5 Weeks 4 Days (or so I thought)

A Bit of a Scare

Less than 18 hours after my first positive pregnancy test, I woke up in the middle of the night at 3am with terrible pelvic cramps. Now if I hadn't just found out I was pregnant, it wouldn't have been a cause for concern. But of course, that perspective changed with the double lines. I got up to go to the bathroom, hoping that would eleviate the pain. But once I finished peeing the pain seemed to get worse. I crawled back into bed curled up in a fetal position with my hands pressing on my pelvic area, doubled over in pain. I wondered briefly if this was what labour pain was like. Not wanting to wake up my husband just yet, I went downstairs to the kitchen (I wasn't sure how walking down a flight of stairs would help the pain). The pain was still there, intense stabbing pain. This had been going on for about 10-15 minutes now. Now I was starting to get scared. I checked right there in the middle of my kitchen if I was bleeding. I wasn't. I couldn't take the pain anymore, but I also didn't want to take anything like Advil. I had no idea what was safe to take for a pregnant woman.

I suddenly remembered that my brother-in-law (who lives in Edmonton) is a night owl, and even thought it was 1am there right now, he would probably still be awake. And more importantly, he is an ER doctor. I called my sister's home number and luckily Dave answered after the first ring. At that point we hadn't told anyone in our family that I was pregnant, but the ER doctor needed the correct information to make a diagnosis, so I told I had just found out i was pregnant yesterday, and I woke up with stabbing pelvic pains. I must have sounded really bad on the phone, because he told me to go to the ER to get checked out. He said he didn't think it was a miscarriage since there was no bleeding, but it's safer to get the pain checked out. And with that, I went back upstairs to wake up my husband to take me to the ER (less than 5 minute drive away).

By the time we got dressed to leave for the hospital, the pain had subsided to a dull ache. And by the time we got to the hospital and checked in a triage, the pain was gone completely. But I felt it was important to find out what the pain was even though it wasn't there anymore.

In the end, the ER doctor concluded that it was gastric pain, and nothing to be concerned about. When she examined me, she said the pain seemed to have moved to my abdomen and stomach area. From that she concluded it was gas pains. After waiting in the ER for 3 hours, I find out all I have to do to relief the pain is to fart. I felt bad for making my husband wake up at 3am for gas, but hey, how was I supposed to know?! I guess that's a lesson for first time moms.

I am not passing along any medical advice in my blog. In fact, if you feel anything is wrong at all, go see a doctor. I thought the intense pain warranted a visit to the ER, and in the end I'm glad I went. But at the same time, I wish I had a crystal ball to tell me it was just gas.