Antenatal Day Unit, East Surrey Hospital

We had a hell of a day yesterday...got up as normal, I got washed/shaved/dressed and bumbled downstairs, put on BBC Breakfast (to blip in the headlines and absorb weather and travel reports in the background), wandered into the kitchen to put some milk into the microwave ready for Flyingpops breakfast, ran the tap for some cold water for me to pop my effervescent vitamin tablet into - and then heard a pitiful cry from the stairs, I called from where I was standing asking if everything was okay and got only a pained "Fink!" in response, by the time I had reached the living room door she was in the hall, bent double and holding her bump with an expression of pain wracking her face...

We had a quick discussion about how she felt, which concluded with her deciding to try eating her breakfast and see if the pain subsided, and actually, as soon as she sat down, the pain in her middle lessened considerably, the only problem was, as soon as she finished eating and stood up to go and brush her teeth, it came right back again...

I told her we should go straight over to the hospital to get it checked out, but she wanted to call and speak to her mum (some misguided idea that the hospital staff would tell her off for being silly), but Nanjan confirmed my decision, so we picked up all our commuting stuff and headed over to the Antenatal day unit at East Surrey Hospital (which is only minutes away, thankfully)...as soon as we walked in she was popped up onto a hospital bed and surrounded by Midwives who didn't hesitate but to run a series of tests, starting with urine (normal - no infections) and measurements (using an Ikea tape measure - the Midwife actually confessed "I was in the store and spotted them and thought, those would be good for work"!) which were all okay, and then they plugged in their expensive foetal doppler and found the heartbeat right away (phew!), they asked a battery of questions which culminated in a doctor being paged...

When the doctor appeared (about half an hour later - during which time I tried in vain to stop Flyingpops reading her work emails on her blackberry and worrying about her meeting in the afternoon she didn't want to miss), she poked and prodded, asked some more questions, then ordered a range of blood tests to be carried out, telling us that everything seemed normal with the baby, but just because Flyingpops was pregnant, didn't mean that other things couldn't go wrong, more specifically the place and nature of the pain did kind of match the symptoms of appendicitis...

I took this opportunity to run outside (while the nurses tried to find a vein) and rang Flyingpops mum, so she wouldn't worry and called both of our bosses to update them as to the situation...waiting for the result of the blood tests took just over an hour, the midwives told us to go for a walk (so we went and bought some snacks from the counter by the east entrance) and by the time we got back (Flyingpops being unable to manage anything other than a slow stagger) we only had to wait about ten minutes and the doctor reappeared, said all the blood tests were clear and the pain was likely to be just temporary, she told Flyingpops to take some weak pain killers, get some rest and come back if it persisted, or in fact for anything else (they were wonderfully kind and attentive, nothing was too much trouble)...

As we went to leave (I fully intended to get into work as soon as I could) we were only a few steps out of the front door when the heavens opened - and of course there was no chance of Flyingpops speeding up...we got absolutely *soaked*...Anyway, she rested up at home for the rest of the day, I made it into work for lunchtime and this morning she's feeling absolutely fine...so totally the right thing to do - go and get it checked out - and now we know exactly where to go for this sort of help and advice...thank you East Surrey Hospital...!