Back to the couch you go!

Even though I haven't been nauseated in several days, I promised Sully that I had a cartoon to go along with her all day nausea, so here it is.

While I was at work Friday, I was assigned to labor and delivery again (vs the main OR). Lately though, I've loved being up in that department because recently the CRNAs at our hospital have finally been credentialed to do the epidurals ourselves on the laboring women. We no longer have to be accompanied by an anesthesiologist to do the epidural. It's so satisfying to be able to walk into a patient's room when we've been paged for an epidural, do the procedure ourselves, and see the patient have some pain relief before we even leave. Before that, we would have to wait for the anesthesiologist who was assigned to OB to come from the main OR or outpatient, which sometimes would take 10-15 minutes depending on what they were doing. Meanwhile we were with the laboring patient who was uncomfortable, and even though we are trained to do them, were unable to until recently. The patients seem more satisfied, the L & D nurses do, as well as the OB/Gyn doctors. All in all life is good up there now!

Well, yesterday I had just gotten done with an epidural, went to the restroom and discovered a nice return of the bleeding episodes I have come to know over the past weeks. I left the hospital to go home a little early and rest to see if it would stop. It actually did! My husband and I had plans for the weekend to go to his parent's house in Ohio for their wedding anniversary party that they were having 150 attending at a hall hear their home. We would stop on the way back to celebrate Mother's Day with my family on Sunday, then return home. So we packed up the car, including our dog and set off.

By the time we got to Ohio, the pesky bleeding had make a repeat visit. I emailed my OB doctor, and he answered back telling me to continue monitoring things, and that I had to spend the whole weekend on the couch. As long as the bleeding wasn't greater than X amount per hour, I could be on couch rest and house arrest until Monday. He wanted me to come in Monday for yet another ultrasound and an appointment with him. If anything increased, I should give him a call at home, or a page and meet him in our L & D department for an ultrasound and exam. I was relieved that if it increased I wasn't going to have to go through the dreaded ER on a weekend. We live in a larger metro area, and even though the hospital I work at, and my doctors practice out of is in a suburb, the wait for non life threatening visits in the ER can take hours on a weekend, sometimes several hours.

So back to the couch I go, yet again. As I write this, my husband is with his parents and the rest of his extended family at the hall their having the anniversary party at, and I have assumed the position of couch queen once more (only this time it's not my own couch, and I'm in a different state). The good thing is that my bleeding has slowed down a little, but is still heavier than it has been in previous episodes. The even better thing is that I have my dog with me to keep me company! It's amazing how when you're not at home, and you're by yourself it feels kind of lonely really quickly and time passes much slower. But my dog is snuggled up with me, actually resting her head on the pillow next to me like she's part of the couch or something. My husband has promised to show up in a little bit with some food from their dinner, but more importantly a nice sized slice of cake :-) Priorities, I know...priorities.

It's kind of ironic, the first Mother's Day that I can even come close to considering myself a mother after several years of not even being close to that statement, I'm spending curled up on the couch by myself with my dog as my closest form of companionship. My husband offered to stay home, but after driving all the way here, it seemed a bit silly for him to stay and watch me rest on a couch. Instead of getting high fives and congrats from his extended family on the news of our pregnancy on Mother's day weekend, I'm left worrying if after all this, we're actually going to be able to take a baby home in 20 or 30 something weeks. There just seems to be an eternity worth of space between some of the ladies in labor I was placing epidurals for yesterday at work, and myself almost 10 weeks pregnant. It's odd how the course of pregnancy seems so different from one woman to another. Some women haven't even seen their doctors at 10 weeks gestation, except for some lab work to confirm the pregnancy. I will only be 10 weeks in a few days, but I already feel like my doctor's office is a second home. Maybe I'll just start having my mail and calls forwarded there, what do you think?

For now, I'll keep up my current mantra of one day at a time. Current goal: remain a couch potato and try to keep my sanity until Monday's appointment. Secondary goal: make it to 10 weeks, which is also Monday. See that was easy, just make it to Monday and both goals achieved - presto! Long term goal: get complete placenta previa to move just a little bit in the following weeks so some of this bleeding stops.

I just realized that I could hear a cow mooing from the neighbor's house/yard/field whatever they call it. Being in a rural area is so funny when you're not used to it. Even funnier is the look on my dog's face as she's trying to figure out what strange creature is making that odd noise. She looks a bit bewildered! I've been tagged by KC, and I promise I'll come up with some interesting facts about myself for next post. I just think I made this post way too long already. Well, I hope everyone is having an exciting weekend. Have some excitement for me okay? Thanks again for all of your kind thoughts on Spot's last modeling picture.