Home again, home again, Jiggity Jig

We got home about 9:30 last night from the hospital.

Wouldn't you know that at the 11th hour something else came up that could have kept me there. Although this time it would have been my pleasure to hang around. So why did I even end up going to the hospital?

I've been on the medication Procardia for the contractions. Over the weekend I noticed that my contractions were getting considerably stronger & more frequent long before it was time for my next pill (3x/day). Sunday I spent the whole day in bed, SICK to my stomach. Nauseated and in a ton of pain. Reflux has been a major issue for me this pregnancy, in spite of being on more meds for it than I should, lol. I'm still having oodles of pressure down there and the 'cervix pain' is getting more frequent. Ugh.

By Monday midday, nothing was better so I finally called. Of course I got the typical, "Come on in so we can check you."

Freakin' Guh-Reat!

I was in triage for an hour or more and I'm thinking I'm getting ready to head home when I hear them talk about the protein in my urine and that I have a UTI. No contractions though. Well DUH McFly...I'd had a Procardia less than 3 hours ago...I'd better not be having any!"

Freakin' Guh-Reat!

So now I need to stay for more labwork (to rule out toxemia/eclampsia) do a 24 hour urine for the same reason and to get IV antibiotics to get rid of this UTI once and for all. I swear I frequently get them while pregnant. I had one when I went into labor with Peanut.

At this point I'm feeling like nobody is hearing me. I'm thinkin, "Hey you goobs...all I even wanted was to discuss whether or not the Procardia should be adjusted and can I please get something to make the nausea go away so I can function and is there anything else I can take to keep from choking on stomach acid 3 times a night?" And instead I'm spending the night in the hospital.

At least I knew my doc would come by and see me before going over to the office the next morning and I knew that SHE would listen to me!!! And she did. Unfortunately the pain I described meant now it was time to do an ultrasound of the pancreas, liver & right kidney & some more labwork.

Freakin' Guh-Reat!

Thank Heavens, everything came back normal. She had a GI doc come consult with me and he has now prescribed something else for the reflux. Now that I am super excited about!!!

The nurse I had yesterday was not a great multi-tasker. There was a pretty sick patient in the room next to me on Ante-Partum but she wasn't very good at remember things that I still needed...like my freakin' procardia!

Almost an hour after I was supposed to of had it I realized my stomach was a rock. I called her and said, "I'm pretty sure I was supposed to of had my procardia almost an hour ago." To which she said she'd check on that.

Then she comes in the room and I tell her, "Yeah I noticed my stomach is a rock and realized I should have had it already." Her response, "Oh you're on this for pre-term labor?"

Freakin' Guh-Reat!

Okay now I realize that Procardia is a beta blocker. I realize it would be easy to assume I was on it for my blood pressure but considering I'm already on another medication that is exclusively for blood pressure and she had already discussed my history (meaning 2 premature births) that it'd be pretty easy to figure out WHY I was on the procardia.

Then she informed me she'd be right back to hook me up to the monitor because they still need to do that too today. She came back and hour an 15 min later.

She hooked me up and boy I was still contracting like crazy. Then my doc came in a few min later. We discussed the contractions and where to go from here. She agreed that if they spaced out in the next 20-30 min that I'd still be able to go home that night.

Once the nurse finally returned I found out that I got what I consider to be such a great compliment from my doctor. She told the nurses that as long as I was comfortable with going home it was okay. (of course assuming I wasn't contracting every 3 min and still asking to go home, lol) That she fully trusted me and my judgement on the contractions. Her words, "She's not a complainer or a whiner & she hit the nail on the head with the last baby, her instincts have been right on all along & I do believe that if she's concerned about it she's going to say so." That's what the nurse told me anyway.

Man that made me feel good, lol.

I was concerned for a little while though because I was still having frequent (not hard) contractions even 2 hours after I took the Procardia. But eventually they slowed down and all was well. That was my 11th hour scare that would have kept me overnight again!

BUT...then the shift change happened.

Okay you gotta understand that at this point, I'm the only patient on the unit because the other mom was taken to a different floor. Hubby is now up there with both of our children in anticipation of me leaving and Peanut goes to bed around 7 & Little Man about 8. So we're on borrowed time anyway. We KNOW that my 24 hour urine ends at 8pm. About 7:30 the day nurse asks if I need to go one more time and then we'll call it quits because obviously I'm not going to go yet again in 30 minutes. No problem. She tells me once I've done that we can go ahead and get the IV out so that at 8 all I needed to do was sign paperwork to leave.

Enter crabby night nurse.

No, she just cannot handle ANY of that.

She decides that at 8 she will come get urine and then pull the IV. Seems like no big deal, we get everything else ready to go. 7:50 the IV starts beeping because it's done. Day nurse comes in, turns it off and says, "There is no way I'm hooking up another bag now." lol. 8 comes and ol' Crabby calls someone to come take it to the lab. Then says she'll be right back.

8:05, 8:10....I'm getting PISSED. Lady you are not doing ANYTHING else, I already have the ONE prescription I need and all I need to do is sign on ONE dotted line. So I decide it's time to get nasty since I'd only be annoying the nurse and not another patient.

Hubby opens the door and Peanut bolts right out of there down the hall giggling his silly head off all the way as Hubby chases him down to bring him back. We did this over and over again knowing that he was going to be MAD and vocal about it every time we brought him back into the room. I no longer told Little Man to leave his sleepy brother alone...no...they were welcome to make as much noise as they felt like.

I was ranting about how rude it was that she was having us wait for no apparent reason (b/c she never EVER gave us one) when she knew we had two young children that are up past bedtime and we're just wasting time now. She stuck her head in and said, "just a couple more minutes."

WTF? Control happy crazy crabby lady?

Then we encouraged them to make noise, lol. I started pulling all the tape off my IV and contemplated just pulling it out. I mean seriously, who needs a nurse to pull it out?

She FINALLY came in about 8:30 and pulled the last piece of tape and the IV while going over discharge instructions. She said something about, "you may have some bleeding still due to having your cervix checked when you first got here."

I told her, "Nobody touched my cervix and if I have blood you'll see me back here because I've been warned that can mean big bad things since I've got a cerclage!" HAHAHA!

I'm so thankful I didn't have to spend the night with nurse Crabby.