Baby is a head of lattuce today apparently! Moves regularly and strongly, and I think all is progressing well. But let me tell you about the bit of drama we had a the beginning of the week...
Sunday was a great day, first sunday back from the holidays at my parents' and Mike and I enjoyed a lot of time together...while Oliver took is usual nap after lunch. On monday I wasn't feeling the best, my stomach was aching a bit, started feeling some tightening in the belly. By the time we picked up Oliver at the creche I thought my tummy was just one big ball of marble. I got home, took a shower, drank plenty of water, rested on the bed. By 8 pm I thought better to give the hospital a call, jus in case these contractions are not normal. They told me to go in, I took a taxi and went. This is the most difficult thing about our situation, we don't have family here that can be at hand, we don't really have a baby sitter organised either and in any case is not like you can have someone on call all the time. So Mike stays home with the baby and I go into the hospital. I was seen straight away, in L&D, lovely midwives and doctors took excellent care of me, I was not dilated or effaced, and the contractions while I felt them, were not threatening. The uterus was measuring right for dates, they gave me steroids shots just in case the baby decides to come a bit early (please not SO early!) and kept me overnight. The HB was often monitored and it was always great, by the time it was morning I was back to my old self. Dr. W. came to see me, he thought they were probably just very strong Braxton Hicks that he said are perceived more in following pregnancies but not to be shy and go in again if I worry. I asked about taking anything to relax the uterus, his position is that there's very little that works and taking it easy, drinking plenty and having done the steroids is about all that one can do. I trust him deeply, read a bit of papers myself and I have to say I agree. I also found out Italy is moving in this direction too, while they would have loaded you with drugs in this situation a few years ago, now they don't anymore. All has been quiet since, I'm glad I went in and a bit of surprise was to meet some of the midwives I taught back in September! They remembered me and I got the royal treatment without a doubt!
I'm seeing Dr. W on monday for my scheduled appointment, I guess we are gong to check for proper growth, fluids and all that, I'm hopeful all will be good.
It's three days I have started sneezing, then the cough started about yesterday, I have not been sleeping much at all as I can't find a position in which I can breathe that is comfortable...Then this cold must have affected my trachea somehow, I feel as if it's smaller (like having a lump in your throat), it's not sore, but my voice is really low...and I'm back lecturing on monday!!! Not good...let's hope this is the worst day and will start improving tomorrow...
The other big news is that we are trying to transition Oliver to sleeping without the side protection in his cot. It's not going too well at all, he keeps getting up and actually seems relieved when we give up and turn the bed around so that the opening is against the wall and it's like his old bed. Any tips are appreciated! The new room won't arrive for another couple of weeks I think, and I wonder if he's just not ready yet.
We are every day amazed at the number of words he has and is able to put together in both languages...last night he melted my heart when I asked him "Quanto bene ti vuole la mamma?" (Do you know how much mamma loves you?) and he answered "Tanto cosi'!" (This much!) which is what I would always tell him while hugging him tightly...but I never thought he'd picked up on it! I had tears in my eyes...
Teaching term starts next week, I have all my teaching at the beginning of the semester (should be over in 6 weeks) but I better have some contingency plan in case I don't get to finish. I have to say, my colleagues are amazing, I feel very loved and supported all around!
Better go and get some tissue...this nose is like a tap!
Showing posts with label Hospital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hospital. Show all posts
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
The reason why
I had a very long day yesterday, we had an event in college which I had to attend and I was on my feet for hours. I went to the toilet and had a gush of blood. Oh for God's sake... couldn't leave, had to wait for about an hour till the event was over. I went to the toilet another couple of times and no more blood.
When I finally got home at about 9pm I had made up my mind that I was going to get checked out. This was no longer spotting. Of course I also used the doppler to see if Phoenix was still with us and thankfully I found very quickly a nice HB. Mike called me a taxi and off I went. I suppose this is one of those situations when not having any support is a bit of a problem, but we managed. I got to the hospital just after 10, the taxi driver was a lovely man with 5 children of his own and was very reassuring. I checked in and was told it was going to be about an hour as there were a few people ahead of me. Ah well, that's no biggie (read: I know the baby is alive!). But I was actually seen at about 1.30 am!! The doctor on the floor was called twice for two emergency c-sections...anyway, she was lovely, gave a scan which showed a healthy sleeping Phoenix with a perfect HB and nothing wrong at all, no SCH, no bleeding, nice placenta etc. She then suggested to have a look at the cervix to see if there was something obvious (my paranoia was of course that all the coughing had shortened the cervix, causing the bleeding), and there was!! It is called ectropion and it's a common occurrence in pregnancy. Practically a bit of the uterine lining start covering the cervical canal and appears through the cervix. This easily bleeds. Totally benign and nothing to worry about. I want to thank my ciber friend Gen who kept me company via Whatsapp during the wait and got me thinking I also wanted to eat fish! I got home and in bed at 3.45 am. Needless to say when the alarm went off before 7 I thought I had just closed my eyes...so today and tomorrow I'm taking it easy!
