The bad night

So much has been happening at the same time that so little has been happening, if that makes sense.  It has been hard to decide on what to write about and so, silence...

But last night I had an experience that freaked me out.

I have a bit of a weird allergy, where I get restricted in my upper respiratory track and have a dry cough, hard to catch my breath.  I've had this for about 5 years and some days it doesn't bother me at all and other days it's really pesky.  And at night, when I lay down it can be brutal.

But then there was last night.  Last night I was exhausted and tried to go to bed around 8pm.  I immediately started my coughing routine but it was particularly bad and wouldn't settle down.  It kept getting worse and frustrating b/c I had to breath really heavily to try and get enough oxygen, but with every coughing episode I peed in my pants (even 10 second after I just completely voided my bladder).  It was scary, but after about an hour I could breath better and fell asleep.

The cat woke me up at 11:40pm and I could feel the coughing coming back on.  It was again pretty bad by about 12:45am and I got a little freaked.  So I called the on-call doctor from my OB's office and she told me to come into the emergency room immediately.

So I did.

By the time I got there I was still having some difficulty breathing but it wasn't all that bad any more.  The emergency room sent me up to labor & delivery, where little M got monitored for 30 minutes and all was great with her.  The dr I talked to on the phone came in after she finished up a delivery and said that there really isn't much they could do for me at that point, but that all seemed fine with the pregnancy so just talked to my primary care doctor today and try to see a pulmonary specialist.  She didn't think it sounded like asthma but there was clearly something in my upper respiratory track that isn't quite right.

I go to see my primary care this afternoon. 

I have such mixed emotions about it all.  I feel kind of foolish to go to the emergency room when they couldn't/didn't do anything for me.  But then again, I was scared, having trouble breathing, and what would have happened it if I had passed out and something happened to the baby?  I know deep down that I did the right thing.  And at the very least I know that my horrible coughing spells aren't hurting M.  She's doing great, and there is nothing in the world that I am more grateful for than that.

Random end notes:

Thanksgiving was really nice, but have many thoughts about my relationship with my sister and her IF troubles.  She is an angel about it all, but I feel guilty.  I'll post on that soon once I have some more time to process.

Nicholas -- I DO still have the crown-rump length article as a PDF but I don't know your email address.