This morning, I had an OB appointment. I got up, drank a whole ton of juice, ate some breakfast, and managed to throw myself in the shower before I had to leave.
Unfortunately, I did not have time to apply any makeup, so I grabbed it and threw it in my toy bag, which is vital for waiting around for our doc to show up.
Surprisingly, there was never any time to wait around.
So I had a red and blotchy face when the nurse came in to check my blood pressure and stuff. She took my right arm, velcroed it all up in the little blood pressure machine (which I hate), and started squeezing the cuff. ”Huh,” she said. ”Have you been having high blood pressure?”
“No,” I said. But I don’t understand (or really care about) what the numbers mean, I mostly just go off the statement the nurse makes afterwards. Usually it’s something like, “looks good” or “very nice” or along those lines.
But today, Nicole said. “Uh, it’s really high.”
“Huh,” I said, completely unphased.
“I’ll just go tell the doc and then we’ll see what she wants to do,” she said, then left.
I ran over to my makeup and started unzipping the bag frantically, trying to get it applied to my face before the doc came in. Just the moment I picked up my bottle of PrimeTime, the doc knocked in the door. I threw the bottle down into my bag and shuffled over to the exam table, where I was supposed to already be ready and waiting.
She checked me out and everything looks normal (WE LOVE NORMAL), and informed us that: a.) the baby hasn’t dropped yet, and b.) everything else is looking very ready.
Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow morning and all the stars will be aligned or something. Not that I believe in stars aligning to alter circumstances. Just so we’re clear.
The doc said my blood pressure looked high, but not so high that she was terribly concerned. She said she’d send Nicole back in to recheck it in a minute. Nicole popped back in, got me all rigged up and squeezed the ever loving blood pressure out of my arm, and said ,”Yeah, it’s still really high. Maybe you should lay down.”
I just looked at her with confusion and said, “Seriously? I feel fine.”
“Well, I don’t think she’s going to let you leave with your re-check looking this high,” Nicole said.
So I’m a hostage of the hospital system now?!
“Uh, can I sit down over there instead of laying down?” I motioned to the chair next to the mirror. ”I want to put my makeup on.”
Nicole looked at me like I was nuts because obviously I was going to be laying down for ages and who cares about makeup, but she said I might as well if I felt like it.
As I said before, I felt fine.
“Are you worried,” Joey asked me.
“Nah,” I said. ”At this point, probably the most dramatic thing they could do is admit me and then we’ll have a baby. Not the end of the world. Plus, I feel fine.”
Ten minutes later, Nicole returned.
“I’m going to check your other arm, just for fun,” she said.
Turns out, the blood pressure in my left arm is fine. It’s my right arm that’s the problem. ”Maybe it’s because my entire right side is swollen?” I suggested. ”The left side is fine.”
“Oh,” she said, and looked at me like maybe I should have told her that in the first place.
In other news, we’re back to our original OB on Tuesday when she comes back from maternity leave. Maybe we’ll have less of these little miscommunications going forward. But at least the hospital didn’t hold me hostage forever.
Just half an hour.