Monday, July 16, 2012
And I'm back!
Hellooooo! I missed you all so much, though I followed your stories while I was away (not always could comment!) I will have a series of posts coming, including travelling with an 18 month old, Fabulous Cali, Cyber Friends, Apple Bug and The 10 days on my own. So stay tuned!
In this one post, I want to tell you about the scariest moment with Oliver yet.
As I landed in London from Boston on Saturday at about 6am local time, I texted Mike to let him know I had a nice flight and asked how the night went (rough time with Oliver in my absence, teething, general unsettled child, fever, indigestion etc in the space of 10 days). His text back was (with some editing to make it clear) "Don't worry- in the hospital. Oliver had a fever of 40.4 (104.7 F) and abdominal pain (gas). Taken chest X-ray & bloods, results in 1hour. Oliver sleeping. Temp 37 (normal). He had woken due to pain in his belly and was inconsolable - hard belly. Now the belly is soft again."
Now, what would you have done? Panic of course. My connection wasn't for another 5 hours (five hours!!) but I just bought a new ticket with a different airline which got me to Dublin at about 10 am. I took a taxi and went straight to the hospital. I had not slept at all, but the adrenaline at this stage was so high it was keeping me going. By the time I got there, we knew bloods were not too bad, with a couple of values out of range indicating either a bacterial or a viral infection. It was not a surgical problem and the X-rays were clear. I sent Mike home (he was the shadow of himself at this stage) and never left Oliver out of my sight. He was sleeping, and so so small and pale in the bed. We had a single room with a bed for a parent to stay the night. When he woke later, he was so happy to see me, but too weak to stand up, my heart was in pieces. I fed him a bit while he was lying down and very slowly he got a bit of strength back. His fever spiked again though not as high as during the night, but the consultant suggested a spinal tap to rule out more dangerous conditions and also to avoid giving him antibiotics without a real need for him. I was completely on board. I assisted during the procedure and was able to hold Oliver in position while singing to him. It was over very quickly and I am sure it would have been much worse for me if I had waited outside the room. As they collected the fluid I saw immediately it was clear, and relaxed straight away. The consultant brought the sample down to the lab himself for micro-analysis and very quickly let me know that we had nothing to worry about, it was definitely something viral and we just had to keep his temp down. Oliver bounced back very quickly, had a good night sleep (a part for the nurse taking his temperature every 2 hours), no more fever and by Sunday morning he was climbing everything available in the room! When the doctor came around, he was very happy that the worse was over and sent us home! My house never felt so safe and comfortable, my bed, oh my bed! I missed you so much! And so the last couple of days between the jet lag, the sleep deprivation, the worrying and the relief, felt like they lasted a week.
Oh, by the way, I have started my FET preparation in the midst of all this too!
In this one post, I want to tell you about the scariest moment with Oliver yet.
As I landed in London from Boston on Saturday at about 6am local time, I texted Mike to let him know I had a nice flight and asked how the night went (rough time with Oliver in my absence, teething, general unsettled child, fever, indigestion etc in the space of 10 days). His text back was (with some editing to make it clear) "Don't worry- in the hospital. Oliver had a fever of 40.4 (104.7 F) and abdominal pain (gas). Taken chest X-ray & bloods, results in 1hour. Oliver sleeping. Temp 37 (normal). He had woken due to pain in his belly and was inconsolable - hard belly. Now the belly is soft again."
