Stoopid Doctors

In our litigious society where people sue because their coffee was too hot or their kids are too fat, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when a doctor goes to DEFCON 1 when perfectly natural, explainable things happen during a pregnancy. Case in point: Yesterday Katrina went to her doctor for the now bi-weekly visit. Well, to be fair, it wasn't her normal doctor. At these visits, sometimes they do an ultrasound and other times they just have a chat or keep it simple, like a blood pressure check and a quick "How ya Feelin'." This time, the doctor used a stethoscope to check the baby's heart rate, which typically runs around 140 bpm. However, she noticed that the heart rate slowed down and then would go back up again. This happened twice. The doctor then said that she wanted Katrina to go to the hospital immediately and wanted to call an ambulance. However, our toddler was with her so that wasn't really an option. More stress icing came next when she stated 'if you need to deliver tonight, the baby is a good weight and will survive'. Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ! That's a load.

I got a frantic phone call as I was in a Falafel joint, getting dinner for everyone, at around 7pm. Since Katrina was going to, at the very least, be strapped to a fetal monitor for several hours, she sped from the doctor to pick me up at a tactical location. My job: Toddler Wrangler. We all go to the hospital and apparently no one was aware that we were coming. After waiting around for about 15 minutes, I mention to someone that the word "Ambulance!" was used by her doctor. Then I had their attention.

Much to my annoyance, the initial doctor never told Katrina how much the fetal heart rate was dipping. So we really had no idea how much of an emergency this was. What we weren't told until much later at the hospital, was that a heart rate dip can occur if the fetus is gripping or lying the umbilical cord. And the kicker, "It happens all the time."

By now, we had been there several hours and they still had Katrina on a restricted diet. That is, a diet of absolutely nothing. The Nothing Diet. They claimed that if they need to do an emergency c-section, she can't have food. Mind you, the entire time we're there, the baby's heart rate never dipped again. But the lack of food and drink was starting to show it's wear. As it turns out, stress and dehydration and starvation can cause CONTRACTIONS. Internal examinations followed to check for dilation. So now we're stuck there even longer because they want to monitor those. The very act of being treated and monitored created more problems then when we went in. I had Katrina's dinner with me, but they wouldn't let me give it her. Since she wasn't allowed to eat with her mouth, they decided it would be best to let her eat with her veins. They propped up this gimundo IV bag and put it on free flow. Now this chemical teat is making Katrina very cold as her body doesn't have enough time to warm the fluid to 98.6 with the new fluid piling in on top of it. Blankets please! This, of course, makes the contractions go away after about 20 minutes.

Throughout the evening, I'm trying to keep Alina off of Mommy's bed with various food distractions and whatever was on Cartoon Network. At night as some of you know, Cartoon Network turns into a very strange place. Courage the Cowardly Dog is uber-trippy and not terribly appropriate for a toddler, but that's why it's on late. Imagine Fantasia meets Ren & Stimpy. On top of everything else, my cell phone was vibrating non-stop and the room phone was ringing off the hook. Various grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc were trying to get the latest news. The nurses started getting annoyed and told us to tell them not to call anymore at this hour. They don't have a receptionist and answer the phone themselves - taking time away from patients.

I've mentioned in a post titled 'Lamazarific' that labor and delivery rooms have bright theater lighting. One thing I geeked out on was that they're controlled remotely with a strobe wand. The lights point and focus to wherever the strobe is. It was very hard not to play with this when the nurses left the room.

There was probably a 0.005% chance that an emergency c-section would result and I guess that's why doctors were prescribing these tactics over the phone. We never actually saw anyone but nurses. But I always find that doctors, particularly OBGYNs, err on the side of Let's Not Get Sued. After going through all that bullshit and getting out at 12:30am (Alina still awake), we got the professional prescription of "Rest and plenty of fluids". Wow, really?? Do I sound bitter? Yeah, I thought so.