"Cramps can mean so many things."

Heather has legendary menstrual cramps.  They're ridiculous.  Or she says so, anyway.  Today she's building a new legend wherein she has brutal... pregnancy cramps.  Obviously, we had to page the on-call doctor.

That's kind of an unfair way of putting it.  Heather wasn't being hysterical (an apt word, under the circumstances), and whatever she was, I was right there with her.  She came home from work late, slumped on the couch, and said her legs and lower back were hurting terribly.  At around 2:30, I'd spoken to a nurse in Nashville who said that Heather's hCG had nearly tripled-- from 55 to 163-- so we should continue to be cautiously optimistic.  I asked when we could be fully optimistic; she said it would have to wait for the ultrasound, which will be around the 17th.

I was excited to report to Heather.  We were all worried her hCG would falter, but it pulled through.  She wasn't inspired, though, which surprised me.  She didn't understand why the cramps were so bad, was unhappy to find that the only sleep aid she could have was Benadryl, and didn't think "night sweats" explained the mid-night wakefulness. 

"Well, that's what we know, baby."

"That Tylenol did exactly nothing for me.  These cramps haven't faded at all."

The big plan was that Heather would get home, get her shots and a food rub, then take the Benadryl and go to bed, but then she said she had terrible pains throughout her legs and lower back.  What I hoped she wouldn't remember was how the nurse said not to worry about the cramps unless there were shooting pains up to her shoulder, and of course she did remember, and of course we both thought she was having a miscarriage, which she articulated and I did not. 

"I'm really hurting, baby."

She looked said and was starting to Google.  I left a message for the on-call doctor and read over Heather's shoulder as she pulled up fertility forum after fertility forum.  Reading those message boards is the quickest way to totally lose your shit, mainly because you get nothing but mixed messages.  One lady says she had terrible back pain just before her miscarriage, then five ladies say that it's totally normal around four to six weeks to have terrible back pain, and then another lady says she's sorry to offer bad news but that she'd had terrible back pain just before her miscarriage, and then Heather gets impatient and searches again. 

So that's what we were doing when the doctor called back.  Now, I want to be pissed because it took her fifteen or twenty minutes, but she was so incredibly thorough that I couldn't be.  I was also pretty stoked because she took the phone, like Jesus did the wheel.  It's totally awesome when I don't have to be on the phone.  Yes, that's what I do for a living, but I really prefer to keep that in the 9 to 5 and never use the phone otherwise.  Never ever.  I don't know what all happened since I only heard Heather's side and most of it apparently was on the doctor's side, but it went on a long, long time, and I so loved that I wasn't a part of it. 

Heather took a bath, Tylenol, two Benadryl, shots, and dinner in bed.  Then I left her to watch Felicity and make macaroni & cheese.  It's 10:30PM and I feel like a late-night badass.