Trippin' : The Incident

June 24, 2013

After work I went and did a short workout in the gym then headed home to eat. I was feeling like I still had a good amount of energy so I decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood. As I was finishing up the last of a 2-miler I turned the corner onto our street just a couple of blocks up from the house. All of a sudden I was falling, it all happened way to fast and I was unable to even try to get my knees and hands down to protect my stomach from hitting the pavement. I was stunned, no one was around so I picked myself up and looked to see what on earth I tripped on. Stupid sprinkler head, the tip of my toe must have barley caught the thing. I held my stomach, crying, and walked the rest of the way home. I assessed the damage once home, I had some scrapes on my forearms and knees but I knew I had hit my abdomen on the pavement so I grabbed a granola bar and some water then laid down on my side and waited to feel some movement. I was only feeling some contracting and pain so I called Paul and had him come home from work. Once he got home we loaded into the car and headed for the hospital.

We were taken immediately up to labor & delivery triage, I was asked to give a urine sample and then strapped up to fetal monitors to assess movement and contractions. We got to hang out there for a couple hours. When the nurse came to check she said I was indeed having a few contractions, then had a doctor come in to do an internal exam to check and make sure I wasn't dilating. The doctor let us know that there was no dilation but because of the contractions and falling on my abdomen that she was going to admit me.  

Around 3am we were finally admitted and taken to a room in the labor & delivery ward. I was hooked up to a blood-pressure monitor, fetal monitors, boots that squeeze your legs every few seconds (to prevent clots), an IV for fluids... I had needles and cords coming out of everywhere it seemed. Someone was in to check me every 30min-1hr. If I moved and one of the monitors slightly moved someone was there re-adjusting it. Every time I started to slightly doze someone was there checking this, prodding me, taking my BP or temperature. 

At one point I realized that I couldn't make a fist with my hand and that it hurt to move it. I took it out from under the sheet and it was swollen 2-3 times its normal size. I immediately hit the call button. A nurse came in and looked at my hand, said that it seemed the fluid was backing up and not entering properly (NO KIDDING!). So she took it out and called for an anesthesiologist to come up and start a new line in my other hand. It took hours and hours for me to start to regain the ability to touch finger tip to finger tip and it was quite painful. 

So the day went on, I didn't have any bleeding and the contractions subsided to just being Braxton-Hicks. Finally the doctor came back to re-evaluate me, the baby's heart-rate looked great and with the contractions stopping and no bleeding they were talking about releasing me! 

Around 3pm it was time to blow that joint and head home for some much needed rest! Both of us crashed hard once we laid down. Who knew being in the hospital could be so exhausting. 

From then on I promised to keep the drama to zero and to stay on my feet at all times while walking.