Ultrasound #1

Well, despite my fears, my trip to the ER wasn't as horrible as I anticipated. I waited for only an hour or less to get a bed, and only about 30 minutes to see a doc.

I'm still feeling like poop.

I guess I should explain:

Yesterday, I fainted. Yup. And afterwards, I was feeling pretty out of it - trouble focusing, shakiness, etc. I went home from work, and ended up sleeping for 4 hours. Woke up, sent Ian off to work, ate dinner. Still wasn't feeling great. Crampy, dizzy. And wicked-depressed. Ian phoned, and apparently I worried him a little, because the next thing I know, an ambulance is pulling up to the house.

Ian (my hero) and his partner had pulled themselves out-of-service to come and check me out. The took my blood pressure (100/70 - low), temp (slight fever), BGL (4.5 - normal), HR (80 sitting, 100 standing... not good), and did a 12-lead (normal). Then they both spent 20 minutes trying to convince me to go to the hospital.

My reasons for not wanting to go:
1 - I did not feel it was an emergency. I could call my doc in the morning.
2 - I do not want to further stretch an already over-taxed health care system by adding to the wait times
3 - I despise waiting. The last time I went to the ER, I waited 11 hours.
4 - the season premier of Desperate Housewives was starting in 15 minutes.
5 - no way in hell was I going in an ambulance.

I finally agreed to go, as long as we took the van and not the ambulance. So after much dramatic chatter over their radios to supervisors etc etc, they pulled Ian off-service for the night and off we went.

(My neighbor Shane, saw the ambulance pull up and was going to play a prank on Ian but hiding in the back... but decided to come to our door first and see what was up - which was good, because he agreed to hang out at our place and watch the kids.)

It was a little different this time, compared to previous visits. All of the ER nurses know Ian, so there was a certain amount of respect and friendliness that wasn't there in the past. It was nice.
So anyways, they wanted of course to rule out any cardiac issues, so I had another 12-lead done (normal). Then they wanted to rule out an ectopic pregnancy, so I got to have an ultrasound (amazingly, we even got to see the heartbeat!)... although it was an "ER" ultrasound - which means that they rule out ectopic but don't check for anything else. So, they are going to be calling me today to schedule a more in-depth ultrasound for today.
I also had blood taken, and gave a urine sample - which apparently turned up some irregularities that require further testing.

So, the good news is that the baby seems to be doing fine. The bad news is, my blood pressure is low and causing me to faint.

Today, I'm at work, and totally exhuasted. It was 2am before I got home, and nearly 3 before Ian and I were able to fall asleep. I have a phone conference at 1pm, and after that, I'm outta here.

Ah, always an adventure, parenthood.