August 21, 2009- Bean’s first ER trip
Less than one day after being in my doctor’s office, we had our first scare. I experienced some bleeding and called my doctor’s office for advice. Since they were getting ready to close for the weekend, they recommended that we go to the ER to get checked out. Talk about stressful. Jim and I headed to Toledo Hospital as soon as I got home from work and spent the next 3 ½ hours there. What a great place to spend a Friday night! After finally getting back into a room and going through an exam, the nurse practitioner told us we were going to get an ultrasound. I was overjoyed but scared to death. We weren’t expecting to get an U/S until much later in the pregnancy and I really wanted to the reassure of knowing bean was growing like he/she was supposed to. The nurse told me that the u/s machine in the ER was not that strong of a machine and might not be able to pick up the baby, due to how early I was. She put it on my stomach and spent a few agonizing moments looking for something. She wasn’t able to find anything and I could tell she was trying to keep a happy face for my sake. After peeing in a cup and getting blood drawn, they confirmed that I was in fact pregnant (duh) and sent me up for a formal u/s. After taking a ride on the bed through the hospital, I finally arrived at the u/s. Jim was not able to come with me for this part, but thankfully I had a very nice nurse who wheeled me up to the room and joked around with me. When the u/s tech came in, she started with an abdominal u/s. I wasn’t able to see the screen (and she wasn’t saying anything), so I was laying there in terror. Next they did another u/s (which I won’t describe) that was much more uncomfortable. Again, the tech didn’t say anything. I was with her for about 20 minutes and didn’t know what was happening. When she was done, she looked at me and said “6 weeks, 3 days”. When I asked if that meant everything was alright, she said that only the doctor could interpret the results, but that she had seen a heartbeat (only one!) and I was measuring 6 weeks, 3 days. I almost burst into tears out of relief. They wheeled me back down to my room and I was able to tell Jim, who I’m sure was freaking out just like I was. After waiting for another half hour, we got the results of the bloodwork and everything was fine. They sent me home with the diagnosis of “threatened miscarriage”, which they assured me they give to anyone that comes in with bleeding. I was given directions to come back in if the bleeding got worse or if I had cramping along with it. Thankfully, the bleeding had completely stopped by the next day.