Once I got back to triage, I was actually feeling much better and my vision was completely normal. I hoped they wouldn't send me back home because my dr. had already agreed to induce the next day anyway. A resident and an intern came in to see me and it was the beginning of an interesting relationship.
The resident, who my mom insists on calling "Nurse Ratchet" even though she wasn't a nurse, was nice enough at first. I explained what happened with my vision and she asked questions about my pregnancy. All was well until she asked me what medications I had taken during the pregnancy. I explained that I had taken Xanax for a little over a month but had stopped taking it at the beginning of October. She gave me a disapproving look so I said, "My husband left me in August..." and before I could say anything else she said, "Sooooo??" and I said, "Sooooo... it was a pretty stressful time and I couldn't sleep..." She continued with the disapproving look so I continued explaining, "My dr. was worried that I wasn't getting enough rest so he prescribed it to help me out..." She didn't say anything else. The intern, Patrick, who looked like he was about 16 years old, stood behind her shaking his head and silently mouthing the words, "I'm sorry."
After our lovely little chat, she decided it was time to see how far I was dilated. My dr. had checked me at my appointment a few days earlier and I was dilated to 1.5 cm so I hoped to be a little further along. Since my dr. had checked me, I knew what to expect during this exam, it would be uncomfortable but not too bad. Wrong. Nurse Ratchet stuck her fingers up my hoo-ha and I think she tried to pull the baby out while she was in there. It hurt so bad, I almost came off the table. She apologized and said she has never had a baby so she doesn't know how much it hurts. What. The. Fuck. And I was still only dilated to 1.5 cm.
They decided to admit me because my blood pressure was high which apparently is why I lost my vision. Instead of inducing me on Friday evening, they would do it that night. I was really excited and ready to get the show on the road. Here I am all settled into my little room. Look how happy I am! Yay!! I'm gonna have a baby soon!!
Nurse Ratchet came in and said they would use Cervidil to get things started. Great. No problem. Then a few minutes later she came back and said she spoke with her team and they decided to use a catheter instead. Apparently the catheter would get stuck up my hoo-ha and it would have a balloon on the end that they would inflate and it would make my cervix dilate. Hmmm... that sounded like less fun... Sure enough, Nurse Ratchet stuck that thing up there and it hurt like hell. I was pissed when she said the baby's head was too low against my cervix and the catheter wouldn't work. The good thing was that my water broke when she was rooting around in there. Finally she said they would use oxytocin to get things going. I was all excited until I realized that oxytocin is NOT the same as oxycontin. Really? Who named these things??
At some point Patrick the Intern Boy stopped in with a couple other interns to say hi and to check on me. I think he wanted to make sure I hadn't killed Nurse Ratchet yet. Nope. Not yet.
Because my blood pressure was high, they had to give me magnesium sulfate in my IV. They brought me food before giving me the magnesium because once it started, I wasn't going to be able to eat or drink anything. I was starving because we never did get to go to lunch after going to the bookstore. It took a while to hook everything up - magnesium, pitocin, and saline - because they had new IV pumps and the nurse (the real nurse, not Nurse Ratchet) wasn't used to them yet. It felt like there were IV lines everywhere and she ended up labeling them so they knew which one was which. The nurse warned me that the magnesium might make me feel hot. Holy shit, she was not kidding. About 2 seconds after the drip started, I felt like I was on fire. It was awful. The nurse called and had the temperature turned way down for me, whew!
Here I am after the magnesium started and I pretty much felt how I looked - awful.
Not only was the IV and all the lines a pain in the ass, I had a blood pressure cuff on my other arm that took my blood pressure every 15 minutes. And I couldn't walk because of the magnesium, so I had a lovely catheter as well. Too much information? Too bad.
Even though I was uncomfortable, the night was still young. I was still looking forward to having contractions, getting an epidural, and pushing out a baby.
Or not.
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