Wednesday, August 29, 2012

What A Difference A Week Makes

I have been mysteriously absent from my blog and all websites for the last week.  Today is my first day back at work.  Where have I been, you ask?  Was I on a cruise to Puerto Vallarta?  Panning for gold in them thar hills?  Auditioning for Ruby Revue Burlesque?  Sadly, all no.

Last Tuesday I had to call my OB and have them squeeze me in for an appointment.  There have been some bleeding issues that made me panic and gave me an ulcer so I thought perhaps I should let the professionals sort this out instead of consulting Dr. Google, which I did anyway.  So I saw the only doctor at my practice that I have not met in over six years being a patient there.  I’ve only met one of the others once and that was because he delivered my second child.  Saw him for all of fifteen minutes and never again.

Anyway, the doctor whom I saw was very nice and the only female doctor there.  She tried to explain to me what she believed was going on in layman’s terms, the simplest words she could find.  Metaphors and references to overripe fruit were made.  I don’t know if she thought I was stupid or if she was just so accustomed to having to talk like this to patients.  Finally she said ‘subchorionic hematoma.’  Oh!  OK, that I got.  Why couldn’t she have just said that to begin with?  It was described as a pocket of blood that forms when the embryo implants.  Wow, I summed that up way better than she did.

When I was pregnant with Sully, my least favorite person at my OB’s office told me that I had a subchorionic hematoma and sent me to Atlanta to a perinatologist to check on it.  That perinatologist told me, with unconcealed disgust, that I didn’t have one and never did.  That is why I no longer care for the woman who told me that.  Well, lo and behold now I actually had one and it made itself known.

The doctor told me no heavy lifting, no overexerting myself.  So I told her about how much I work out and what my job entails and she wanted to take me out of work until my next appointment.  That was a month away.  No dice.  So she took me out for a whole week.  I had a note so it was legitimate.  I took the note back to work and went to pick up my kids from school.  My coworker was none too thrilled with my news, asking just what was so important that I had to be out for a whole week.  So I replied “Pregnancy complications.  You want some more details?”  He declined, acting as though he was just asking an innocent question and how dare I get offended.

This had never happened before.  All of my pregnancies have always been pretty non-descript, nothing to write home about.  I work until I physically just can’t anymore and then about a week later I have a baby.  Six weeks after that I go back to work.  Like clockwork.  So, naturally, this whole thing stunned me.  It’s like, you’re pregnant, you’re pregnant, you’re pregnant, you’re BLEEDING while pregnant…Whoa, rewind that please!  The first time it happened I immediately started coping for the impending miscarriage.  How could you bleed that much and not miscarry?  After a day it was fine.  One week later, here we go again.  That’s when I went to the doctor.  Then they took me out of work.

It would be nice to be a stay at home mom, but I know it’ll never happen.   Not when a fair share of the bacon being brought is brought by me.  I could even settle for a work at home mom, if some big website stumbled upon my blog and just HAD to HAVE my wit for their site.  It could happen.

But I’m back at work now and cleared to work out again.  It sucks not being able to work out.  Confession: I let my heart rate go over 140 beats a minute.  Sorry, I’m not going to stop just because I got pregnant.  They can have my Zumba when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.  There’s an image.

Have you had pregnancy complications that freaked you out?

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