Hospital Jail

So, it's no surprise that bleeding means another night in the hospital. A few days ago, I woke up from a nice mid-morning nap to find... well... more than "spotting" but less than "flow". I grabbed the doppler, was flooded with relief to hear the little guy's heart banging away, and called my OB.

I am sooo glad I got the doppler back, by the way, since it is really the only thing between me and full-blown panic at this point. I suppose I could just get a stethoscope, but I like the digital readout and the fact that I can compare the sounds to what I'm used to hearing.

Anyway, she did an ultrasound and an hour of monitoring in her office and decided that I was having too many contractions and needed to go for overnight monitoring until they subsided. Which I didn't mind - better safe than sorry and all that.

The contractions were the same sort of tightening that I've had for a while now, so I hadn't thought much of it. But at the hospital they were getting bigger and closer together, so my OB finally ordered terbutaline, which shut them right down. Apparently, it sometimes just takes one dose to calm the muscle and sort of reset things. The theory is that my little tag of placenta gets irritated and then it bleeds and the whole uterus gets irritated and that causes contractions. Obviously, the main problem would be if the placenta gets so irritated that it starts to detach. And of course, the thing that is most likely to irritate it is Mr. Baby himself, mashing it with his (relatively) gigantic feet.

So, a night in the hospital isn't so bad, right? Except that when I called my husband to tell him what was going on and ask him to bring me my computer and my already-packed bag, he said he was "really, really sick" and didn't want to go out in the rain and into a germy hospital and that it was exhausting enough that he had to pick up our daughter and figure out dinner, etc. etc., and that he would just pick me up in the morning.

Um.... really? For one thing, I hadn't eaten anything except oatmeal at about 7:00 am. And even though the hospital looks kind of like a fancy spa, the food is the same old soggy bland stuff that any hospital serves. I pointed this out to him, and he told me to order take-out. Yes, that's right - my husband told his pregnant wife, in the hospital for the third time, that he wasn't going to drive the twelve blocks to see her, much less bring her anything like decent food or a toothbrush.

I am pretty sure I will never forgive him. I mean, I won't hold it against him actively, but it will go into the general understanding of how our relationship works. And the thing is, he's basically a good guy - I am always caught off guard by his detachment from me when I need him the most. I mean, it's not like I was asking for much.

And to make matters worse, the on-call doctor never showed up the next morning. I was supposed to be released if the contractions hadn't come back, but nobody would officially let me go. By lunchtime I told the nurses that I was done, I took off the monitors and got dressed - there was a hep-lock in my arm, but no IV, so at least I could get my sleeve on. I called my husband and told him to come immediately.

I hadn't had any real food (graham crackers the night before, a soggy pancake and old lukewarm coffee for breakfast - the ideal pregnancy diet!) for almost 30 hours. I hadn't brushed my teeth or taken a shower. I felt like I was in jail. The nurses made some half-hearted excuses for the doctor, but it was pretty obvious that if the on-call isn't your own doctor and you're basically fine, there isn't hope for much consideration. I asked if I could just take the hep-lock out myself, so they paged the doctor and I was released over the phone. Why did I have to wait until noon for that?

My husband did at least come to pick me up, but he wouldn't come up to L&D. A wheelchair guy took me down to the lobby - my husband had somehow managed to gather the strength to drag his carcass from the ten-minute parking spots right outside the door to the seating area inside.

I am telling you, I have a lot of sympathy for anyone with a horrible respiratory illness. I've had bronchitis (several times), whooping cough and mycoplasmic pneumonia. I worked on a master plan for the redevelopment of a major respiratory hospital, including interviews with long-term patients and staff. I know how weak and awful you can feel when you can't breathe properly. But I also know that if you're doing that badly you wouldn't be able to go watch basketball with the guys later that day.

I'm just focussing on the fact the baby is doing well, that I am past 34 weeks now, that in another week and a half my OB won't do anything to stop my contractions, and that I may have a chance to raise a boy to be a considerate and compassionate man. The kind who would bring his hospitalized wife a spinach salad with grilled chicken, maybe.