Weekend Update

Are you sitting on pins and needles waiting and wondering? Well I didn't make it. Started cramping pretty severely yesterday late afternoon and by 7:30 I knew it was imminent. I had Chris put Liliana to bed and I drove myself to West Sub hospital here in Oak Park. It is only 5 minutes from home. I waited the mandatory ridiculous amount of time to be seen but they seem to keep your hopes up and your body and brain occupied by calling you back to triage then sending you back to the waiting room. Then another lady pops out and they call you back to register then send you back to the waiting room. Finally I was called back to the heart of the ER where the nurses were standing around chatting with the security guard and random patients wandered from their curtained rooms to the bathroom. It was a pretty quiet night in the ER thankfully. Another huge time suck occurred just trying to figure out the hospital gown. Am I the only one that is consistently intimidated by these things? First of all, I have never seen 2 alike. Just when I think I have the style mastered on which way it goes on, where it ties, what extra piece of fabric goes through what random role they present a whole new gown style. The one last night actually required me to create my own sleeves by snapping them together. I had to figure out how to do this though my cramping. When the nurse came in I was still standing there almost naked in just my underwear and sandals holding the limp piece of fabric in my hands almost in tears. She snapped it up for me so I could get dressed.

I relayed my story for the 3rd time that night to the nurse who took my vitals and asked a lot of questions about my situation I think more for her own personal curiosity. Finally, after I was pretty comfortably laying on the examining table under a couple of blankets the doctor came in. She was probably younger than me and seemed very nice but also a little nervous about my situation. Trying to be sensitive and not say the wrong thing while I tried to be as blunt and open about it as I could to hopefully put her at ease but I think I came across as a little cold and removed from the situation. I was. I had to be. I was there for a reason. I fought back crying on 2 occasions already(minus the gown fiasco). One when I was walking back to the examine room and two as I sat there alone in the room waiting, thinking too much and realizing that I was parting with a baby, my baby, chris' baby that had, up until last week, been growing inside of me and even more significantly been forming in my future plans for our lives.

So back to the matter of fact Leigh who was thrilled and relieved when the nervous doc immediately commented upon peering up between the plastic speculum that the "product of conception" (doc's words) was right there. She plucked it out with some forceps and put it in a cup to send up to pathology. I told her how relieved I was because having genetic testing was so important for us. I had explained earlier too the whole reason I came in and needed the tissue collected was for genetic testing. Want to see if miscarriage was a result of triploidy... I actually said Triploidy. She suggested I have my doc call the lab in the morning to tell them exactly what tests they want done. I asked for the direct number and she provided.

She told me I could get dressed. I put my underwear and shorts back on but was having an extremely difficult time because I had a stick in my vein at the crook of my elbow that the nurse left in the event I needed meds or fluids. I was unable to bend my left arm. The nurse returned and asked me to leave a urine sample. Ummmm Okay. I am tempted to go into detail here but I think I will leave it alone. Let's just say with the inability to bend my left arm, my ridiculous gown that was now untied and draping and flowing all over and the aftermath of what was going on (said in whisper tone "down there") it took me close to 5 minutes to leave a urine sample plus add in all the cleaning I had to do after. My apologies to the janitorial staff at West Suburban ER.

Okay, fast forward. I got myself home, happy and relieved that all turned out okay. I got hold of the on call doc at my OB's office who immediately sounded concerned that my sample went to "pathology". He called the number and I got a call back in minutes. He informed me that the sample was not marked for genetic testing and they put it in something that instantly makes genetic testing an impossibility.

I am very upset but not as much as I imagined I would be. He said if there was any result to be concerned about the next step would be to have Chris and I tested so he said we could go ahead and do genetic testing on us anyway. Something to consider. He also gave me a lot of hope about my age and that it is a crap shoot but odds are still in our favor. Yay! So now I am over the hump and can start counting my HCG levels down to zero and get back on the trying to conceive horse.

Bye for now