Troubling symptoms and Inept doctors

37 weeks 6 days

The past few weeks, it's become a nightly ritual to throw up within half an hour of trying to lay down.  My evenings are usually filled with nauseousness only relieved when I'm able to get out a good burp.  The most troubling part is that the nightly ritual involves throwing up blood.  I even got freaked out enough one night that I called hubby home and spent 5 hours in the ER.

The next day, I called the OBGYN and asked to see the doctor.  He doesn't really have any answers for us as my blood pressure and urine tests were normal.  He prescribed some anti-ulcer medication and sent us on our way.  I took it for a week, but I was still throwing up blood at least once every night after I would try to lay down.

The next week, I saw the same doctor and told him the medicine wasn't working.  He prescribed something else, so I asked if I should continue to take the ulcer medicine.  He sorta shrugged and said I could if I wanted to.  That really perturbed me.  This medicine was strong enough that the disclaimer sheet was talking about how I shouldn't take it while breastfeeding and that pregnant women should be careful.  And he was nonchalant about whether or not I should continue taking a strong medication that wasn't even working.  I made the executive decision that I wasn't going to continue taking it.  He did order some blood tests as well though.

We get the prescription, and it's exactly the same nausea medication I was prescribed first trimester that I stopped taking because it wasn't working.  Did he even look at my chart to see what prescriptions I've already been given?  I'm peeved, but I give this medication a second try.  As I suspected, it doesn't do anything for me.  I'm still throwing up blood every single night!  At this point, I'm weak from only being able to keep down one meal a day, I've lost 4 pounds from a couple weeks ago, and I'm exhausted from not being able to go to bed without needing to throw up.  Grumbling about inept doctors, I consult a friend who worked in an ER to ask whether or not it was worth it to pay them another visit.  She explained to me that the tests they would normally do they couldn't do because I was pregnant, so there was no point going to the ER unless I was vomiting blood continuously or if I started having contractions.  She also suggested that I might be suffering from pregnancy induced lactose intolerance.

On Friday, I get a call from the OBGYN that they need to take another blood sample for their test because they didn't take enough vials.  It's an annoyance, but we drive back out there to give a sample.  If it could give us the answer, it's worth it, right?

This weekend, we try an experiment per my friend's suggestion.  I go the entire weekend with as little dairy as possible.  I love my cereal and cheeses, so it was a very annoying sacrifice to make.  I even had a couple moody moments about it (mostly because hubby decided he would make himself cheese sticks, and I so wanted one >.<; ), but I get through the weekend.  I'm still throwing up every night as per usual, but lo and behold, there is no blood!  I felt like we solved half the problem, and it was without the doctor's help.

Today, I got another call from the OBGYN saying they lost my blood sample I gave them on Friday!  I'm very annoyed with this doctor's office by now, but I do consider it an important test to have done.  Unfortunately, they were busy today with only one lab tech on duty.  So they made us wait 20 minutes just to get a single vial drawn.

I go back on Wednesday, and luckily I'm not seeing this same inept doctor who didn't seem to care about what medication he was prescribing me.  I already have a doctor there I refuse to let see me ever again, and now I have a second to add to that list.  I just hope this different doctor will be helpful or at least admit to me there's nothing they can do about it.  I also hope the nausea will truly go away once I have this baby.  The lactose free diet test gives me some hope it isn't something terribly serious, but it's exhausting to be throwing up every night, blood or no.