The Jamaica Incident (Check Your Local Listings)
You know those Lifetime Channel movies where the plucky protagonist faces a series of improbable circumstances, yet somehow prevails and manages to live (mostly) Happily Ever After? That happened to me a few months ago. In fact, I'm pretty sure the Lifetime Network is right now drawing up a contract for the rights to the story of my Jamaican vacation. Here is your exclusive sneak peek into that made-for-television event.
(Please note: the following dramatic re-telling contains graphic references to Bob Marley, driving on the wrong side of the road, blood, hospitals, Pampers, believing in yourself, fully automatic machine guns, attempted kidnapping, attempted murder, and a possible sprained ankle. It's also pretty long. Reader discretion is strongly advised.)
SCENE: DOCTOR'S OFFICE
Our movie opens on an attractive couple played by Kate Mara (that's me) and Hugh Jackman in a skullcap (that's the hubs) sitting in a doctor's exam room. A brunette nurse says, "Congratulations! The IVF transfer of your last two remaining embryos was successful. You are six weeks pregnant. We see one tiny heartbeat."
"We have a vacation planned to Jamaica in a couple of weeks. Is it okay to travel?" I asked.
"Patients do it all the time," Nurse 1 replied."Just take your medication with you, and be aware of your surroundings. Find out where the nearest hospital is, just in case."
****cue ominous music***
SCENE: BEACHSIDE RESORT, NEGRIL, JAMAICA
Two weeks later, we arrived at our all-inclusive resort expecting to fully enjoy our toddler-free, worry-free escape from the real world. The next morning we listened to a local musician play acoustic Bob Marley on pristine sand with the crystal Caribbean ocean in the background. He kept telling me every little thing was gonna be alright. I believed him.
While getting ready for dinner that night, I started to have some odd abdominal cramps. I tried to ignore them. After all, I was on vacation. There is no cramping on vacation. Around 5:30 p.m., I started bleeding. I don't mean slight spotting. It was like a full-on, angry menstrual period. Suddenly I was standing in a tiki-decorated restroom in the middle of the Caribbean begging, "Please, God, don't let this be happening." I thought I was miscarrying our last chance to have a second child.
The cramps intensified, so we went back to the room. Things got worse. Around 6:30 I went to the bathroom and passed a clot. A big, menacing clot about 4-5 inches long and 1-2 inches wide. It had weight. I *felt* it slide out. Then I stared at it in the toilet in horror. I knew there was a nurse on staff at the hotel, and I knew we had to call her, and I thought she might need to see it, or the hospital might need to test it, or something equally grotesque and unimaginable. So I made the nausea-inducing, split-second decision to reach in the toilet and scoop it out. With MY BARE HAND. Don't judge me; you don't know what you might be forced to do in an emergency. Thinking I may have just given birth to my 8-week-old fetus, I made a soft bed of toilet paper on the counter top and gently placed the clot on top of it. It looked like a tiny sacrifice to the fertility gods.
In shock, I walked out of the bathroom to tell Bald Hugh Jackman, "I think it's over. I think I just miscarried." I crumpled onto the bed and cried. The kind of weeping that shakes your whole body and soul, and whatever furniture you're sitting on at the time.
Hugh called the nurse on staff. When she arrived, she examined the clot briefly and asked me if I suffer any medical conditions. "Depression and anxiety," I told her. "And infertility." I could barely make out the last word without collapsing into convulsive sobs.
Nurse 2 dialed up the doctor-on-call for the resort chain and asked us for the co-pay of $150 up front. After 30 or 45 minutes, Doctor 1 arrived and reviewed the situation with Nurse 2. They started an IV fluid drip and advised me that the best plan was to proceed to the hospital via ambulance. Doctor 1 said she believed this was an early miscarriage, and was concerned about both bleeding and possible infection. The doctor called a local ambulance service, which arrived perhaps an hour later with lights flashing. I was loaded into the back, with Bald Hugh Jackman in the front, and we made a very conspicuous exit around 8:40 p.m. But not before paying $800 up front for the ambulance ride.
SCENE: THE BACK OF AN AMBULANCE
It's a 90-minute drive nearest good hospital, it's a Saturday night, and it's Jamaica. The narrow streets were thick with congregations of locals hosting neighborhood fish frys and drinking Red Stripe beer. I don't blame them; if I weren't bleeding copiously, it might have looked like fun. The ambulance weaved its way through crowds and gingerly bounced over potholes the size of large dogs. Making matters worse, apparently there is no law that other motorists have to give way to emergency vehicles. We passed a number of slow-moving Japanese cars on twisty roads where they drive on the left (a.k.a. "wrong") side of the highway. At one point we crawled past a car accident where, Bald Hugh later told me, it seemed a tourist had struck a local pedestrian with his car. An angry mob was forming around the scene. Police had arrived. By the looks of things, this was not going to end well for the tourist. (Ooh, foreshadowing!)
