A Trip to the Hospital

Oh I forgot how much I love being in hospital. No, I'm not being sarcastic. I know. I'm a complete freak.

It's annoying that they're always running late and everything takes an age, but they do look after you. And sometimes, I think it's just nice that you've been forced to just STOP and sit down for a while. Only if someone else is taking care of the child, of course.

Well I had a little jaunt to the hospital today as after ringing the midwife (spoiler: disgusting pregnancy-related girly comment fast approaching) about some brown discharge I'd had (I DID warn you), she asked me to go in just to be on the safe side.

It actually started almost two weeks ago, but was very pale and not a lot. I made a call then and was advised not to worry but to get back in contact if it increased, was combined with pain or became a more fresh blood colour. This morning, we were out shopping and when I got home and dashed up to the loo, I was surprised to see a much darker stain in my underwear. Still not a large quantity, but much more "beginning of period" looking.

So I called, talked them through everything, including previous premature birth, and I was asked to go in, not to rush or panic, but to go in to be checked. Oh, and to take a bag in with me just in case.

No not take a handbag. That'd be an overnight/giving birth type bag thing. Eek!

I called hubby, managed to find someone who was free to babysit (Yay for school holidays and parents who are teachers!) and went off to pop some things in a bag. Now this did get me feeling a bit weird. Last time I calmly got my hospital bag ready and headed off to the delivery ward, I gave birth.

I'm only 25 weeks, I can't give birth. Oh god. Shush, it's fine, you're not going to give birth and there's not going to be anything wrong. It's perfectly normal discharge/light blood loss and you're just going as it's better to be safe.

We arrived (after struggling to find parking as it was 'visiting time' - grrr) and headed on up to the ward... "is this where we came?" I asked, "I don't remember this bit". We arrived at triage "oh yeah, I remember this bit, and that toilet, I got well acquainted with that toilet", and were appointed a room. I went off to the loo to provide a urine sample and pretty quickly had a midwife come and take my blood pressure too. All's fine.

A little wait and then another midwife came to have a feel "you're measuring a little large for your dates" - no surprise there then - and a listen to baby's heartbeat. All's fine. "We just have to wait for the doctor to come and do an internal examination, just to establish where the blood is coming from. He's in theatre at the moment so you might have a little wait."

Well, we arrived at the hospital at 3pm... at 5pm a lovely midwife asked if we'd like a drink, or maybe a piece of fruit. Or a sandwich - my eyes lit up. So I had me the same sandwich I had the night I gave birth to Felix and I yummed it down at an alarming 'new breastfeeding mother' speed. I like hospital food. I love it. Someone else makes it. And it's simple and traditional. Ahhhh.

It was 7pm by the time the doctor came to see me. He opened me up (yeah baby), then opened me up a bit further (ooooh) and then moved the speculum around a bit so he could have a good look (ok, that hurts a little). The midwife reminded me to breath!! He took a swab as well (well why not? I did skive my last Prem Prevention appointment as they were taking too long... errmm, am I contradicting myself now?) and explained how the lining of the cervix comes outside of the womb a little and is like a raw surface. It can be caused to bleed by all sorts of minor disturbances, intercourse (I should be so lucky), a bowel movement passing by (erm, ok), etc. The blood then pools somewhere in the vagina and when it comes out, is a brownish colour because it's a little older.

Fine. Exactly what I thought, nothing to worry about.

So my notes got written up and off we went to the car park where hubby had moved the car to. Only there was a fire engine blocking the exit and, ooh firemen trying to break into a car and, hang on, what's going on? Security wouldn't let us into the car park as a car had exploded a couple of times (under the bonnet, not like a terrorist thing) and was still smoking away.

So after 4 hours hanging round at the hospital just for reassurance, we had to cower under a tree in the rain for another 10 minutes (yeah, only 10, what am I moaning about?) waiting to be allowed to get to our car.

I just feel a bit bad for my dad who was babysitting really. It was all a bit of a shock for him I think and he was supposed to be working this evening. Ooops. But then, these things happen.