My wife woke up screaming at 3:40 am. I was in the delivery room with her when we had Josias, and even then all she did was moan loudly. She has an insanely high pain threshold from having a long history of gastrointestinal problems and motility issues so back then I knew that she was in great pain to be showing it with those loud moans. This screaming was worst.
We thought that the baby was coming early (we?re at 29 weeks on Sunday) and I thought it was something worst. I grabbed my son, keys, coat and wife and ran out of the house to our car. My face rarely shows much expression, people normally think I?m ticked off if I?m concentrating, but I thought my wife was dying and was ready to cry. Thank God the roads were clear because the fright of hearing my wife mumbling incoherently was potentially distracting me from driving at those break-limb speeds.
We got to the hospital and I let my wife out of the car so that they could bring her in. They never leave a pregnant woman in the ER, bringing them straight to labor and delivery just in case, so when Sy and I made our way into the hospital she was already upstairs. They wouldn?t let me into Labor and Delivery with my Son. They told me that the baby couldn?t come in and I almost kicked the door. Instead I sat down, hugged Sy close and started crying over him so he wouldn?t see that I was scared senseless.
I didn?t have a clue what to do. I called up my sister on her cell-phone (couldn?t find her house number) and just got her voice mail. I called up my father-in-law (4:15 am) and after asking him ?how?s it going?? I proceeded to tell him what was going on and that I need to get help.
I sat down and cried some more then called one of the elders from my church?seeing a way out of the haze. I told him what was going on and asked for help and him and his wife told me they would be right over, praise the Lord. At this point I sat Sy down and tried the Black Gate again. I didn?t have much hope, just wanting a report of how she?s doing.
They kept me on hold forever, listening to that infuriating elevator music and me growing more and more sure that something horrible just happened because they hadn?t answered me right away. When they got back on, they told me that I can come inside and I was sure that something had gone wrong. Quickly, I called Sy and had him come in with me to the room where they said my wife was staying.
The baby was fine. She was not in labor. Heartbeat was excellent.
My wife though was very pale and speaking almost incoherently about her speech while a resident stood with mouth agape taking notes. A real doctor stood there asking questions and then made sure to ask me if my wife was on drugs, did she have anything weird to eat tonight, etc. The answers were that she doesn?t drink, she has never used drugs and hasn?t even taken Tylenol during her pregnancy, has had pasta with some sauce and some cold cereal.
They decided to giver her fluids, 30 cc?s of Maalox and a baggy of Zofran straight to the vein. I doubted that it would work since my wife?s history of oral medications for her GI problems have even resulted in taking experimental medication. Thank God the medicated meds worked and sometime after my elder and his wife picked up Sy, my wife was coherent and ably enunciating how she felt when she tried to formulate words but couldn?t.
In the end of this very long day, finally getting home today at 1:00 am, we had no answers. There is some conjecture that she had a bleeding ulcer and some other ideas that she was dehydrated (although she?s been drinking about a gallon of water a day during this pregnancy). MRI?s were negative showing no oddities in the brain or neck area and nothing remains but the memory and a fearful expectation that it could happen again.
So pray for us and this pregnancy. We?re at our seventh month and just would like it if the rest of the pregnancy went smoothly.
Reynaldo Reynoso