For the record, I'm very good a panicking. I can freak with the best of them. If I could figure out a way to get paid for overreacting, I would be all set. Which is my way of attempting to explain how I wound up at the Lenox Hill emergency room on Friday.
(No fears - everything is absolutely fine. Baby's great, I'm great... albeit a touch humiliated. Nothing new there.)
Friday afternoon I was hanging out with my little three-year-old friend, having lunch, shooting the shit, when I noticed that Possum wasn't doing his usual afternoon squirm. When I thought about it, I hadn't felt him move all morning. Or at all.
Now Possum is known for many things (his charm, his wealth, his way with the ladies) but one thing he is not known for is being still. He's a very, VERY active baby with a fairly predictable time clock, so something was definitely weird. I tried shaking him - no response. I grabbed some orange juice - a sure-fire baby waker-upper - and chilled on the couch for a half an hour. Nothing. I grabbed a sugar packet and downed that, Pixie-stick style.
Not even a flutter.
At this point I was starting to get a little twitchy. I called the doctor and asked if I could come in, just to make sure things were cool - at which point I was instructed, in no uncertain terms, to get my ass to the emergency room.
A doctor with fear in his voice - that shit will motivate you quick.
I dropped everything, called the parents, grabbed the kid (his mom met us there) and got my ass to Lenox Hill. I would love to say that I was a bastion of calm but c'mon, we know me. I'm not saying I went apeshit on the staff at one point but I might've gone apeshit on them. (Rule #1: When a pregnant woman thinks her baby is dying, don't ask her to fill out insurance forms.) Needless to say, they hooked me up to the monitor and thankfully, wonderfully, blessedly, we heard the heartbeat.
Turns out, I've got a cold. And because I've got a cold, I took two Benedryl. And although Benedryl is perfectly safe for pregnant women, it tends to make their babies a little groggy. Or in my case, REALLY groggy. Even when the doctor tried prodding him with the sonogram wand Possum played possum, but after a few minutes he started to squirm - much to his mother's relief.
So what did I learn from all this?
- Ix-nay the Benedryl-ay. (Being able to breathe is not worth the panic.)
- Don't call your poor mother weeping that you've killed your baby with antihistamines. (Sorry mom.)
- Three-year-olds really like wheelchairs.
But I've saved the best for last. As the doctor was looking at Possum's readout he goes, "How far along is this baby?"
"29 weeks."
"Really? I would have guessed he was much further along than that. We don't normally see babies this advanced."
"REALLY?!"
"Yes. He's very advanced, both physically and neurologically."
Of course Matt is convinced that we're giving birth to a mutant genius, ala Professor X from the X-Men. But hopefully with more hair.
4 comments:
Now, to me it sounds like you reacted fairly appropriately. (Says One Who Worries About Everything) I would have considered over reaction if say at the first thought of the baby hasn't moved, you dropped everything and demanded an instant sonogram. But you took reasonable steps first. An baby not moving for extended periods of time is some scary shit. So I am glad that all is well and he was just having a little (ok big) benadryl nap. It is amazing what can get through to the kids in utero and breastmilk. I stopped taking Percoset as soon as I was released from the hospital after #2, against all kinds of medical advice, but it was freaking me out that to get the child to wake up to eat(which had to happen every three hours without fail to get rid of the jaundice) I had to practically dunk her in cold water. (Strip down and rub all over with a baby wipe, and sometimes that wasn't even doing the trick)
Hopefully possum is just genius and the mutant part gets skipped over.
Oh my goodness, sorry you had such a scare!
I scared myself pretty good too, but it was before I could feel them move so I had no basis really for the fear, oh yeah I'd been riding in a car for hours trying to block sunlight from the belly just sure that I'd cooked them somehow. And I felt crappy, well crappier than I normally felt that first trimester. I had an appointment the next day so I waited, I guess I wasn't scared enough. Fortunately all was well.
Maybe he'll be able to fly, or zap mastitis boobs with his laser eyes.
:)
I think you reacted perfectly normally. Up to and including hollering at people that want insurance forms filled out when you are having a crisis.
Hell, I had my own scare with Logan a couple months back. The good news is that docs take pregnant hunches/feelings/scares dead serious and don't brush you off. Sometimes all the warning you get is the little voice in the back of your head.
I'm really glad everything is OK.
Oh and I'm all for mutant genius action!
Then again, I named mine Logan. Heh!
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