Another memorable forced layover

When I was just shy of seventeen weeks pregnant, I arrived back at my office at the end of a Thursday afternoon of lecturing to discover that OH GOD there was a dampness in my pants and that dampness was red.

Shit shit shit shit shit. I sent an instant message to poor Steve, who was incidentally sitting around the house waiting for my mother and cousin to arrive for their weekend visit, and called my doctor's office. The woman on the phone was very nice and soothing while I produced an unnaturally calm report on my state of affairs. She said things like "Don't hang up!" and "You sound less flustered than I do!" and after some consultation with a doctor, finally informed me that there was nothing in particular to be done right then, and that I should come in for an appointment at noon the next day.

I went home, told my mother and cousin what was going on, placed a request that we all do our best to ignore it, since there was nothing to be done, and passed the evening in a strange haze of roasting vegetables, buttering bread, and making pleasant chit chat. Everyone was lovely. I was, of course, sad. Steve and I went to bed, held hands, and said, "Well, either it's okay or it isn't." We fell asleep.

In the morning no one went to work. First, instead, we all went out for breakfast. Then we gave my mother and Louise keys to our house and sent them off to wander the neighborhood while we went to the doctor.

It was not my usual doctor, but someone else in the practice, an affable youngish guy with a head full of the kind of little curls that make Persian lamb coats so desirable. He immediately determined that the heartbeat was strong and healthy. He said "everything looks okay" about thirty reassuring times over the course of the examination. He smiled. We smiled.

"Now," he said, "everything looks okay. But of course you want to know exactly what happened. I'm going to call the ultrasound clinic and schedule you for a visit. You know they're very busy, but after an episode of bleeding we can sometimes get you on the schedule quickly. Come around to the front desk and we'll see how soon they can fit you in."

I put my clothes on and we went to the desk. Everyone was smiling. "Good news!" said the doctor. "They had a cancellation, so they can take you in about an hour. I'm so glad that everything looks okay."

We called my mother to bring her up to date, and got in the car. By then it was lunchtime. There wasn't time to go home to eat or to stop anywhere for a proper meal, but there was a Dunkin Donuts on the side of the road. "They sell bagels, sort of," I said. 

So we sat down at a little formica table at the Dunkin Donuts and ate toroidal foods together. Steve gave me some of his bagel with cream cheese, and I gave him some of my chocolate doughnut. It was the middle of the day on a weekday, and though we were at an exceedingly uncelebratory establishment in an exceptionally unfestive strip mall in suburban Cleveland, it felt like a holiday.

(The ultrasound was fine, of course, or I doubt I'd have quite such fond memories of the lunch. Again there was a doctor I hadn't met before, and again he was very pleasant. He had a thick Israeli accent in which he said "This is not associated with a bad outcome," which was just the kind of awkward but reassuring doctor talk I wanted to hear. He said that he thought probably we were having a girl, but that we shouldn't buy any clothing yet, and told us bashfully and proudly of the many achievements of his beloved son, who was born on my due date.)

Comments

[Nellig]

Thank goodness.

Oh dear. I fell in love with you through your recipes and now I will be unable to exhale for months until an outcome outcomes. Plus, the phrase "toroidal foods" will haunt me all day.

[matt]

Glad to hear that everything turned out OK, of course, and I'm struck by how awesome all of your health care providers were throughout.

[redfox]

Nellig, thank you! Everything since has been just as boring as one could want, so we'll just hope it stays that way.

Matt, yes, I was very pleasantly surprised. I hope it bodes well for the way things play out for the rest of the process.

[heebie-geebie]

Glad everything's okay. This gave me a flashback of when it happened to me, when we were camping in the middle of nowhere. No fun at all.

[redfox]

Ugh! Poor you, that sounds supremely awful.

[Elsa]

Yoicks. When something possibly-awful and certainly-uncertain happens, it's quite reassuring to have everyone be so very competent and obviously thoughtful. I was holding my breath most of the way through that little story, despite expectations that it would all turn out fine.

(Also, I read that as "just shy of seventeen months pregnant," which lent an air of confusion to the whole thing.)