Oh, What a Night!

It wasn't late December and it was not a very special time for me. But last night certainly qualifies as "what a night." About 1:30 in the morning, I woke up with really bad stomach cramps. After trying to deal with it for a while, I woke Jalal and told him we needed to call the doctor's office. The nurse on call suggested we go ahead and head to the emergency room. If ever there were a time I wished we still lived in Charleston and had 30-some friends willing to help us in the middle of the night, it was this morning. But that's not our situation here yet, so we packed up Quinn and headed to St. Francis ER. After checking in and doing the preliminary tests, we were informed of their new rule (as of two days ago) that no children were allowed back into the emergency room (thanks swine flu). Jalal tried to call Maureen, but she was getting her first night of uninterrupted sleep in many weeks and didn't hear her phone. So poor Jalal was stuck in the waiting room with Quinn, who, by the way, decided that 2:00 a.m. was a perfectly normal time to get up and act like it was morning already (read: did not sleep or rest at all). I had no idea he wasn't even getting basic information about how I was doing (they were not busy, so I assumed the nurses would have let him know SOMETHING!). I was doing much better after they gave me a narcotic (well, after the initial effects--dizziness, heaviness, hysterical crying--wore off). The pain went away and I was stuck just waiting and wondering. I did have it a little easier than Jalal, since I didn't have Quinn to deal with, and since I got to hear that the baby's heartbeat was strong shortly after all the blood was drawn and tests were run. What a relief! I was so worried that something was wrong with the baby. After a couple of hours, I got the all-clear. The doctor said it was probably uterine spasms associated with the ligaments stretching. Now I trust that there was nothing else wrong, but I've felt ligaments stretching and man, was this worse! Maybe these were bigger ligaments. Who knows? Anyway, by 5 a.m., we were heading home. Jalal had left a message for my sister shortly after I went back, so I called again to tell her all was okay. Didn't want her to wake up and freak out at his message. Well, that didn't work. She only saw that she'd missed a call at 3:30, assumed the worst, listened to his message and then frantically called me to find out what happened. She was so upset, and I had only been asleep for about an hour, so I was just bleary. Anyway, after a couple more hours of sleep (or close to it), Quinn woke up raring to go. Poor Jalal had to go to work for 14 hours today while I tried to "stay off my feet." Hah! So, all is well for now. Let's hope tomorrow goes more smoothly, though we do have to handle another 2-year-old birthday party. Yikes! Love, Us.