Along the way, the paramedic asked some basic questions in his lilting accent and I explained that the doctor thought I was miscarrying. The paramedic inquired whether I'm a Christian and counseled me that I will get pregnant again, if I only believe in myself enough. Thank you, sir, I thought, that's super helpful. If only my doctors had thought of that years ago! I wouldn't have had to flash my hoo-ha to that extra dozen people! In between questions, I stared at the medical symbol emblazoned on the window of the ambulance -- a smiling snake on a stick. I made a mental note that the snake appeared to be pole-dancing. Aw, heck, she's probably just trying to put herself through college. Can't blame a snake for trying.
SCENE: MONTEGO BAY HOSPITAL
By the time I got to the MoBay Hope Hospital around 10:30 p.m., my tears and the bleeding had slowed and the cramping was less. Nurses 3 and 4 couldn't find any maxi pads for me to wear under my stylish open-back hospital gown, so someone grabbed an adult diaper. Throughout the rest of the night, the staff referred to it as my Pamper, which in a Jamaican accent comes out Pampa. While we were waiting to see the OB/GYN resident (that will be $600 up front, please), the TV in our room was tuned to one of the worst singing competition shows either Bald Hugh Jackman or I had ever seen. Called Kings and Queens of Dancehall, it was sponsored by Magnum Wine Tonic, which claims to be an intoxicant and a sexual stimulant.What's not to like there? Nurse 4 couldn't find the remote control to change the channel, so we were stuck watching a guy called Innovata jumping around on stage, desperately clinging to his 15 minutes of fame. At least he wasn't pole dancing.
Eventually I was wheeled out of the exam room, down a short and dingy hallway, and into an ultrasound room. Or almost into the room. The wheelchair wouldn't fit through the doorway, so I had to get up and walk the last several feet with my oversized Pampa hanging out of my gown. Doctor 2 first performed an abdominal ultrasound, and announced she could still see the gestational sac. I began sobbing again with relief and gratitude. Somehow, our precious baby -- about the size of a kidney bean -- was still in there and not on the counter in our hotel room. (Doctor 1 advised that we probably didn't need to take it with us in the ambulance. Which was fine with me, because this experience was already awful enough.)
In order to see the heartbeat so early in the pregnancy, Doctor 2 had to perform an internal ultrasound. Yes, that means a Jamaican doctor got to see my hoo-ha too. Sometimes I feel like Oprah giving out cars: "You see a hoo-ha! Annnnd you see a hoo-ha!" The ultrasound machine looked similar to the ones at Cleveland Clinic...except instead of a sterile plastic sheath covering the probe, there was an honest-to-God condom on there. A generic, ecru-colored rubber complete with reservoir tip. It was not ribbed for my pleasure. Doctor 2 picked up the probe and told me I was going to have to insert it myself. Now there's something I've never heard in any doctor's office before. As a side note, I believe I should have gotten a credit on my hospital bill for doing some of the work on my own.
Anyway, Doctor 2 showed us the beautiful beating heart and diagnosed a "threatened miscarriage." Since the situation seemed as good as possible, minus the terror and blood, she sent me back to the hotel. By the time I stripped off my Pampa and we settled the rest of the bill ($200 up front for blood work, please), it was after midnight. We had to get transportation back to the resort, so Nurse 3 or 4 advised us to ask the attendant at the front desk to call a cab.
SCENE: A SKETCHY "CAB"
A man picked us up sometime around 1 a.m. Immediately, we were pretty sure he wasn't from a licensed cab company but more likely some friend of the lady at the front desk who wanted to make a quick buck off some stranded tourists. The driver had a woman passenger and a CD of Jamaican remix music with him. In case you aren't familiar, Jamaican remix takes a popular song -- say, "Diamonds" by Rihanna -- and randomly inserts electronic sound effects that sound remarkably similar to those found in the Atari Space Invaders video game circa 1980. I was unsure if this was considered entertainment or torture, but I was physically and mentally exhausted so I didn't really care. Bald Hugh Jackman told me to close my eyes and get some rest. I noted that he seemed tense. I also noted the driver seemed to be going a lot faster than was safe, even if I couldn't convert miles per hour to kilometers per hour. Lastly, I noted that Rihanna shined bright like a diamond being shot at on a Commodore 64. Still, I dozed off and woke up some time later when our driver was stopped for speeding by police. Who were carrying large black machine guns slung over their shoulders. And who said they'd let our driver go if he gave them some money. Because no foreign vacation is truly complete unless you bribe a local official.
