What I learned yesterday

1. If you leave Northside hospital at 12:48 am, there is no parking attendant and you don’t have to pay to park.

2. From the parking deck to my garage is 21 minutes with no traffic, who knew?

Wanna know why I know this?

Well, yesterday Anna-Kate and I were reading for our special time (between when Ryan goes down for a nap at 1 and she goes down for nap/rest time at 2). I sat in the lazy boy and she was trying to scoot into my lapp. In so doing that, she elbowed me right in the belly, trying to get leverage. It hurt. In fact, I screamed out because it hurt. Poor thing, I startled her (obviously, I didn’t mean to scream). I said, “honey you need to be a little more gentle with mommy”. Her immediate response was to burst into hysteric tears and say, “I don’t want another baby boy to come, I just want my mommy”. I felt like a horrible mother. Then I started having a few contractions. Not the really bad kind, but I've NEVER had a contraction prior to 40 week. Ever. I’m 22 weeks now. After a few minutes they went away and I went about my day.

I was driving to choir practice, at a little before 7 and could still feel the spot was I got elbowed. It wasn’t by any means painful, just a bit sensitive, like there was a bruise there, but there is no skin discoloration. Since we were planning to leave for St Louis the next day (today, I’m writing in the car) I decided to call my nurse line to have them reassure me that everything was OK. Well, the nurse did little to make me feel better, instead called the doctor and me back within about 10 minutes with news that I was to leave choir (of which I had been present for about 5 minutes) and go straight to Northside Hospital. The on-call doc knew I was coming and was waiting to see me to make sure everything was OK. I have negative blood, so in any sort of belly “trauma” (even a fender bender) the docs get really worried that there might be some blood cross-contamination between me and the baby. In case you are unfamiliar, with an RH negative mom, if my blood crossed and this baby had positive blood, my body could begin to form antibodies against the baby and potentially “kill off” the foreign thing, ie baby. Anyway. I was highly freaked out. Thankfully, a sweet friend from church walked me out and prayed with me before I left. Chris was home with the kids, so for the first time, I entered Labor and Delivery by myself, registered alone and waited alone. (Chris obviously offered to come, but I knew he couldn’t really do anything and knew that he was going to have to drive all day the next day so I told him to stay home.)

When I was finally checked into my room it was WEIRD. They gave me a gown and put the monitor on my belly and I was left alone for them to track contractions. I was having some, but they weren’t painful (at all), and were pretty minimal, like one every 7-13 minutes that was barely registering. Of course, as soon as I was settled, the doctor got called into an emergency C-section, so by the time he finally came in to see me it was 9:20. He checked me out and ordered a bunch of tests to check me and the baby and for cross contaminated blood. He then told me it was a “full house” (what else is new at northside?) and that the lab could take up to 4 hours to get my results back. All I could think about was the LONG LIST of things I needed to do. Thankfully, I had already packed and wrapped our Christmas gifts, but there is always last minute stuff, cleaning, some cooking and baking I needed to do as well as a few sewing/monogramming projects I had to finish before we left town. Well, I guess the Lord knew I needed to rest, so I sat in the hospital bed until 12:35 watching HGTV and napping. I remember hospital beds being more comfortable, but maybe that’s because when you’ve gone through 2 or 3 day long labors, a rock would feel comfortable if it allows you to sleep with no pain.
The nurse finally came in at 12:35 am and said I was free to go, there was no blood transfer and unnamed baby boy was safe as could be. I told her I felt silly for being there all night and she assured me that I had done the right thing, because if there had been blood transfer it could have been a really bad thing.

So, if you see me, I’ll be the one with big bags under my eyes (I just couldn’t go to bed until I finished a majority of stuff as my mind was racing with “to-do’s last night) who’s a bit more protective of my belly.

Oh ya, and in the future, I’ll be staying late at the hospital to visit friends. Maybe just until midnight. 