Week 34: Making Mistakes  

We had a bit of a scare this week. Without going into the gory details, I ended up in triage at the hospital, thinking the worst was going to happen to the baby and perhaps me. In the end, it was nothing serious and I was discharged in less than 2 hours.  

I felt a bit foolish afterwards. A lot of people answered the false alarm: my husband breaking speed limits and appointments to get back from work travel; my neighbor watching my daughter while I raced to the hospital, and my brother-in-law leaving work to pick her up; my parents ditching their trip to the casinos to be by my side; the time the nurses and doctor spent on me when they surely had other things to do.  

Pregnancy is no time for self-diagnosis, I know. And based on what was happening to my body, I did the right thing. But still, I couldn't help but feel a little silly.   

An unnecessary trip to the hospital happened during my first pregnancy as well. About 1 to 2 weeks out from my due date, I was experiencing terrible back pain. When I described it to my mother over the phone, she casually mentioned that she also felt back pain late in her pregnancy, and it was because she was in back labor.  

Back labor???? No one had told me anything about that. So, of course, it meant I had to be in labor. It was time!  

My husband and I dashed to the hospital. When we walked into the maternity ward (yes, I walked in ... clue #1 that something wasn't right), I described to the nurse on duty what was happening, only to be told that if I was able to provide that kind of detail about my pain, I surely was not in labor. But they indulged me. The fetal monitor was strapped on and the staff on duty watched me for about an hour. At that point, I was so mortified for my mistake that I began to pray that I would actually go into labor so I could give them something legitimate to do.  

What did I know? I had never been in labor. No one up to that point had been able to sufficiently describe exactly what it would feel like. A contraction? A cramp? An intense Braxton Hicks? (And what the heck were Braxton Hicks anyway?) With all of those virtual reality games out there, you'd think that someone would come up with a virtual labor experience ... if not to educate first-time moms, then at least to give men a little taste of what they're missing.  

I guess it shouldn't be surprising that the urge to react - and react quickly - is so strong during pregnancy. There's the ongoing anticipation of the upcoming pain of labor. The knowledge that so much can - and sometime does - go wrong. The emotions linked not to just your own well-being, but also to that of your baby.  

I will continue to feel a bit sheepish about this trip to the hospital. I already expressed my humiliation to my OB today, and I'll pray that my next trip to the hospital won't take place for another 6 weeks. But deep down I suspect that if it happened again, I would probably react in the same way ... quickly and with a focus on the matter at hand ... not on the insignificant unpleasantries I may personally feel afterwards. And isn't that typical of a mom?