Part 2 – The Day Everything Changed
I arrived at the Royal Bolton Hospital around 11am. I’d driven myself there, as all round, I felt pretty much ok. Something was niggling at the back of my mind though. So after parking up, I took a video of where my car was. In my mind, this was just in case I needed to stay overnight and my John (my husband), needed to take my car home.
I made my way straight to the maternity unit for my ‘further tests’. I sat in a small waiting room with 4 other ladies. First, was the pee test. Now normally this would be a breeze for any lady at the end of her second trimester. However, as I mentioned in ‘The Bump’ post, this had suddenly changed over the past 2 days. After a lot of filling up at the water machine around the corner, the task was complete and it was sent off for testing.
Next came the bloods, cringe! Now I’m not scare of needles nor do I have any other rational or irrational phobia of blood tests. It’s just that my veins aren’t very visible, so I had always had difficulties when giving blood. Well, I say always, this particular nurse was a pro! No 10 minutes spent trying to find my veins whilst I slowly sink into the chair. It took all of about 1 minute. 3 tubes filled and off for testing they went.
I sat in the waiting room wondering how long I’d hanging around at the hospital today. The lady opposite me was quite chatty so the 10 minutes of waiting passed really quickly.
A lovely nurse popped her head round the corner. I was asked to sit in a small cubicle on a large recliner chair. Far comfier than the usual waiting room chairs. The nurse told me that I’d have to sit here for about 30 minutes whilst they took my blood pressure at regular intervals. This was all done automatically by the machine next to me.
I sat quite happily munching on a huge bag of Haribo sweets whilst reading a magazine. I don’t recall why I had them with me, though I probably visited the shop on the way to the hospital (I’m quite organised like that). The nurse popped her head in every so often after she heard the blood pressure machine deflating. I tried to glance at the readings but the display monitor was turned slightly away from me. I caught a few though and could see that they were quite high. I managed to catch the nurse’s eye on about her 3rd visit. She’d looked at the machine then turned to me. She smiled. But something was wrong. Her smile wasn’t saying, ‘no problem here’, but quite the opposite. It was a smile that you’d normally see on the face of someone who is trying to comfort you through difficult times.
As soon as the final reading had been taken, a nurse and a midwife appeared. They pulled the curtain back and beside them was a wheelchair. Why on earth did they have a wheelchair? They asked me to sit in it so that they could take me round to a bay. I refused at first. Not in a rude way. I could walk so why did I need a wheelchair? The nurse explained very nicely that it was hospital policy as they suspected that I had pre-eclampsia. My memory goes a bit fuzzy around this point. I became very confused but did take a seat in the wheelchair. It took all of about 60 seconds to reach the bay. My mouth dropped as I read the name on the door, ‘Delivery Suite’. What? They must have ran out of space on one of the assessment wards. At least, that’s how I explained it to myself at that time.
My follow up post, ‘The Birth’, explains what happened later that afternoon.
Big hugs xxx
