I saw my little Thumper's heartbeat on an ultrasound yesterday and am officially in love! Which I hope is a good thing. I didn't really feel much of anything before but seeing her (or his) little heartbeat was just so precious.
Now, as far as why I was in the ER and what baby and I need prayer for...
I've been sick for a couple weeks now with what started as a head cold and then migrated to my chest. When I woke up yesterday morning I had a fever of 104.1 and a really bad cough. So I took a very COLD shower. Well, I have this thing vocal cord dysfunction where my vocal cords spasm and collapse in on each other basically. And it can be triggered by lots of things... such as vomiting from morning sickness or lots of coughing... basically anything that really irritates the throat. Of course, the problem w/ this is that it closes off my airway if they collapse completely. Anyway, I had a little attack in the shower and ended up passing out and hitting my head.
After coming to, I went to the ER. I have a little concussion and I have pneumonia (again!), which the doctor thought was viral. I'm taking Tylenol (+ an anti-nausea drug because tummy doesn't like Tylenol) for the pain and fever, but my fever is still kinda high (over 101). According to the doctor, my fever could possibly hurt the baby =(
While I was there, the doctor gave me a girly exam (super awful; I actually cried) and an ultrasound... And we discovered potential problem #2: baby's heart rate is REALLY slow, which could indicate a chromosomal abnormality or heart damage due to excess iron. Both of these would likely be fatal to the baby =(
As far as the excess iron, I have this genetic disorder where my body doesn't metabolize iron properly. And since I haven't had a menstrual period for a couple or so months now, my iron has been building up and it's too high, which means that baby has probably gotten too much, and possibly a toxic amount, of iron from me. To help the problem a little, the doctor took like a unit of blood from me yesterday, to hopefully reduce my iron.
The doctor gave me a name of a clinic which he is pretty sure has a sliding scale fee schedule, so I'm going to call them later to try to get an appointment. The doctor said I need a followup in 1 week, to have another ultrasound and check my iron level (and possibly get rid of some blood, I guess). But if I can't get in there, he said I can come back to the ER.
While the doctor was examining me "down there" he observed some bruising, which surprised me since it's been a month and I thought everything was healed, but then I can't really see everything down there... So he asked what happened and I told him about being raped and he talked me into having a rape kit done, although it's rather incomplete since it's been so long... Basically, they just took pictures (which was really humiliating). And I talked to a social worker and they had a cop come to the hospital to take a report, which was actually pretty amazing, because I hadn't had any luck w/ getting the cops here to file a report... So, even though the whole thing was incredibly humiliating and traumatic and I cried a lot, it's a good thing because things are at least documented now. And the cop told me that they're not going to really do anything w/ the rape kit since there's not enough evidence, but at least there's a record of things.
Sorry this is so long. Basically, pray that:
1) My concussion and pneumonia will heal quickly and that my vocal cords will behave.
2) My fever will go away and/or not hurt the baby.
3) Baby's heart rate will normalize and that her heart isn't damaged.
4) My iron level will get under control so that I won't poison my baby =(
5) That the clinic will have fees that I can afford.
Hope all of that's coherent. My head really hurts and my eyes are a bit blurry =(
I called the clinic the doctor referred me to and they don't even provide prenatal care...
The crisis pregnancy clinic I was planning to go to doesn't answer their phone and has a message saying that it's by appointment only. I've left 2 messages and they haven't called back.
Regarding Medicaid, I'm fairly sure I don't even qualify, but I have the paperwork for it and am going to take it to the hospital when I go back to the ER on Thursday to see if somebody there will take pity on me and fill it out.
I'm really getting discouraged and I feel funny today... I can't even put my finger on it really but I'm really, really jittery and just different... And I didn't have any morning sickness this morning, which is a good thing... just different... but I am on an anti-nausea medication, so maybe it's just actually working. I think something might be wrong, though because I really don't feel right. I'm going to call the hospital and talk to the on-call nurse. I'm probably just being a nervous pregnant woman.
The nurse made me feel like this stupid worrywart, but now I'm spotting a little and kind of cramping. I'm just going to go to the ER and get checked out. I'm so worried about my baby =(