Our driver ponied up while we sat motionless, and we kept traveling through the night -- except it became clear that this "cab driver" didn't know where our hotel was located. It was at this point that Bald Hugh Jackman started figuring what to do if this detour was a nefarious plan-turned-kidnapping. How much ransom could two middle-class Americans fetch? And if one of them is pregnant? Holy crap, they'd hit the jackpot. Hugh told me later that he was monitoring what the female passenger typed into her smart phone, and was planning to remove his leather belt and strangle the driver if things went south. Honestly, it's really nice to have someone who thinks about and plans for your escape while you're busy recovering from the stress of a threatened miscarriage. I definitely recommend getting yourself a Bald Hugh Jackman.
After a few minutes of discussion where we assured the two locals that our resort did exist, the driver eventually stopped for directions. We doubled back -- and passed the Fully Automatic Policemen again. Hi again. Don't mind us. We're definitely not being kidnapped after a harrowing medical ordeal.
SCENE: BACK AT THE HOTEL
Around 3 or 3:30 a.m. we finally returned to our hotel. The driver wanted $250 cash for the speeding/police/almost-kidnapping adventure; I assume the bad soundtrack was complimentary. I stayed with the driver as a sign of good faith (which was only a bit terrifying because a hotel security guard was snoozing nearby) while Bald Hugh ran to an ATM in the downstairs casino of the hotel. Along the way he tripped on a misplaced rug and tumbled down most of the flight of concrete steps. Really. I couldn't make this up. Hugh limped up to pay the driver, and told me he thought he might have sprained his ankle. "But we're not going back to the goddamn hospital," he added. I suspect he didn't want to wear the Pampa.
Back in our room, the clot was still resting on the otherwise pristine countertop, in case you were wondering. I can only imagine what the cleaning staff thought when they came in to tidy up, turn down the blankets, and fashion a romantic swan out of our bath towels.
SCENE: FIVE DAYS LATER, ATLANTA AIRPORT
As soon as we landed for our connecting flight home, I started calling my doctor. I listened to badly recorded orchestra music -- relieved that at least it wasn't Jamaican remix -- while standing outside of U.S. Customs. I was promptly chastised by a TSA agent for using a cell phone in a restricted area. But I paid no attention -- profuse bleeding, bad music, and attempted kidnapping had toughened me. I had street cred now. No G-man (or woman) was going to push me around. So I yelled, "Stand down, sucka!" Actually, Hugh told the agent I was having a medical emergency and added that he is a federal employee. We got an escort through Customs so I could stay on the phone and arrange a doctor's appointment while simultaneously having my visa picture taken. I consider this standing up to intrusive "big government."
SCENE: DOCTOR'S OFFICE
The day after returning home, we saw a specialist who confirmed that I had suffered a subchorionic hematoma, or a bleed in the tissues of my uterus. Doctors don't know what caused it, but the baby was fine. The hematoma hung around until about 20 weeks or so, then disappeared on its own. Not before one more episode of bleeding, but it was less severe and happened in the safety of the United States. No Magnum Wine Tonic was involved whatsoever.
Despite our misadventure in Jamaica, Bob Marley knew what he was talking about. Every little thing really was all right.
(Please note: the following dramatic re-telling contains graphic references to Bob Marley, driving on the wrong side of the road, blood, hospitals, Pampers, believing in yourself, fully automatic machine guns, attempted kidnapping, attempted murder, and a possible sprained ankle. It's also pretty long. Reader discretion is strongly advised.)
SCENE: DOCTOR'S OFFICE
Our movie opens on an attractive couple played by Kate Mara (that's me) and Hugh Jackman in a skullcap (that's the hubs) sitting in a doctor's exam room. A brunette nurse says, "Congratulations! The IVF transfer of your last two remaining embryos was successful. You are six weeks pregnant. We see one tiny heartbeat."
"We have a vacation planned to Jamaica in a couple of weeks. Is it okay to travel?" I asked.
"Patients do it all the time," Nurse 1 replied."Just take your medication with you, and be aware of your surroundings. Find out where the nearest hospital is, just in case."
