down and helped me get to sleep.

Throughout the night, I was woken up quite a few times by the nurses bringing in meds, readjusting the fetal monitor, and telling me the baby had decels or I had a contraction. So this morning, at about 6am, I was up for good. The doctor came in and said that while the baby had decels and I had contractions, that they didn't think overall it was bad. They said that they think that babies normally have decels throughout pregnancies, just that women aren't constantly hooked up to the monitors to know. I originally had an appointment for this Friday, and they rescheduled me to go in on Tuesday instead and get an NST. Essentially, they are starting my NST's early and will decide where to go from there.

They recommended that I work from home this afternoon and tomorrow and that I can go back into work on Monday and Tuesday, but since I have three flights of stairs up to my office (and no elevator) that I take them very, very slowly. After Tuesday's appointment, he will decide if he wants to put me on bedrest, have me work from home for the rest of the pregnancy, or what.

At this point, I'm happy just to be home (and my kitties are happy we're here too!) Tito stayed the whole time with me in the hospital, sleeping there last night as well. He's exhausted but I think he was glad to stay and monitor me and the baby. He's sleeping right now because the poor guy was so tired. He's basically told me not to do anything and he'd take care of the cleaning, cats, laundry, etc until I'm cleared by the doc. If I'm not, and placed on bedrest, he said he'd take care of things until the baby comes and after until I'm ready to get back to things.

So we had a bit of a scare there for a bit, but we're hoping it was nothing, and that this little guy listens to us and stays put for at least another 5 weeks and comes out healthy!