Just another manic Monday

I need to learn to not work on Mondays anymore.  I go through this every stinking week.  I'm not sure if it's really more of a pain or if any day you start your work week is like this, but I'm willing to try something new!

 

I have a patient today who is one of the resident's wife.  Keep in mind we probably have hundreds of residents at this hospital, so that doesn't make you any more special than any of my other patients.  There was a whole big issue about how her treatments were ordered every 4 hours but she wanted them every 5 hours and yesterday the RT catered to that.  I don't have the time for that today.  I explained to her that she could have her treatment at the time I was in the room (which was 4 hours from her last treatment), or I could go do the rest of my first rounds and try to make it back to her afterwards, but I couldn't guarantee her that it would be exactly 5 hours from her last treatment.  She wasn't thrilled, but she didn't seem to upset by it (she is obviously one of those girls that are used to getting her way though, she gave me one of those looks like "How can you not be doing exactly what I want you to do???")  I get a call later from the head nurse of the unit who is enraged because this patient is saying that she came out of the shower and I walked in the room for her treatment.  She asked me if I could wait a minute while she got dressed and I said no and stormed out of the room.  It was almost humorous how incredibly falsified her story was. 

 

But it gets better.  She then calls her husband, the resident, who is in surgery at the time.  He leaves surgery and goes to my department to speak with my supervisor.  Seriously?  Luckily, without even knowing my side of the story they backed me up but the patient did request that I not be allowed in her room again.  Fine by me.  I don't think I could have handled seeing her again.  It did make me feel horrible though that someone else had to take her and deal with her for the rest of the day.

 

On a lighter note, we picked out the nursery furniture yesterday!  Here's the link if you want to check it out, it's the second set, the Isabella.

http://www.buybuybaby.com/babyFurnitureSets1.asp?

I had narrowed it down to about 5 sets and we went back to finalize the decision and this set had been put on clearance because it was discontinued.  Made that decision much easier!

 

I'm going to go back to work and try to survive the next hour.  Actually, I'm just going to sit back and feel Alice playing around and get lost in my own little world :-)

Day of Alice

I'll start off by saying that EVERYTHING IS FINE.  She's still as perfect as can be and I'm...well, we all know I'm perfect ;-)  I know JM was updating people with bits and pieces here and there, so I thought I'd get the whole story out so everyone's on the same page!

Side note, for those who don't know, we have decided on a name.  We're naming her after JM's grandmother and my great grandmother, so it's Alice Violet.  Her nickname is after a girl who is very dear to me, so we've been calling her Ali.

Baby girl did get to have some attention today, though.  Late last week I was having some sharp little pains while I was at work.  To be honest, I didn't think a whole lot of them.  I worked overtime 2 weeks straight and I figured Ali was just telling me that she didn't appreciate 96 hours of me being on my feet in 2 weeks.  (I did try to explain to her that she would appreciate it when she had diapers to wear, etc.).  They came back occasionally during the long weekend, but then I felt them again yesterday while I was at work.  I knew they weren't contractions because I get those 'dehydration cramps' (that's what I call them at least), but they are more like little sharp pricks.  My personal opinion was that they were 'growing pains'.  My ligaments are stretching and growing and I figured that was what was happening.  That considered, I work the next 2 days and 'given my history', I decided to call the doctor's office today just to hear them tell me that it's growing pains and totally normal at this point in the pregnancy.

I called this morning and told them what was going on, then they asked if I've felt the baby moving lately.  I hadn't, which is ok at this point in the pregnancy (24 weeks).  The books even say you can go days without feeling them at this point because their movement is unorganized and sporadic.  This must have set off some alarm with the nurse because she had me come straight into the hospital and be admitted for an NST.

Of course, on the way there I had to google 'NST' and learned that it's a Non Stress Test for the baby.  The point of it is to see if there are any drops in heart rate or changes in movement to indicate a possibly oxygenation issue (such as the placenta is pushing against the baby or the umbilical cord is around the neck).  It also said that these tests aren't done until 28 weeks because the movement of the baby before that is too unpredictable, so I was a little confused.

We arrived at the hospital and were admitted and taken to the labor and delivery triage.  Our nurse ended up being a girl I played softball with in high school.  She questioned why they were doing this test and let us know that more than likely, it wouldn't show anything, it was just too early for that kind of test.  But she hooked me up anyways and we monitored Ali's heartbeat and movement for 30 minutes.  I had to click a button every time I felt her move...and man, was she going nuts.  Some of her kicks were so loud on the monitor that JM jumped!  Not sure what got into the little girl, but she was definitely making her presence known.

After the 30 minutes, Krystal (our nurse) came in and rearranged the monitor on my belly and took my pulse.  I figured she must have noticed something, and sure enough we heard her on the phone with my doctor saying that the heart rate dropped from where it was holding steady (140-ish) to the 80's for over 2 minutes.  She had taken my pulse to make sure that the machine hadn't just picked up my heartbeat for some reason, but mine was in the 90's.  Krystal told us later that you can expect drops for even up to a minute, but 2 minutes was something that we might as well get checked out since we were there. 

My doctor had a high risk delivery team sent over (which took about 2 hours...I'm still very sore for being hooked up and not moving for that long!!!), but it was worth it.  First the high risk delivery tech came in and did a VERY detailed ultrasound.  She even checked the blood flow in all parts of the baby and everything was perfect.  The umbilical cord was in the appropriate place and flowing correctly.  She even showed us that if there was any doubt before that it was definitely a girl, it was a sure thing now.  Then the high risk delivery doctor came in and went through a brief ultrasound with us and checked everything out.  She was so sweet, she kept saying everything was 'perfect' and looked 'awesome'.  She was one of those people who hummed, but it was a lullaby type song and it was so incredibly soothing!  Then she even told us to have a blessed day, which I always like. 

We did get a better look at Ali's face, and although I'm sure I'm biased, I have to say, she is awfully pretty already :-)

But in the end, they could not find any reason for the decel (heart rate drop) or for my pains.  My personal opinion now is that it's either growing pains, or she just moves so much she's pressing up against other parts of me and I'm feeling the repercussions.  She did not stop moving once during the ultrasound, they even mentioned again how active she is for this age.

Speaking of where she stands, she is measuring 1 lb 11 oz.  According to the books she should be 1 lb 6 oz now.  Obviously she's my daughter, overachieving already ;-)  It even puts her in the 90th percentile for size!  Yikes!!!  Everything they measured showed that she's measuring 25-26 weeks, but my due date is staying the same since babies grow at different rates, she may slow down in a couple of weeks. 

That was our day in a nutshell.  We got a few more pictures of her to put on the fridge and the reassurance that everything's fine and me working so much isn't harmful for her yet.  We were starving and stopped at Costco for shopping and lunch.  Side note, if you want a REALLY good ice cream treat, try the $1.50 hand dipped ice cream bar at Costco's food court.  Amazing.  They'll even dip it in a nut mixture if you want.  My belly was so happy!  I even got JM to go to the pool with me (and get rained on for a few minutes) to stretch out my back and let my belly relax. 

I'm off to walk the dog and go to bed early.  I work the next 2 days :-(  Hope everyone had a good hump day!

Ultrasound pics