****cue ominous music***
SCENE: BEACHSIDE RESORT, NEGRIL, JAMAICA
Two weeks later, we arrived at our all-inclusive resort expecting to fully enjoy our toddler-free, worry-free escape from the real world. The next morning we listened to a local musician play acoustic Bob Marley on pristine sand with the crystal Caribbean ocean in the background. He kept telling me every little thing was gonna be alright. I believed him.
 |
| Baby, don't worry 'bout a thing |
While getting ready for dinner that night, I started to have some odd abdominal cramps. I tried to ignore them. After all, I was on vacation. There is no cramping on vacation. Around 5:30 p.m., I started bleeding. I don't mean slight spotting. It was like a full-on, angry menstrual period. Suddenly I was standing in a tiki-decorated restroom in the middle of the Caribbean begging, "Please, God, don't let this be happening." I thought I was miscarrying our last chance to have a second child.
The cramps intensified, so we went back to the room. Things got worse. Around 6:30 I went to the bathroom and passed a clot. A big, menacing clot about 4-5 inches long and 1-2 inches wide. It had weight. I *felt* it slide out. Then I stared at it in the toilet in horror. I knew there was a nurse on staff at the hotel, and I knew we had to call her, and I thought she might need to see it, or the hospital might need to test it, or something equally grotesque and unimaginable. So I made the nausea-inducing, split-second decision to reach in the toilet and scoop it out. With MY BARE HAND. Don't judge me; you don't know what you might be forced to do in an emergency. Thinking I may have just given birth to my 8-week-old fetus, I made a soft bed of toilet paper on the counter top and gently placed the clot on top of it. It looked like a tiny sacrifice to the fertility gods.
In shock, I walked out of the bathroom to tell Bald Hugh Jackman, "I think it's over. I think I just miscarried." I crumpled onto the bed and cried. The kind of weeping that shakes your whole body and soul, and whatever furniture you're sitting on at the time.
Hugh called the nurse on staff. When she arrived, she examined the clot briefly and asked me if I suffer any medical conditions. "Depression and anxiety," I told her. "And infertility." I could barely make out the last word without collapsing into convulsive sobs.
Nurse 2 dialed up the doctor-on-call for the resort chain and asked us for the co-pay of $150 up front. After 30 or 45 minutes, Doctor 1 arrived and reviewed the situation with Nurse 2. They started an IV fluid drip and advised me that the best plan was to proceed to the hospital via ambulance. Doctor 1 said she believed this was an early miscarriage, and was concerned about both bleeding and possible infection. The doctor called a local ambulance service, which arrived perhaps an hour later with lights flashing. I was loaded into the back, with Bald Hugh Jackman in the front, and we made a very conspicuous exit around 8:40 p.m. But not before paying $800 up front for the ambulance ride.
SCENE: THE BACK OF AN AMBULANCE
It's a 90-minute drive nearest good hospital, it's a Saturday night, and it's Jamaica. The narrow streets were thick with congregations of locals hosting neighborhood fish frys and drinking Red Stripe beer. I don't blame them; if I weren't bleeding copiously, it might have looked like fun. The ambulance weaved its way through crowds and gingerly bounced over potholes the size of large dogs. Making matters worse, apparently there is no law that other motorists have to give way to emergency vehicles. We passed a number of slow-moving Japanese cars on twisty roads where they drive on the left (a.k.a. "wrong") side of the highway. At one point we crawled past a car accident where, Bald Hugh later told me, it seemed a tourist had struck a local pedestrian with his car. An angry mob was forming around the scene. Police had arrived. By the looks of things, this was not going to end well for the tourist. (Ooh, foreshadowing!)
Along the way, the paramedic asked some basic questions in his lilting accent and I explained that the doctor thought I was miscarrying. The paramedic inquired whether I'm a Christian and counseled me that I will get pregnant again, if I only believe in myself enough. Thank you, sir, I thought, that's super helpful. If only my doctors had thought of that years ago! I wouldn't have had to flash my hoo-ha to that extra dozen people! In between questions, I stared at the medical symbol emblazoned on the window of the ambulance -- a smiling snake on a stick. I made a mental note that the snake appeared to be pole-dancing. Aw, heck, she's probably just trying to put herself through college. Can't blame a snake for trying.
 |
| Don't judge her. |
SCENE: MONTEGO BAY HOSPITAL
By the time I got to the MoBay Hope Hospital around 10:30 p.m., my tears and the bleeding had slowed and the cramping was less. Nurses 3 and 4 couldn't find any maxi pads for me to wear under my stylish open-back hospital gown, so someone grabbed an adult diaper. Throughout the rest of the night, the staff referred to it as my Pamper, which in a Jamaican accent comes out Pampa. While we were waiting to see the OB/GYN resident (that will be $600 up front, please), the TV in our room was tuned to one of the worst singing competition shows either Bald Hugh Jackman or I had ever seen. Called Kings and Queens of Dancehall, it was sponsored by Magnum Wine Tonic, which claims to be an intoxicant and a sexual stimulant.What's not to like there? Nurse 4 couldn't find the remote control to change the channel, so we were stuck watching a guy called Innovata jumping around on stage, desperately clinging to his 15 minutes of fame. At least he wasn't pole dancing.
