Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Love's Labours (Part 1)

Mastitis hurts. And I'm still lacking a sum total of 8 hours of sleep, a full meal and a good, long and warm bath.

But let me chronicle first the days and hours before I became this:


Saturday, February 2nd.

I was on shift when the so-called 'nesting phase' kicked in. Only I didn't realize it then. I suddenly had the urge to clean out my office PC and organize my emails and clean my workstation (I think I was even licking clean my keyboards and mouse. =p) before my maternity leave which would've started on the 18th. I was due to give birth on the 24th, remember? Little did I know that my punk had other ideas brewing on his little brain while biding his time inside me.

Anyways, I was so busy doing so many things that I forgot to monitor my baby's movement all throughout the day. By 9 pm, I became really worried because I haven't felt any strong kick at all or if he did, I just didn't notice at all kase busy-busyhan ako sa office. My husband and I were lying on the bed trying to nudge the little guy for any movement at all. I texted my OB, the intimidating and tough (but sweet and caring on the inside) Dra. Olivia Ocampo of Delgado Hospital about my baby's lack of movement. Her lack of reply 30 minutes later intensified my worry, it was threatening to become a full-fledged panic. Now don't berate my OB for not replying. It was all my fault, which I belatedly realize 3 days later-I copied down her phone number wrong.

My chubby-hubby and I immediately dressed up and hailed a cab and went to the nearest hospital, which was Makati Medical Center and went into the ER.

We had an unpleasant experience before at Makati Med so my husband was really reluctant to go there. I just found out then that I was pregnant and was experiencing bleeding and after being subjected to poking and probing and internal exam, when we were paying our bill they wrote 'threatened abortion' as my diagnosis without really explaining it all to us. And for first time (may be even second or third time) expecting parents, those were the last words that you would ever want to hear. But since Delgado was at least an hour's drive away and we were really panicking at that point, Makati Med was only place to go.

As soon as they took my vitals at the Triage, I was whisked off to the delivery room where I was hooked up to a Fetal Non-Stress Test machine. The little heart was beating, and after 15 minutes, I felt lots of movement and relieved, I was just about ready to go home. When the residents noticed, based on the chart, that I was having contractions 10 minutes apart.

With the help of an internal exam, they informed me that I was already 1 cm dilated but something in my cervix was still thick. But still, they emphasized that I could give birth any time soon.

My poor husband had no idea of what's going on since I forgot to sneak in my cell phone inside the DR, and as soon as I got out I told him the what happened but he was still skeptical about my diagnosis (talagang bad trip siya sa Makati Med) so we opted to wait for my scheduled check up which was three days away.

Sunday, wee hour in the morning, February 3

We got home, informed my mother-in-law of what happened and prepared to go to bed. It had been an exhausting night after all. I went to the bathroom to pee when I saw a lot of bloody discharge on my pantyliner. I called my husband and after staring at the gooey mess for a full minute, we both decided to call Dra. Ocampo first thing in the morning.

It dawned on me that I could actually give birth way ahead of schedule so I was thinking more of the work that I would suddenly leave behind unexpectedly. My husband and I had a long talk and we both decided that regardless of Dra's prognosis, I would start my maternity leave, pronto. I texted Rowald and Chris that I would use my sick leaves on Sunday and Monday and that I would confirm if I should use up all my remaining SL or file my ML after my Tuesday check up.

I was sleeping fitfully, I was expecting to give birth any time that night and my husband had been checking my butt every hour on the hour to see if my water bag had broke. I already texted a whole lot of people on my phone book about my situation and I received a lot of good luck messages which really warmed my heart.

My husband decided to file for an emergency leave and we called up Dra. Ocampo at around 10am and told her what happened. She also scoffed at the diagnosis, and told me that she would rather see me first but since I'm dilated already she advised me to have a full bed rest and increased my intake of Isoxilan, a uterine relaxant. She told me that should I follow her advice, I would reach the full term of my pregnancy.

Again, more major decisions were discussed and one of them was to pack up immediately and evacuate to Valenzuela, where I would supposedly stay the week before my estimated due date.
After informing my mom of our plans, we hastily packed all the stuff that we would need for the next few days at least and my husband would just return for the rest of the stuff on his rest days.

to be continued....

No comments: