Pregnancy: 32w6d - Norovirus! Shit's no joke.

I'm not even kidding.

Note: There is a LOT of TMI in this post. Lots of bodily function-type stuff. You've been warned. ;) Oh, and a hospital trip. Because why the hell not.

I came down late Saturday night with... I don't even know. My stomach wasn't upset or anything, but I wasn't pooping, I was peeing. Out my butt. It was AWFUL. I don't remember a lot of pain during it, despite being up every 15-30 minutes over the course of the night to poo pee. There was a LOT of nausea, though, so I sometimes sat on the toilet wondering if I needed to turn around at any point and experiencing sheer disgust at the thought.

Thankfully, I never had to turn around. :P

The pain did eventually come, though, and I spent the rest of the night writhing from that, nausea, and the constant need to get up. By the time Sunday morning came, I was exhausted. I didn't eat anything that entire day -- the pain and nausea when I tried to eat even a 1" square piece of toast sent me spinning, so I spent the rest of the day trying to choke down some water and Gatorade. Matt called the midwife at some point, and they recommended the same, plus Tylenol for a fever if I had one.

I DID end up having a fever, too, if a low-grade one. I think I topped out at 100 degrees, so Matt gave me a couple Tylenol and I napped for a couple hours. I don't think I officially got out of bed (except, to, well... you know...) until about 4:30, and I still fell asleep early that night.

The next day, I took off work as I was still feeling terrible. When awesome attorney-boss heard it was norovirus, he was like, "Stay home and get better." No ifs, ands, or buts (HA, butts). When I told him the next day that I needed one more day, he told me to seriously stay home, as his wife wouldn't let him home if there was a chance of contracting it, lol.

So yeah. The next day was spent doing some laundry (it needed to get done, plus I wanted to kill the germs) and a couple other chores, plus trying to get some food in me. I made some piss-poor decisions when it came to that, so I really shouldn't have been surprised when I started feeling some wicked heartburn-type feelings around 5pm.

What DID shock me, though, was the fact that it lasted well past midnight.

In fact, it got so bad that I was writhing and crying on the bed, downing Tums and Maalox like crazy and finally taking a Zantac, recommended over the phone by my midwife (who sounded soooo empathetic, poor guy!! I love my care providers). That allowed me to sleep for about 30 minutes before I was back up and writhing again.

Finally, I just decided we should go to the emergency room. Matt, bless his heart, got up and dressed and coaxed me out of the house, and we headed straight to the ER. It took about 30 minutes to get there, and every last second of that was torture. We got there a bit past 1am.

While we were checking in to the ER, Matt jokingly said that I wasn't in labor, and they were like, wait... how pregnant are you? I told them 32.5 weeks, and they rushed me instead to L&D. Like, in a wheelchair, with a nurse hustling so fast that Matt almost had to run to keep the pace. "You keepin' up with me, Dad?" The way she kept calling him "dad" warmed my heart. Bad with whatever I had, so sweet and nice to take my mind off the pain. ;)

The intake nurses at L&D were really nice, too. We went back to triage pretty quickly, and while we weren't able to see our midwife*, the same from before on the phone, probably because he was with a laboring mama, we did get a pretty nice nurse. She hooked me up to a couple monitors, took some history, and we waited.

*The midwives at my practice do rotations at the hospital down the road from the birth center. A real godsend when something like this happens!

Stupid, stupid thing... all those pains I was having? Was GAS. Like, serious gas. Every time I passed it, I felt better, so of course I felt super-silly after about a half-hour lying there, farting and feeling better each time. SIGH.

But... we ended up staying there until 3:30 anyway because, despite the fact that my midwife wasn't concerned about my hydration as I was drinking water/Gatorade and was peeing regularly, they still wanted to give me an IV for contractions. We were like, what contractions? I get that you can have some that you can't feel at this stage, but I DID know that I wasn't contracting enough to be worried. But they wanted to anyway.

So sure, whatever, pump me with fluids. I may feel better anyway, she said. The nurse brought in all the supplies she needed, and got down to prepping my vein for an IV. She aimed for my wrist, which I thought was weird, and as she started to put it in (I wasn't looking -- I HATE needles), it started to hurt SO terribly. I'm talking, to the point where I was crying out and saying please stop! They kept telling me to relax, I was too tense, but as much as I tried, I either couldn't or the IV just plain wasn't going in.

Finally, the nurse asked, "Do you want me to take it out?" Yes, take it out, take it out! She did, kind of abruptly; I could tell she was a bit irritated. I started shivering like crazy, and I knew I was actually going into shock from the experience. The nurse said she could maybe try drinking water, and I begged to please try that, I really don't want the IV. So she walked out. Matt draped both our jackets over me as I was shivering so badly.

Another nurse walked in -- I consider her the "bad cop" in this. She said I needed the IV and that they were concerned about the contractions, so they wouldn't in good conscience let me go until I had some fluids and they calmed down. Matt and I told her that the last nurse said I could drink my fluids and that I really wanted to try that, so after trying to convince me over and over to do the IV, she walked out, frustrated, and the other nurse came back in with some ice chips and water.

Lemme tell you, I have NEVER sucked down ice water that fast before. Fuck you and your IV!

While I was drinking the water, Matt and I watched the monitor on the wall, and during that entire time, I felt (and watched) ONE contraction. That gradual rise to the peak and back down again was totally indicative of one. I was maybe down for an hour? Maybe? There were other peaks, like when I tried to sit up or pass gas (and I was doing that a lot at that point, lol), but they were short blips on the screen from engaging my abs, not from contractions.

What drove me crazy was later, when they finally came in to release us, and I told her that some of the spikes were from as I said above. She said, "Mmm, no, those don't come up on the monitors." BITCH, I SAW them come up! Before she came in, I'd turn to Matt after passing gas or moving, and go, "Wait, watch for it," and it'd spike! Don't TELL me that something that measures MUSCLE CONTRACTIONS doesn't measure AB CONTRACTIONS.

Puh-leeze.

That entire experience made me even more thankful that I'm going to be at the birth center, provided all goes according to plan. I just HATE hospitals, hate hate hate them.

... anyway, so that was my experience. I'm still feeling a bit crappy because I'm on a pretty strict BRAT diet (bananas, rice, apples/applesauce, and toast) and I don't really have much of an appetite, plus the whole thing just took it out of me. I lost three pounds in three days. That's ridiculous. So I'm not at all surprised that I'm feeling crappy.

But I'm getting better each day, and despite the snow day, I'm at work and actually getting stuff done. Hopefully, though, I'll never have to go through that again!

Oh, and Kit? He's totally fine, kicking away in there and with an excellent heart rate. Of course, his feet managed to make contact with my stomach EVERY DAY. Thanks, Kit. Thanks a lot. Lucky I still love you to bits. ;)