A not so relaxing Sunday

Yesterday was supposed to be a relaxing day. R had to study and I didn't have much in the way of plans. We were possibly going to have a mellow dinner with some of our best friends but that was about it. I decided to take the dog to dog park in the morning, like I do on most Sunday mornings. We (the dog and I, R stayed home to get some reading done) had been at the park for about a half an hour. I gave our friend, Christy a call to solidify dinner plans. Even though I was on the phone I was very aware of the dogs around me (I swear I wasn't one of those clueless people chatting away on the phone oblivious to their surroundings). My dog (a Siberian husky) and a golden retriever were playing - running and jumping on each other. Despite the park being several acres, the were coming towards me. I tried to get out of the way but couldn't. The dogs hit me in the legs from in front with such force that they knocked me legs out from under me. I flew up and fell forward landing flat on my belly. I'm not sure where my arms were but they did not break my fall. I fell quite hard and the first thing to hit the ground was my 30 4/7 wk big ole belly and it hurt - it hurt a lot.

I immediately curled up into a ball, grabbing my stomach and yelling some sort of "ow, ow, ow" scream. I can't imagine what our friend on the other end of the phone line was thinking. I remembered that she was on the phone and noted that the phone landed next to me - I yelled into the phone to have Christy call R. All around me people gathered. I must stay dog people are awesome. A guy who witnessed the entire event was immediately by my side. I made me stay down and told me that someone had already called 911 and an ambulance was on its way. One lady took off her sweatshirt and gave it to me as pillow, another lady gave me her sweatshirt to put in between my legs as I was laying on my side. Yet another lady took her sweatshirt off and used it to block the sun for me all the while several other people kept all the curious dogs away from me. My dog of course was not too concerned. He was off roaming around the park.

Once I calmed down some, I gave R a call. I knew she would be freaking out after getting the call from Christy. Luckily we only live about 3-4 miles from the dog park. I tried to reassure her that I was ok but that I would still be going to the hospital due to how hard I fell and being on the heparin. R pulled into the parking area right after the paramedics (and for good dramatic measure, a fire truck as well) were already there. I was being put onto the stretcher when she got to me. Poor thing, she was in worse condition than I was - I can't imagine how scary it was for her to see me like that. Again, I tried to reassure her and I even smiled when I saw her point her cell phone at me (ahh, a picture for her blog - that's my wife, despite her panic and tears streaming down her face, she's determined to capture the moment for her readers).

The ambulance folks gave me a choice of hospitals and I obviously picked my hospital - the one I work at, where my OB is and where I will deliver. While driving over in ambulance (my first ever ride as a patient), I started freaking out - I hadn't felt the boy move since the fall and all I could think of is that I'm on blood thinners and I have an anterior placenta. What if the trauma had caused the placenta to separate. What if I had hurt or seriously harmed my baby. What if the placenta had separated and he wasn't getting oxygen. I wanted to stick my hand down my pants to check for blood - do you think the EMT guys would mind? Since the only concern was my belly and the baby in it, I bypassed the ER and they took me straight up to labor and delivery. Luckily R was able to join me several minutes later (although I'm sure it seemed like an eternity to her). I really thought they would just check me out and say that everything was ok and let me go. Unfortunately I was told I would need to stay 24 hours for monitoring. They checked my cervix - closed, high and thick and hooked me up to monitors. From the get go my uterus was twitchy. I then started to contract and although I didn't feel much, the monitor showed contractions every 3 minutes. They gave me some terbutaline which got my heart racing and made me jittery but it did the trick. I only had a few contractions the rest of the time there.

They did do other tests to make sure that no fetal blood had gotten into my circulation, especially since I'm Rh negative, luckily that test was negative. We were able to breath a big sigh of relief knowing that it looked like the boy was ok. I still didn't have a good night with an uncomfortable bed, having vitals done every 4 hours, an IV bag that was changed at different intervals that didn't coincide with the vital checks and the nurse having to reposition the monitors every time that I changed positions (which was quite often since the bed isn't that comfortable) that didn't leave much time for sleep.

Luckily they let me go home this morning - 24 hours after the fall. I'm home and all cleaned up now. One little bonus is that since were already in L&D, I talked the OB into a little wanding session for R - I couldn't wait for Tuesday. Once my contractions settled down, they wheeled in a portable machine and scanned R. It looks like just 1 baby in there!!! We were able to see the heartbeat and it was only 6w1d!!! We'll have an u/s tomorrow w/ a much better machine and we'll know for sure, but for now, it looks like just 1 - whew big sigh of relief.