You Have Entered the Twilight Zone

This last weekend we enjoyed a great weekend in Cache Valley...until Saturday night that is. For the sake of time, my sanity and yours, I'll keep this as short as possible.

After returning to Hallie's mom's from seeing friends in Logan Saturday night I put in a movie because I wasn't tired yet. Hallie watched part of it, but then went to bed. I came to bed around 1 a.m. and found out that Hallie had a severe headache. Then she began throwing up. At this point we were nervous, but thought we'd get some Tylenol (the apparent cure-all for pregnant women since it's all the can have practically) for her and see if that helped. After rummaging through the cupboards and coming up empty-handed, we had to run all the way to L.W's truck stop on 10th West in Logan (about a 20 minute drive from Hallie's mom's). We got a friggin' $7 bottle of Tylenol and a Gatorade and Hallie took the Tylenol immediately. About five minutes after returning back to Wellsville, Hallie began throwing up again. By now it was 2 a.m. and we called our Dr, who told us to go to the ER right away. One of her major concerns was that Hallie was swelling as well.

We pulled up to the ER around 2:30 a.m. The guy at the front desk was a monkey and couldn't get his shiz together for the life of him and we spent 15 minutes giving info and explaining to him what was going on. We told him Hallie was about 38 weeks along and he called back into the ER to see if they would treat her or if we should go to labor and delivery at the hospital and the ER told him to send us back.

It was horrible there. Everyone treated us like we were the plague: cold, rude, like we were non-entities. We told the nurse that took us back we were 38 weeks along, as well as the Dr. when he came in. When we explained everything to the Dr, he said, "So what do you want us to do?" I was perplexed. I thought, "Are you kidding me, aren't you the dr.?" I just said, "All these things are 100% abnormal for my wife and her pregnancy, which his why we're nervous. Our OB told us to go to the ER right away and be checked and monitored." Still seeming unsatisfied, he said he'd do some blood work and fetal monitoring.

We mostly sat there wondering what was going on, no one coming in to update us or tell us what they were doing or going to do. Sometimes we'd go for 30 minutes without seeing anyone and it's not like it was a busy night in the ER-there were two other people there. They ended up giving Hallie something for the nausea (Zofran) that gave her an allergic reaction in the form of dozens of purple dots all over her face. Then around 4:45 or so, the Dr. came in, shut the door, pulled up his stool and asked if it was alright it he called to speak with out OB because it was important that he talk with her. We said, "Sure," and braced ourselves for the worst. He went through all the blood work and urine results slowly, but not explaining to us what the results actually meant and then paused...looked at both of us...and said..."...the results are good." I almost slapped him on the mouth. Why not just walk in and say the results are ok and then proceed with the rest? Moron. Before leaving the room he said he'd get Hallie "Something," for the head pain. About 30 minutes later (now it's 5:15 a.m.) someone came in and just shot Hallie up with something, without telling us what it was. I was going on good faith (who knows why at this point) that it was ok, whatever it was. A few minutes later, the Dr. came back and asked if we had done any fetal monitoring yet. Of course, they hadn't which really made me mad, cause that was more or less the whole reason why we were there in the first place. Then he proceeded to tell us that they were sending us over to labor and delivery for the fetal monitoring.

It was about 5:35 a.m. when we arrived at labor and delivery and...are you ready to have your mind blown? When we got there they told us that the ER, by default, if for no other reason, should have sent us over to labor and delivery to begin with because they are not supposed to handle any patients over 20 weeks along. Twenty weeks!!! I was irate. No, I was more than irate, I was completely furious. They also told us that all the blood work the ER did was completely useless and a waste of time. As they were doing some reflex testing to rule some concerns out and hooking up the fetal monitors, the nurse told us she was annoyed when she heard the ER had given Hallie morphine for her head pain. Morphine, that's what they gave her without asking or telling us! She said, that morphine, when administered to a pregnant woman, will cause the baby to become extremely slow, tired and mellow, thus making fetal monitoring near impossible until the drug wears off. So she said we might have to wait several hours for the medication to go through Hallie and the baby's system before beginning an hour or two of monitoring. That was the icing on the cake. I couldn't believe it. I was now in shock.

Thankfully the baby is a champ and the morphine didn't affect her the way it does most and they were able to do the proper monitoring and tests. We never found out what was wrong, but we did find out Hallie and the baby were fine and they were able to rule out all the things our OB had thought might be happening-the first real good news.

At 6:55 a.m, Hallie and I pulled in to her mom's driveway in Wellsville after, an all-nighter from HELL-nothing like the awesome ones I remember from high school and college-having spent the majority of the night in the ER, getting treated like garbage (until the labor and delivery took over), being administered unknown narcotics and getting an allergic reaction, only to find out that we could have been in and out in about 45 minutes and treated properly.

*Note to self: if you ever get hurt in Cache Valley, make sure it's not severe enough to warrant a trip to Logan Regional's ER*