A Quick Visit to L&D

I wasn’t doing anything strenuous. I was sitting on the sofa, removing our CDs from their jewel cases and consolidating our collection into two massive folders. It’s a big project — we have about 800 CDs, so the folders get heavy — but I was doing it in the least active way possible.

And then the cramping started.  A dull ache in my lower abdomen, like the beginnings of period pain. I’ve felt it before, but it’s always gone away after 10 minutes or less. After 45 minutes, I called the triage nurse.

I’m 26 weeks’ pregnant, and I’ve had mild cramping that won’t go away. I’ve put my feet up, and lain on my left side, but it’s still persisting. It’s not increasing in intensity, but I have complete placenta previa and my Inhibin levels were a little high, so I’m at risk of pre-term labour. What should I do?

The swift and calm answer was: Go to Labor and Delivery. I’ll call them and let them know you’re on your way.

I do fairly well in a situation that requires fast thinking. I asked DH to take our dog outside to pee, suggested he bring some work with him, and grabbed water, a sweatshirt, snacks. Still, I felt quite upset and updated Twitter. I was so comforted by the well wishes, crossed fingers, and prayers that came our way. Then, a strange thing happened right before we left: as I crossed our bedroom to go to the bathroom, it was like I walked into a cloud of my great-grandmother’s perfume. It put a smile on my face, and I had the thought, It’s going to be okay.

Fifteen minutes later, DH dropped me off at the hospital entrance, where I hadn’t been since my D&C. In fact, L&D is on the same floor where I had my surgery, which was a little weird… (I’ve just had the thought: wouldn’t it be weird if my caesarean were performed in the same operating theatre? Talk about full circle…)

It was a long walk down a linoleum corridor, and I trod gingerly. The thought, ticking time bomb, popped into my head, but I squashed it. I checked in and was shown to a room with lots of equipment. That surprised me. I figured it would be more like an exam room, but no. This had a baby isolette in it and everything!

I gave a urine sample, put on a gown, and DH arrived. The RN strapped two monitors to my belly — one for contractions, one for the baby’s heart rate. Now I know why people describe the baby’s heartbeat as the sound of galloping horses! A Doppler-generated heartbeat sounds like keww-keww-keww… but this thing sounded like galloping hooves. I’ve never heard Baby’s heartbeat for so long, and I loved explaining to DH that the other sounds interrupting its rhythm were her movements.

The doctor came in soon after. I didn’t warm to her, to be honest. After she introduced herself and asked me what was going on, her words were something like, They’ve got you all worried about one contraction. I didn’t think that was very nice of her. I’m sure plenty of first-time moms are anxious, but add miscarriage, infertility, donor eggs, and placenta previa to the mix and, well, I think she could be a bit more sympathetic… I avoided answering her question directly by telling her that I called the triage nurse at the clinic and that it was she who told me to come to L&D…

It was clear I wasn’t having contractions, but the doctor still wanted to run some tests. She took cultures for Bacterial Vaginosis and Group Strep B, and tried to do an ultrasound on my cervix. I say tried, because she was having trouble measuring its length — it can be tricky with placenta previa. She brought in a colleague, “The Grand Master,” as she described him, but he couldn’t measure it either. He asked me if my cramps felt like labour pains. I tried not to be irritated, but what I wanted to say was, How the fuck would I know? Does a miscarriage compare? Maybe he saw the frown on my face, maybe he remembered primigravida* from my chart, but he didn’t let me answer the question.

[* Is this inaccurate? This isn’t my first pregnancy. Or do doctors use primigravida also to describe someone who made it to a heartbeat stage in a second pregnancy?]

Despite trying to get the on-call ultrasound technician to measure the length of my cervix, they couldn’t. But they were satisfied that it had been well over 4cms long at my last ultrasound a couple of weeks ago.

Anyway, the end result is that I have Bacterial Vaginosis, which is pretty common in pregnancy. I was surprised because I had none of the symptoms! It’s a simple imbalance of the vaginal flora and fauna, but it can cause preterm labour so I’m very relieved we caught it! A two-week course of antibiotics will clear it up.

The doctor thinks my cramping wasn’t caused by any one thing, rather a cocktail of events. I am on even stricter orders to take it easy. God, I feel so fucking useless… Anyway, I guess a visit to L&D falls under more Pregnancy Achievements Unlocked!