[This week marks the anniversary of my pregnancy saga, so for the next few days I'm going to take some time to reflect on what happened last year and how it's affected me since.]
Last year on October 5, I went to the hospital and I didn’t go home for eight days. For eight long, scary, crazy days, I lived in the hospital. Here’s part of my story.
For two days I’d been on mandated bed rest – sitting on the couch, making lists and plans, and finishing projects for the job that was no longer mine. On Thursday, I started feeling some heartburn, a symptom they’d warned me about on Tuesday, a feeling I hadn’t had during my pregnancy. I wasn’t worried. After all, it was probably just the power of suggestion. And besides, my friend, Mandy, had terrible heartburn during the entirety of both her pregnancies. I could hardly complain if it started in my third trimester.
But by Thursday night, I was so uncomfortable that I couldn’t sleep. I finally fell asleep for a couple hours on the couch, but Friday morning came too quickly.
To compound my physical discomfort, Friday was the day I had to train my manager on Quark Xpress, the software I used to lay out our monthly newsletter, a project she would take over in my absence. So, sitting on my couch with my laptop, my cell phone and a program that allowed me to see her work computer screen on my home computer screen, I tried to train my 60-year-old manager on a software program.
My manager is a lovely lady. But that afternoon really tried my patience. We were on the phone – her trying to figure out which questions to ask and me watching her painstakingly move text boxes and photos into place – for over an hour. By the time we got off the phone, the heartburn was bad. And the Rolaids weren’t helping.
I complained to my husband, but he thought the same thing I feared – that I was just a big baby. That the shooting pain in my chest and side was normal heartburn that other, stronger women just deal with. He was sorry I felt bad, but he had to leave for work.
I thought about calling my doctor (they’d said if I had any of a list of symptoms – including bad heartburn – to call), but by then, it was after 5. I told myself to just suck it up and deal.
Thankfully – God and His mysterious ways – my friend, Amy, called just then to check in. When I vented to her about my heartburn and being after doctor’s hours, she reminded me that I could still call the office and the on-call doctor would call me back. I didn’t want to bother anyone, but she reminded me that this is what they’re paid for. As I thought about how much I’d already paid out of pocket for this pregnancy, I decided she was right.
So I called.
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God and His mysterious ways — yay! :)
Did you notice how I got caught up, btw? Told you. :P