I decided to provide a little bit of excitement for Nick and I late on Saturday evening. We spent the early part of Saturday running errands, nothing special or terribly strenuous, but out and about all the same. I kept commenting how ridiculously tired I was feeling and I didn't understand. I have been fighting a head cold though so I figured it was just part of that running its course. Then Saturday afternoon we celebrated Mia's first birthday, and her Papa Alex's birthday at a soup party at their home. I was certainly using up energy visiting with various friends and family, but again, it wasn't exactly a strenuous day.
Finally we were home and relaxed watching a movie (The Invention of Lying- pretty entertaining if you want a good rental). I went to the bathroom and discovered that I was spotting a very small amount. Now, I didn't have any of the "dangerous" symptoms that they have you look for (no cramping, it was a very small amount of blood, etc) but all the same, having experience no spotting whatsoever to date, I freaked out a little bit.
Intellectually I knew that everything was fine, but emotionally I knew that I would be up all night worrying if I didn't make sure that the baby was okay. So I woke Nick up (who had been napping on the couch) and explained through my hormonal tears that I needed to go to the emergency room but I thought everything was okay. He very calmly got up, reassured me that it was okay and that I was doing the right thing.
We took the short drive down to the Kaiser emergency room in Terra Linda and checked in. I felt a little silly because I knew I was there purely to alleviate my fears, but fortunately it wasn't busy there so I wasn't taking up a needed bed. The nurse set us up, took my blood pressure, temp etc, and shortly the doctor came in. He calmly explained that everything was probably fine but that we would do an ultrasound to make sure the baby was okay, a brief pelvic exam to check for more bleeding and a urinalysis just in case there's an infection etc.
Of course everything is just fine. Baby was bigger and as usual pretty active on the ultrasound. We could see the baby's profile this time pretty clearly and think that the baby may have its daddy's nose. =) Nothing was wrong with me, and the bleeding had stopped. It was probably just a capillary that burst from the baby growing.
At the end of it all I was glad that I played it safe. Even the nurse made a comment when I said "I think everything is okay, I'm just scared" about how I would have been up all night anyway so it is better that I came in. I was so happy that she said that since that was exactly my reasoning for going in.
Aside from getting to see the baby (which is always nice) I was really happy for two reasons. The first was that Nick was able to see the baby again. He had to miss the last two ultrasounds and I think now that it really looks like a baby it was pretty exciting for him. The second was the realization of how incredibly grateful I am for my health insurance. I have always believed my coverage was pretty good through Kaiser. I pay minimal co-pays for visits and prescriptions, and pay for very little else. All pre-natal care is entirely covered though- so I don't even pay a co-pay for my visits! I had no concept if this applied to a visit to the ER and fully expected to pay my $75 fee, but when I went to check out, I paid nothing.
In this day and age, when health care is such a major topic, and the economy has so many people struggling just to keep a roof over their head and food in their fridges, I feel extremely privileged to be so well taken care of. So despite the scare, I got to walk away feeling not only relieved, but grateful.
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