In other news, I fell…

In other news, I fell down the stairs yesterday. That sounds more dramatic than it is -- I was on the fourth stair from the bottom, and my slippered feet slid out from under me and I landed (hard) on my butt and elbow. So no belly trauma, just a whopping huge bruise on my ass and a left arm that isn't working so good right now. (It works, but hurts in odd places off and on). The books tell me that third-trimester pregnant women are more likely to fall, because of loosening ligaments (maybe your body is getting ready for labor?)

I didn't take it as seriously as I guess I should have; I felt otherwise fine, and I already had a doctor's appt. scheduled for that afternoon (they have me going every two weeks at this point), so I just waited until then. Turns out, I should have called right away and come in immediately-- oops. My doctor scolded me. The baby's heartbeat sounded fine at the office visit, but the doctor made me promise to go to the ob-gyn triage unit and let them run more extensive tests on me.

I talked her into letting me go teach my evening graduate fiction class first -- Kev thought I was being dumb, but I really hated to miss the class, since they only meet once a week for two and a half hours at a time; it's a lot to miss a single class, and especially hard on the students who were supposed to be critiqued that day, since either they have class and get critiqued without me, or we squeeze them into some other critique day, which means multiple folks get shortchanged.

So I went and taught (very good class, really productive and satisfying, thankfully), and then came back to the hospital at 9ish. I was starving, because with all of that there had been no time for dinner; I'd had two clementines and a bag of chips. But they wouldn't let me eat once I got there (I knew I should've stopped somewhere first!) so I just continued starving for the next three hours while they hooked me up to fancy monitor machines, looked at extended periods of the baby's heartbeat patterns, and checked her out on ultrasound. Apparently, I have perfect fluid sacs, whatever that means. Eventually, they said I could go home, thankfully -- when I showed up, they were saying that they might have to keep me for four to five hours.

One of the most interesting parts of the experience is that, unlike the last time I went in with the fibroids, I am now far enough along that they act like I could go into labor at any minute, which means they ask a lot more questions about preferred medication (none / IV / epidural) and the like. They also insisted I be wheeled around.

There was someone in early labor in the next bed, which was sort of disconcerting to listen to. She had five centimeters of dilation to go, and was trying to not use meds. They told her it took about an hour a centimeter, so she should expect to give birth by early morning. She and the father of the child (who didn't sound so much like her partner, but it was hard to tell) were mostly arguing the whole three hours I was there, pretty snappishly, about whether he was going to be around, and how much, and whether his friends would be smoking around the baby and all sorts of other stuff along those lines. All punctuated by occasional sharp groans when she had a particularly strong contraction. It was interesting, but also a bit nerve-wracking. I'm not sure I'm ready to think about labor and delivery yet.

When I finally got home (and ate leftovers) and went to bed, I had a terrible time trying to fall asleep (fibroids in front make it impossible to sleep on my stomach, and the sore butt made it impossible to sleep on my back, and both made it hard to turn over from side to side, plus my legs were doing this incredibly annoying 'restless leg syndrome' thing they sometimes do), so I'm sore and groggy and out of it today. I did cancel today's undergrad comp classes (sending them extra work to do via e-mail instead), and am going to take it easy today and use the time to catch up on grading. I think that'll do them more good than my dragging myself in and trying to teach in a daze.

I always feel guilty when I cancel class, but as Kev reminded me last night, I really do have a valid medical excuse. Apparently, falling down the stairs when you're pregnant is something to take seriously. Who knew?