Ouchie

Our friend Beka came into town from California this week, so we spent a couple of glorious days with her at the beach house, rejoicing in the sun and faking it that Oregon is always like this.

The night before we left, I woke up in the middle of the night to very sharp pains in my stomach, and they continued while we were at the beach. They became excruciating and I began to worry that maybe something was going wrong with the baby. As I am the opposite of a hypochondriac though, I always assume everything will be fine and thus have never called the doctor about anything (except the one time I had blisters all over the left side of my body as well as excruciating pains in my heart and my father forced me over the phone to go to the ER- turns out I had shingles) but in this case it was pretty clear something was wrong.

I called the day we got back from Manzanita and they agreed to see me that day. They set me up with an ultrasound, and even though I'm SURE that the first time they told me my fibroid was on my ovary, the tech (who was weird) told me actually it was on my uterus, and was 90% outside the uterus and 10% inside with the baby. He said that he was not allowed to diagnose me but if I promised not to tell he would say what he thought the problem was, since he was very smart and had been a tech for 28 years and after 28 years he knew what he was talking about after all. Sure, we said. He reminded us again that we had promised not to tell the doctor that he said anything. We reiterated our promise. It's the fibroid that hurts, he told us. Fibroids are excruciating and it was too bad but nothing could be done and I would just have to suffer for the next 3+ months until the baby was born and it was just unfortunate. We stared at him in horror. 28 years he'd been doing this, he told us again. He knew what he was talking about. Then he proceeded to "help" me by wiping off the ultrasound jelly from my stomach (the normal techs let you do that yourself) in the most rough way I have ever been handled, chatting away happily, and pulling down my pants to scrub at the top of my crotch in case some jelly had magically made it down there. I hated him and his manhandling hands and his horrible news. We shuffled out depressed, and in my case, in great pain, that would apparently last forever.

Then the doctor saw me. Already knowing the answer, I asked him sadly if it was my fibroid that was hurting me, growing huge and taking over. Not at all, he said, looking at the ultrasound. He asked if the pain had started in the middle of the night. I told him yes, very surprised he would know. Ah yes, he confirmed, exactly what he thought. He told us that round ligament muscles run up each side of the uterus and often get pulled or strained, causing horrifying pain like mine. He ran his hand up the side of my stomach and under my ribs to indicate where the ligament was.

"That's right where it hurts!" I shouted excitedly.

Yes, yes, he said, and told us what happens is that while you're sleeping the muscle is all relaxed and if you roll over the heavy baby (now approximately 2 pounds) flops onto the muscle due to gravity and strains it and it takes about two weeks to heal.

"You mean I'll feel better in two weeks?" I asked increduously.

"Yes," he said. It was all I could do to hold my tongue and not break my promise to that idiot ultrasound guy who had me convinced I'd be tortured for the next third of a year. The doctor said some people had to go on bed rest for this but he would not do that to me and I thanked him profusely.

So anyway, I still hurt but the baby is fine and if I take it very easy I should feel better in a little over a week. I am allowed to take Tylenol, which helps nothing, so I am braving it unmedicated. Also I found a million fabulous things at a giant consignment sale, so the entire week isn't a bust. That's all!