BAD Day

So, did I disappear off the earth for a while? Why no, thank you for asking. But it would seem that way when you spend a day in the ER. Good times.

It started the night before last, Tuesday, after we got home from our nine-hour drive back from Cincinnati. I'll spare you the gory details but aside from other things I was having cramps and a backache from hell. If I wasn't using birth control, I'd have said I was pregnant and having a miscarriage. Yesterday, it wasn't better. Actually, it was worse. After a lovely conversation with my lovely friend Ashley (conversation having absolutely nothing to do with what's going on with me physically) I break down crying cause I feel like dookie and she says that "Yes" I should call the doctor.

I hate calling the doctor. I'm afraid they'll tell me I'm a whiner. Which is probably why I tend to get really sick then they tell me how stupid I was for waiting so long to call the doctor. But I digress... I called the doctor. Or I tried anyway. Apparently, in the metro DC area there are quite a few women needing to visit the GYN because my new doctor was booked solid until December. They gave me the number for "Ask a Nurse". The nurse was so nice, she made me cry. She essentially said go to the doctor or go to the ER. Well, my doctor's office couldn't help out on that one (Come on! They have five offices for pete sake... they couldn't give anyone the boot for a semi-emergency?) Anyway, Rusty came home from work, Ashley watched Sean and we headed off to the ER.

Funny thing, if you're under the age of 40 and having the symptoms I was having, even with birth control they assume you're pregnant. I didn't want to hear that. But not for the reasons you might think. Yes, it's true that Rusty and I have decided that we're good to go with two kids. We don't feel the need to "try for a girl". We're happy. Being pregnant would be a surprise, even a shock. But not "bad". No, I didn't want to hear that I was pregnant because the symptoms I was having indicated a miscarriage, not a healthy pregnancy. And if it were a miscarriage, it wasn't random. It would be caused by the fact that my birth control of choice is a hormonal IUD. In theory, you can't get pregnant. But if you do, the IUD prevents the pregnancy from progressing past a certain point. My GYN stressed that it never gets to that point, etc. when I had it put in but you know... if they tell you, then someone has gotten that far with it, right?

Anyway, I didn't want to hear that I was pregnant because I didn't want to hear that I was miscarrying because of the birth control method I had chosen. I felt selfish and evil. I don't necessarily feel like every woman who has an abortion is selfish and evil... but I felt selfish and evil. Right up until the time that my blood test came back and said big ol' "No" on the pregnancy. Then I just felt annoyed to have sit in the ER for so long feeling like crap.

The rest of the story ends with me still feeling like dookie but coming home with a prescription for the biggest pills I've ever seen for some unknown infection (they'll call me in 3 days when the test results are finished to make sure one of my kidneys isn't sleeping on the job). I have the most heinous backache ever. But I'm just sick and not a horribly, selfish person like I thought. But I'm rethinking my decisions. I don't want to go through this again.