Maybe I should stop complaining that my life is boring. My life is not boring. My life is stable, safe, and awesome. Let’s go back to that. So uhm, I got to spend 5 hours in the ER today. Around 1:45pm I started experiencing mild lower abdominal cramps. They were intermittent and not too severe. Around 2:00 they started getting a little worse and it started getting hard to stand up completely straight. I started calling folks like my midwife, Noah, a friend who is also a midwife. The only person who answered was Noah. (I was at a friend’s house.) I told Noah I wasn’t sure yet what I wanted to do about it but I was concerned. Once I started getting fairly fierce lower back ache I burst into tears and announced it was time for the ER.
I sat in the waiting room for hours before finally getting seen at all. I spent a lot of time in the waiting room hunched over crying from pain. My midwife arrived after not too terribly long and we snuck off to the bathroom so that she could listen to the baby with the doppler. She said she didn’t know what was going on with me, but the baby sounded fine. My blood pressure instantly dropped. I stopped crying every time the fierce pain came and instead started breathing through what I was pretty certain was contractions.
For those following at home: I am 14 weeks pregnant. There is no way my baby could survive outside of me at this point.
Eventually I got in to see a doctor. (Amusingly this doctor is well known in the dance community. She immediately offered to get a different doctor if I felt uncomfortable with her giving me a pelvic exam. I muttered that given how many of her friends have already seen my crotch, one more person was no big deal. She tactfully ignored me. :D) She was friendly and professional. She didn’t feel anything problematic so I was back out to the waiting room so that I could wait and wait and wait for an ultrasound. It took another hour or so. The ultrasound technician was WAY chatty compared to my previous experiences telling me all kinds of interpretations of what he was finding. I’m pretty sure he was actually breaking rules but oh man am I not going to report him. The baby looked great. The baby is measuring a couple of days ahead of my dates but that’s not a big deal. The heartbeat was lovely. Development is universally on target or a couple days ahead. This is awesome. But I had a whole lot of confirmation that I was having very fierce contractions. My cervix was long and thick (that’s a good thing). I am no where near having a baby any time soon.
I had to wait a while longer to see a different doctor (shift change) so that I could get final results. No UTI. No obvious anything other than me having severe contractions. Uhm, I guess those just happen. Take Tylenol for the pain.
Then we were released. My midwife said that if I am not opposed, half a glass of wine should probably take care of quieting my uterus. I am currently sipping an awesome vintage.
You know, given how stressful my pregnancies are I really really really really don’t need to go through this a third time.
How scary. I’m glad everything is okay. *hugs*
Me too! 🙂
I am _so_ glad you’re okay! I hope the rest of your pregnancy is quieter :o)
I could deal with that. This does kind of make me hesitate to go get all active and shit. See what happens after I have sex and then go help a friend clear out his wood shop?
uh…
from my old days in health risk assessment…
plain old, regular wood dust is a powerful irritant tied to things like asthma and dermatitis and like that. some treated lumber contains lots of nasty-assed stuff like heavy metals.
Wait! This is where it is. 🙂
Why would wood dust contribute to contractions. I don’t see the connection. I totally get the connection to asthma and dermatitis though.
here it is, yes!
it wasn’t so much for this particular case of the cramps, it was more just general information.
treated lumber can contain stuff like arsenic and chromium – like that. short-term inhalation usually isn’t enough to cause acute symptoms but are a powerful irritant to mucus membranes and such. if your baby-growing device is a mucus membrane maybe it went goofy in sympathy?
and typically, and walnut wood shavings and dust are excluded from the sawdust put into horse stalls because even very small amounts causes injury to the animal’s hooves/feet.
but you’re probably ok – as long as you weren’t jamming handfuls of it up your geegee.
just in case you’re interested in more info (and because i’m a guy and simply cannot leave well enough alone), here’s a couple handy-dandy wood toxicity charts. you’ll notice most of the problems are respiratory and allergy, but there’s a couple “cardiacs” in there, too:
http://www.woodbin.com/ref/etc/wood_toxicity_table.htm
and
http://www.mimf.com/archives/toxic.htm
it’s interesting stuff, actually.
makes me sorry i left the business of risk…
Talking to other friends/relatives who have also experienced early contractions: Some times it happens. It doesn’t necessarily mean the rest of the pregnancy is in danger. As a reassuring note, my mom started having contractions with my sister around the same point, and they continued sporadically until she was delivered, naturally, exactly on time.
Stupid lj…. Forgot that it doesn’t like angle brackets… There’s a *hugs* missing above that comment!
It’s mostly scary for me because I had preterm labor with Shanna complete with effacing cervix and regular contractions. That wasn’t until 36 (I think?) weeks and I ended up on bedrest till I was full term. That was staved off with Chinese herbs and lots of acupuncture.
Given that my cervix isn’t being affected at this time it’s not a problem.
Oh, I’m not arguing the scary! Just wanted to let you know there was still hope for a normal pregnancy afterward… And hey, isn’t the first pregnancy supposed to be the hardest? So, theoretically, your body knows what to do for this one and it won’t be as difficult! (I’ll keep my fingers crossed for good luck anyway.)
yeah, hugs
glad it turned out OK, and crossing fingers that it all stays OK.
Bloody hell. You’re pregnant and they left you waiting for hours with severe abdominal pain?
I’d be furious.
Well, at 14 weeks I am either going to lose the baby or I’m not. There is literally nothing they can do for me. I also had no bleeding, which is one of the biggest signs of a serious problem. It is actually pretty logical that I wasn’t at the top of the queue.
*hugs* *love*
I totally took my herbs this morning. 🙂
I’m glad things turned out as well as they did yesterday. I hope today’s being a nice stable, unexciting day. And that you have ~26 more weeks of those in a row.
*whew*
I hope all is well, and that all will continue to be well.
Damn, that’s terrifying! I’m glad you’re both ok!!
Hmm…full moon and I think you’ve had your crazy scary quotient for the month.
Which is my sideways way of saying, hopefully that’s the most ‘exciting’ this pregnancy gets for the rest of the term.
*hugs* and very glad everyone’s ok.