Now, what would you have done? Panic of course. My connection wasn't for another 5 hours (five hours!!) but I just bought a new ticket with a different airline which got me to Dublin at about 10 am. I took a taxi and went straight to the hospital. I had not slept at all, but the adrenaline at this stage was so high it was keeping me going. By the time I got there, we knew bloods were not too bad, with a couple of values out of range indicating either a bacterial or a viral infection. It was not a surgical problem and the X-rays were clear. I sent Mike home (he was the shadow of himself at this stage) and never left Oliver out of my sight. He was sleeping, and so so small and pale in the bed. We had a single room with a bed for a parent to stay the night. When he woke later, he was so happy to see me, but too weak to stand up, my heart was in pieces. I fed him a bit while he was lying down and very slowly he got a bit of strength back. His fever spiked again though not as high as during the night, but the consultant suggested a spinal tap to rule out more dangerous conditions and also to avoid giving him antibiotics without a real need for him. I was completely on board. I assisted during the procedure and was able to hold Oliver in position while singing to him. It was over very quickly and I am sure it would have been much worse for me if I had waited outside the room. As they collected the fluid I saw immediately it was clear, and relaxed straight away. The consultant brought the sample down to the lab himself for micro-analysis and very quickly let me know that we had nothing to worry about, it was definitely something viral and we just had to keep his temp down. Oliver bounced back very quickly, had a good night sleep (a part for the nurse taking his temperature every 2 hours), no more fever and by Sunday morning he was climbing everything available in the room! When the doctor came around, he was very happy that the worse was over and sent us home! My house never felt so safe and comfortable, my bed, oh my bed! I missed you so much! And so the last couple of days between the jet lag, the sleep deprivation, the worrying and the relief, felt like they lasted a week.
Oh, by the way, I have started my FET preparation in the midst of all this too!
Thursday, December 8, 2011
It was no chickenpox
We had some week. Remember I said Oliver was sent home from the crèche as they suspected he had chickepox? Well, I wasn't so sure it was as the little spots were very few and only on his legs (just a couple on is arms) and didn't really develop and weren't itchy either. But Oliver was miserable. By the time I came home from the trip to Spain he was waking up every couple of hours and crying in his sleep. On sunday he had spiked a fever which came down with ibuprofen but then on monday he had stopped eating and drinking. The spots had already crusted over by then and I was really worried he was dehydrated. We called our doctor and went in right away. He still had a temperature when we got there and she was concerned about his cough as his chest didn't sound right. She looked at the spots, eliminated chickenpox almost immediately, but the combination of these spots, plus the fever and now lack of appetite and cough was a first class ticked to the pead A&E. Off we went we our precious cargo to the hospital. He looked so so small in the normal size bed and was really tired so the paed had no problem in checking him out.
She confirmed the chest sounded a bit crackly and sent us for X-ray. Thankfully the chest x-ray was not particularly concerning and she was happy to send us home with oral antibiotic. While there we were able to feed him a bottle and some pureed veg, and liked the antibiotic.
On tuesday he seemed a bit better, but still very tired and eating and drinking a little more (remember that this child is voracious when he's well, so it's a huge difference!). Night-time was still a struggle and Mike and I had agreed some sort of shifts depending on who was staying at home in the morning and who was going to work. Then yesterday morning I really didn't think he had improved much, plus the antibiotic are upsetting his tummy so the fear of dehydration had not really gone away. I called the doctor and he said it was probably that he had to replenish his fluids, to try and push them on him and he should get better quickly. Certainly the fever was gone and the appetite was slowly coming back. Yesterday afternoon he slept 3 hours very peacefully (not waking up crying or coughing) and last night he slept 14 hours! This morning he was back to be a happy curious little boy and he's in much better form. I still think he's not peeing much but at least he's not vomiting anymore (the cough would get him to bring up anything he had just eaten or drunk), so I'm hopeful he's on the road to recovery!
She confirmed the chest sounded a bit crackly and sent us for X-ray. Thankfully the chest x-ray was not particularly concerning and she was happy to send us home with oral antibiotic. While there we were able to feed him a bottle and some pureed veg, and liked the antibiotic.
On tuesday he seemed a bit better, but still very tired and eating and drinking a little more (remember that this child is voracious when he's well, so it's a huge difference!). Night-time was still a struggle and Mike and I had agreed some sort of shifts depending on who was staying at home in the morning and who was going to work. Then yesterday morning I really didn't think he had improved much, plus the antibiotic are upsetting his tummy so the fear of dehydration had not really gone away. I called the doctor and he said it was probably that he had to replenish his fluids, to try and push them on him and he should get better quickly. Certainly the fever was gone and the appetite was slowly coming back. Yesterday afternoon he slept 3 hours very peacefully (not waking up crying or coughing) and last night he slept 14 hours! This morning he was back to be a happy curious little boy and he's in much better form. I still think he's not peeing much but at least he's not vomiting anymore (the cough would get him to bring up anything he had just eaten or drunk), so I'm hopeful he's on the road to recovery!
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