Am I "Hysterical Pregnant Lady"?

So for the last four days, I have apparently been suffering from the world's longest bout of "round ligament pain." Round ligaments are the ligaments on the sides of the uterus, and as they grow and stretch, they hurt (obviously, right?). But they're usually only supposed to hurt for short periods of time, maybe a few hours at most. And they usually hurt more on the right side. At least this is what "the books" tell me-- how the hell am I supposed to know? So when mine started hurting on the left side only and continued straight through for three days, through walking, sitting, eating, breathing, and one sleepless night, I got a little tired of it- not really worried, just tired of the nagging sharp pain that feels like a constant stitch in my side. Ouch.

So I called the doctor yesterday, during regular office hours, mostly just to see what I should do about it, with a secondary purpose of figuring out if it was anything to be concerned about. We played phone tag all day and then the office closed (at 4PM!!!). So at 4:45, I'm still in pain, so I called "after hours" (at 4:45PM!!!). They had to page the doctor, of course, who listened to my symptoms and then asked me a bunch of questions, many of which I couldn't answer ("Feeling any unusual pressure in your abdomen?" Let's think about this. I'm 5 months pregnant. For the first time. How the hell do I know what's "unusual pressure"? There's a lot of pressure!). She said to try some Tylenol and a warm bath and see if it got any better, and if not, to go in to the office today.

So I tried the Tylenol (first drugs I've taken during the whole pregnancy) and the bath. And while the sharpness subsided a little, and I was able to sleep about 5 hours, it kicked up again around 4AM. This morning, it still hurt a lot when I moved the wrong way or took a deep breath or touched that spot, so I called to get an appointment. They told me that there was no room (40 appointments for one of the other docs in 6 hours-- can you believe that???) and that because I was 23 weeks, I should go to labor and delivery at the hospital (which is where we ended up a few weekends ago). I asked if there was any way to ask my doctor whether I should go there, and she had the doctor call me. Turns out that my own doctor was staffing labor and delivery today, so she told me to come on over there to check things out. I asked her if she really thought it was worth it, and she said "Well, these things are almost always nothing, but every once in a while, it's something, so we might as well just check you out."

So back to the hospital I went. Another hospital ID band. Another urine sample. Another doppler hookup to the baby's heartbeat. Another monitor to check for contractions. A nurse, a nurse midwife and the doctor, at different times, all asking me what brought me in. Another physical exam. All this for some pain in my side (nasty, persistent pain, but still). Once it was determined that I was not in early labor (not that I had suspected such) and that nothing else seemed to be wrong, the doctor said it was just round ligament pain. And she just had to bring up my last visit to the hospital (as if they were connected), saying, "Same pain, same exam, same result-- nothing's going on. If anything was, it would have shown up by now." And the nurse midwife said to me, "You know, you're going to have some aches and pains" (as if I didn't already know this). And the nurse said, "You're going home. Hopefully we won't see you again until December!"

So all of a sudden, I have become "hysterical pregnant lady" who freaks out at the slightest thing. But really, I'm not! Last time was the first time in all 21 weeks that I had called the doctor at all! This time, I called during regular office hours. I tried to get a regular appointment. I asked the doctor if she really thought a visit to L&D was warranted under the circumstances. All I wanted was for someone to tell me the source of the pain, and more importantly, what to do about it. But they sent me home, still in pain, and with what felt like a kind little chiding not to bother them again unless it was really bad.

I don't really have a point here. I'm just feeling a little misunderstood. And damn, my side hurts.