After Christmas day festivities, Grant and I loaded up with my mom and dad to head to Florida for the next week. I have been really looking forward to the sun and pools that were awaiting me at the condo. On the drive down, we hit some pretty nasty winter weather in Tennessee. After passing a couple of bad accidents, one of which had the opposite side of the interstate closed down, we were debating pulling off to get a hotel room for the night.
Somewhere in the middle of all of this I started having severe stomach pains. I have never had a Braxton-Hicks contraction but was beginning to think I may be experiencing them. The problem is, they started coming on stronger and more rapidly. Finally, they got so strong I threw up and had to pull off the highway. We found a hospital which referred us to another hospital in Chattanooga. By time I arrived, my parents are freaking out, I’m freaking out, and in an incredible amount of pain. When I finally met with the doctor I was contracting one on top of another and really thought I was going into pre-term labor.
After the doctor examined me she told me I was not dilating – THANK GOODNESS! The contractions were not showing up on the monitor. The doctor said that she really didn’t think I was having contractions. She felt the pain may be bowel related. I have had bowel issues my entire life and there was no way that THIS pain was bowl related. I explained to her when I had my son, my contractions never really showed up on the monitor. She also told me I was early enough along in the pregnancy that they may not show up on the monitor at all. At this point, I had crossed the tolerable pain threshold and was having trouble even maintaining a conversation with her. She could tell I was in a good deal of pain and ordered a dose of morphine while she had to go to perform a c-section.
I really thought to myself, “There is no way that a dose of morphine is going to take care of this pain!” However, I was very wrong. About 15 minutes after she gave me the morphine the pain ceased. The doctor was not sure what had happened. I was just glad that the pain was gone and I had not started the labor process.
My own self diagnoses would be that I started severe Braxton-Hicks contractions brought on by stress. They honestly mimicked real labor. My legs were even shacking uncontrollably due to the pain (only other time in my life this happened was in labor/delivery with my son). This is how I knew there was no way it was bowel related.
Good news is I am FINE. Bad news is it made for a long trip down to Florida and an unexpected bill from some hospital in Chattanooga, TN.
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