Wednesday, July 1, 2009

And so the stress begins - and hopefully ends...

So Monday I was having some back pains, and pains in my left side. Apparently I convinced myself that I was having an ectopic pregnancy. I'm seriously a worry wart like that. Anyway, I decided to go to the ER just to check everything out. Bad idea!

I got there and they drew some blood to check my HcG levels (pregnancy hormones) and then immediately hooked me up to an IV... even though I tried to refuse the IV on a number of occasions. Here I am on a cot, in a backless hospital gown attached to an IV drip. To make matters worse, my nurse disappeared for two hours! So by the time the IV drip was finished, I had to pee like a racehorse! Which I later learned was the point of the IV so they could do a sonogram.

Anyway, so my nurse never came back to check on me so I kept asking passers by to get my nurse. Embarrassing! I'm sitting there, pulling back that curtain thingy, asking anyone I can see to call my nurse. And they each would come back and say "She said she's coming". Well my friends, she never came. I thought I was about to go into hysteria my bladder was so full and I managed to flag down another nurse who quickly had me sent to the ultrasound department. I probably could have gone a lot sooner if my nurse took the time to return, gee wiz!

Good News: I get the sonogram done and I got to see my little bean! No heartbeat yet, but he was in the right place and all looked well so far.

Bad News: They had to to a transvaginal (ouch) ultrasound since I'm so early in my pregnancy and that was uncomfortable! Never mind the fact that now I am having some pink/tan spotting which I was told is caused by the ultrasound irritating the cervix. Why do I put myself through these things?!?

Bad News that turned to Good News: So after the ultrasound, the ER doctor told me that all looked well except my HcG levels... which were a ridiculous 136,000! Last week at my doctor's office, they were around 2500. What the! So he told me that I had to see my own doctor in the next couple of days. Needless to say I was scared out of my wits. I told my husband and he started getting nervous. We looked up things on the Internet (which is always a bad idea) and saw that high HcG levels are related to down syndrome babies, or molar pregnancies (where the baby never forms and a growth of some sort forms instead b/c of chromosome issues) So that evening I couldn't eat or sleep, seriously worried about that stupid number. I didn't understand how everything could look good on the ultrasound but my numbers could be so off. I decided (after much coaxing from my husband and my message board friends) to call the hospital and ask that they pull my chart again to verify. Guess what? My HcG was NOT 136,000 but 13,600! And that is totally normal! Apparently the Dr. seemed to have seen an extra zero some how.

You know, I should have known something was wrong with the ER Dr. because he had this eye twitch. And I'm not trying to discriminate against eye twitchers but it was so bad that he had to literally put my chart up to his nose to read the results. So no wonder he read it wrong! He probably was seeing double or something! Gosh!

At this point I won't be going out of my way to check anything out because it just stresses me out more! And now I have this annoying spotting thing going on that I didn't have before the ultrasound. It's been two days and it's still there. I'm hoping everything is okay but I was warned by my personal Dr. and the ultrasound technician that this would happen and it was nothing to be alarmed about.

So all's well that end's well! I even got to take home a little ultrasound pic of my little bean! My husband was so excited!

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