An eventful week

I am feeling better this week than I was last week, but I'm still not 100%.


We had a small scare on Monday night that resulted in a visit to the OB triage in the Labor and Delivery unit at the hospital. I had done several chores that day and by the time Lewis got home from work, my left side was killing me. I chalked it up to soreness from excessive coughing, but it got to the point where any little touch or pressure on a certain part of my belly resulted in excruciating pain. I had been having Lewis squeeze the sides of my belly together when I coughed to help "keep it in", and it had been helping. But when I asked him to do it that night, I pushed his hand away and started crying because it hurt so bad.


So I called my doctor's office and talked to the answering service and the doctor on call called me back. She gave me the "most helpful advice" by telling me that she couldn't really tell me what it was without examining me. DUH. So she suggested I go to the hospital to get it checked out.


By this point, I did not have the strength to lift myself up off the couch. I had no core muscle strength to pull myself up. And when I finally did it get up, I had to hold the underside of my belly on the left side just so it wouldn't hurt as much.

When we arrived at the hospital they had me put on one of those hideous gown, pee in a cup, and lay on a bed. Then the took my blood pressure and attached 2 monitors to my belly. One was to measure contractions and the other was a fetal heart rate monitor. BB did not like either one squeezing it's already tight quarters. It was squirming like crazy.

We stayed there about 3 hours being monitored and all that came out of it was that the monitor picked up some contractions (which I didn't even feel!), BB was fine, and I had possibly torn an abdominal muscle from all the coughing I had done, which was aggravated by BB's position and my moving around a lot that day.

I was told to take some Tylenol, apply a heating pad if I wanted to, drink lots more water, and to "take it easy" and try not to cough. Trying not to cough is like trying not to breathe. It's hard. But my cough is doing much better, as is the painful spot on my belly. The pain has subsided, but not completely gone. BB has been very good to me lately and has stuck to hanging out on my right side.

We had our normal childbirth class on Tuesday night and we learned some "pain diffusion" techniques. My "pain diffusion" technique will probably be in the form of an epidural. :)

Our baby shower is this Saturday and I am so stoked to see everyone! It is a couple's shower and I am so looking forward to sharing our baby excitement with everyone.