Part III: Waiting (or, Everything I Need to Know, I Learned on Bed Rest)

The Dictator visits and eats her usual Saltine snack. 
I had a bed full of cracker crumbs, and I
liked it that way.

The next part of the story, the part after I figured out that there might be no Anarchist, involves mostly waiting.  About two-and-a-half to three months of waiting to be exact.  Or, in hospital time, three days.  Hospital time is a new and nifty method of time measurement I learned while in the hospital.  It turns out, that when a nurse or doctor tells you that they will return in 15 minutes, and don't return for the better part of a day, they are not doing it to snub you, neglect you, or even because they have forgotten about you.  In fact, the reason that your doctor or nurse has not courteously returned anywhere near the 15 minutes they estimated, is because they are operating on a different plane of existence, and on this plane of existence everything runs on hospital time.  After a few weeks of feeling utterly helpless and neglected every time this happened, the Bureaucrat and I came to the stunning realization that if you take the amount of time your caregiver tells  you and figure about an hour for each minute, you will be roughly accurate in predicting your caregiver's actual time of arrival.  Once you have figured this out, you can translate, and then everything will make perfect sense.  It was life changing, really.

I learned a lot of other amazingly life changing lessons while on bed rest/in the hospital.  I know you're dying for me to recount them to you.  Man, you're an attentive audience!  In no particular order:

1)  Needles are not as bad as they look. 

I used to faint whenever I had blood drawn.  I am frail of constitution like that.  But after several nurses played many rounds of "Stab the Pregnant Lady 17-25 times in her Diving and Surprisingly Resistant Veins Until You Maybe Have Some Luck But Then it Pops Out Again and There's Blood Spatter Everywhere Like Something Out of a Horror Movie," I developed an ability to endure anything involving needles.  Now, whenever I go to the doctor's and a nurse apologetically says that she has to draw blood, I look at her with a delighted gleam in my eyes.  Bring it!

2) Showing Vulnerability (crying like a toddler)=Orange Cream Cake

I regret to inform you that this lesson does not hold true in real life.  But in hospital land, on the rare occasion that seeing one more needle actually does cause you to have a rare emotional meltdown, the nice nurses and technicians will bribe you...with orange cream cake...with all the orange cream cake they can pilfer from various dinner trays on the floor.  I think I might have had seven pieces.  Really, I should have tried having meltdowns a whole lot sooner. 

3)  Thinner is not always better.

This could also be titled: "What Not to Say to a Woman Facing a High-Risk Pregnancy."  When I went into the hospital the first time, it was discovered that I had lost about eight pounds (i.e. the water weight that would have been delightful to have still had, given that it provided her with a way to breathe).  Of course, my doctors were--rightfully--concerned.  At one point, they even insisted I have weigh-ins like they do on Biggest Loser.  If I didn't weigh enough, they would look very concerned.  Some of the nurses, on the other hand, would feel it necessary to make such comments as, "Oh my god, you are SO skinny!  I hate you!  I wish I had been that skinny when I was pregnant!  How do you manage to stay so thin?!"  Oh, gosh, I don't know...maybe because I'm languishing with infection and uterine rupture, all the fluids that help my baby breathe are mysteriously missing so that she's forced to face-plant in mere millimeters of fluid, and I haven't had any non-hospital food in weeks?!  Maybe you could try that with your next pregnancy!  It's worked wonders for me! 

Oh my gosh, I was so SKINNY!  I HATE me!
How did I EVER manage to stay so thin?!

4)  Medical tape makes an excellent alternative to wax, bleach, or laser treatments.

The first time a nurse attempted to yank off the tape from my IV so that I could take a shower--commenting, "Wow!  You're furry!"--and it cleanly removed an entire patch of arm hair, I knew I had found a winner.  

5)  Medical residents get all the worst jobs.

From a patient's perspective, the residents in the Labor and Delivery Unit have a job description that is as follows:

Wake patient for 6 am abdominal prod.
Deliberate nervously over whether or not to alert attending physician (who is at home sleeping) about seemingly dangerous problem (which will turn out to be nothing) at 3 am.
Inform super-hungry patients that they are not allowed to eat tonight "just in case."
Hold vomit pan for emergency c-section patient who just ate a hearty spaghetti dinner.  Regret not having advised said patient not to eat tonight "just in case."

6)  When attempting to entertain an anxious toddler in a hospital room, spinny stools and saltines go a long way.

The poor Dictator only got to visit me a few times during the duration of my stay.  The first time, she was so glad that I still existed that she plastered herself to me and could not be pried loose (it was mutual).  The next time, she got antsy, so I fed her pieces of tomato and saltines from my lunch tray and let her spin on the doctor's spinny stool.  This created a ritual for the next couple of times she came to visit.  I still miss that ritual.

7)  What Not to Wear

I couldn't allow myself to have deep emotions, or I would have been done for.  This being the case, my sole form of entertainment was What Not to Wear marathons on TLC.  I now officially know how to mix prints, why I should wear heels on all occasions, and why a little jacket that nips in at the waist can make all the difference.  Thanks, high risk pregnancy, for giving me the opportunity to focus on fashion!

8)  Sleeping drug-induced hallucinations are not as funny as they seem.

Okay, so I thought that it was an amusing anecdote when I told a nurse that the previous night I had dreamed that the entire hospital was on fire and had actually left my bed and attempted to put out flames with my sheets.  How was I to know that the news would soon spread to panicked doctors who would wonder if my next dream might cause me to open the window, go out on the roof, and act out the plot of an entire action movie (you know, the kind that take place on the roof?).  Good thing I didn't tell them about that hallucination!

9)  How to pick the person you want to have cut you open.

They don't actually let you pick, by the way.  But you can hope, right?  Every single one of my doctors was competent, compassionate and all-around amazing.  That being said, there were certain doctors I hoped would not be on call when the moment of delivery came.  Crying Doctor, for example, would shower me with her empathy for feelings I hadn't even allowed myself to experience yet.  Also, she might cry into my open womb, and I think that could cause an infection.  Another doctor, one I really looked forward to having on rounds, was Sleepless Doctor.  Sleepless Doctor seemed supremely competent, was the epitome of sensitivity, and also proved to be an excellent listener and advocate for his patients.  Unfortunately, he made the mistake of making an offhand comment to me about how he occasionally took just a sliver of a sleeping pill (literally) because he was an insomniac.  And even with the pills, he often only got two or three hours of sleep a night.  Not something you want to hear from your potential surgeon.  Luckily, I was spared a sleepless doctor or a crying one for the actual surgery, but I was gifted with both of these doctors during the rest of my care.

10)    People have such a capacity for kindness.

Nurses who bought me special snacks to cheer me up, patient care techs who brought in their own dvds for me to borrow, doctors who told me how they thought of how hard it must be for me (thought of it even when they were not at work), cleaning ladies who insisted that I get the best service possible, cafeteria workers who made me smile and feel loved every time they took my order for the day...these people are what got me safely through the ordeal, still feeling like a human being.  If they hadn't been this kind and caring, I guarantee that I would not have held out as long as I did.  I am thankful every day that I was given such amazing care and reminded that most people are really wonderful, and compassionate, and a blessing to have around.  (Eww...mushy.  But true.)

The Dictator stayed with my parents during this ordeal. 
They're willingness to help to such a great extent is another
reason I was able to make it through.