My First Trip to the ER

I was a very cautious child, and, to my knowledge, only had one accident worthy of an ER visit. When I was two, I fell off a stool and slightly fractured my collar bone. But that happened during the day, and I imagine that Mom took me to the doctor and not the ER, since it wasn't obviously broken. Either way, I made it through the next 28 years without an ER-worthy accident or concern. I almost went to the ER six months ago when I had an ovarian cyst that ruptured, but ended up getting worked in to see a doctor in my OB practice instead. So this past Wednesday night was my very first time to be admitted to the emergency room. It wasn't nearly as dramatic a reason as one might think/hope after waiting for 30 years, but whatever :)

For about four hours before we left for the hospital, I was experiencing persisent sharp pain on the left side of my abdomen. The pain reminded me of the ruptured ovarian cyst from earlier this year, and that is what I thought it was. However, in light of the fact that I was 10-weeks pregnant and had not had an ultrasound yet, we began to be concerned that it could be an ectopic pregnancy. As is our usual routine, Marcus looked up ectopic pregnancy in his online medical journals and determined that the timing was right, though I had none of the risk factors (previous ectopic pregnancy, STDs, etc.) We deliberated for a while, and, at my request, Marcus made the call and decided we should go. He called our BFFs, and the missus headed right over to our place to keep Caleb and Ethan.

I checked in to the UAB Hospital ER at 9:45 pm. After the stories I'd heard about ERs in general, I was pleasantly surprised to see almost nobody waiting. They took me back to a consult room almost immediately. Things moved pretty quickly from there. In series, three different people (two nurses and a resident) asked me the same group of questions (Marcus assured me that none of these people would communicate with each other, so not to leave anything out). Then they took some blood and collected a urine sample for labs. Finally, I was taken upstairs for an ultrasound. I couldn't see the screen in the ultrasound room, but Marcus could. The ultrasound tech wasn't allowed to answer even the most basic questions (like, is the baby where it is supposed to be?), but Marcus thought everything looked like it was supposed to.

We went back to the exam room and waited over an hour for the resident to return. I guess they were waiting for my labs to come back. During that hour, the shift must have changed, because we had a new resident by then. By now it was after midnight and I was exhausted. I hadn't been up past 10 pm since I got pregnant, and I am usually asleep 3-4 hours before midnight. When the resident came back in, he told us that all the tests had come back normal. My HCG (pregnancy hormone) levels were very high (perhaps explaining my extra dose of morning sickness?). I also had a nice-sized cyst on my right ovary that might give me some trouble later on. He attributed the pain I was experiencing that night to the round ligament of the uterus, which is stretched by the growing fetus and can cause sharp pain. He also said the ultrasound looked completely normal. All of this was very good news, and now we were just ready to go home and get some sleep! We finally got home at 1:30 am, and Marcus was kind enough to go into work a little late the next morning so I could sleep until 8:00 am.

A couple of days later, I followed up as recommended with my OB. She did a more thorough ultrasound and bloodwork (as part of normal prenatal care), and was equally satisfied that everything looked great. The baby measured a little bigger than expected, so they moved my due date up a few days to April 19th. The big ultrasound when we will (hopefully) find out whether it is a boy or a girl is scheduled for November 18th. I don't know how I am going to wait seven weeks!