Eventually I was wheeled out of the exam room, down a short and dingy hallway, and into an ultrasound room. Or almost into the room. The wheelchair wouldn't fit through the doorway, so I had to get up and walk the last several feet with my oversized Pampa hanging out of my gown. Doctor 2 first performed an abdominal ultrasound, and announced she could still see the gestational sac. I began sobbing again with relief and gratitude. Somehow, our precious baby -- about the size of a kidney bean -- was still in there and not on the counter in our hotel room. (Doctor 1 advised that we probably didn't need to take it with us in the ambulance. Which was fine with me, because this experience was already awful enough.)
In order to see the heartbeat so early in the pregnancy, Doctor 2 had to perform an internal ultrasound. Yes, that means a Jamaican doctor got to see my hoo-ha too. Sometimes I feel like Oprah giving out cars: "You see a hoo-ha! Annnnd you see a hoo-ha!" The ultrasound machine looked similar to the ones at Cleveland Clinic...except instead of a sterile plastic sheath covering the probe, there was an honest-to-God condom on there. A generic, ecru-colored rubber complete with reservoir tip. It was not ribbed for my pleasure. Doctor 2 picked up the probe and told me I was going to have to insert it myself. Now there's something I've never heard in any doctor's office before. As a side note, I believe I should have gotten a credit on my hospital bill for doing some of the work on my own.
 |
| Advanced ultrasound technology. |
Anyway, Doctor 2 showed us the beautiful beating heart and diagnosed a "threatened miscarriage." Since the situation seemed as good as possible, minus the terror and blood, she sent me back to the hotel. By the time I stripped off my Pampa and we settled the rest of the bill ($200 up front for blood work, please), it was after midnight. We had to get transportation back to the resort, so Nurse 3 or 4 advised us to ask the attendant at the front desk to call a cab.
SCENE: A SKETCHY "CAB"
A man picked us up sometime around 1 a.m. Immediately, we were pretty sure he wasn't from a licensed cab company but more likely some friend of the lady at the front desk who wanted to make a quick buck off some stranded tourists. The driver had a woman passenger and a CD of Jamaican remix music with him. In case you aren't familiar, Jamaican remix takes a popular song -- say, "Diamonds" by Rihanna -- and randomly inserts electronic sound effects that sound remarkably similar to those found in the Atari Space Invaders video game circa 1980. I was unsure if this was considered entertainment or torture, but I was physically and mentally exhausted so I didn't really care. Bald Hugh Jackman told me to close my eyes and get some rest. I noted that he seemed tense. I also noted the driver seemed to be going a lot faster than was safe, even if I couldn't convert miles per hour to kilometers per hour. Lastly, I noted that Rihanna shined bright like a diamond being shot at on a Commodore 64. Still, I dozed off and woke up some time later when our driver was stopped for speeding by police. Who were carrying large black machine guns slung over their shoulders. And who said they'd let our driver go if he gave them some money. Because no foreign vacation is truly complete unless you bribe a local official.
Our driver ponied up while we sat motionless, and we kept traveling through the night -- except it became clear that this "cab driver" didn't know where our hotel was located. It was at this point that Bald Hugh Jackman started figuring what to do if this detour was a nefarious plan-turned-kidnapping. How much ransom could two middle-class Americans fetch? And if one of them is pregnant? Holy crap, they'd hit the jackpot. Hugh told me later that he was monitoring what the female passenger typed into her smart phone, and was planning to remove his leather belt and strangle the driver if things went south. Honestly, it's really nice to have someone who thinks about and plans for your escape while you're busy recovering from the stress of a threatened miscarriage. I definitely recommend getting yourself a Bald Hugh Jackman.
After a few minutes of discussion where we assured the two locals that our resort did exist, the driver eventually stopped for directions. We doubled back -- and passed the Fully Automatic Policemen again. Hi again. Don't mind us. We're definitely not being kidnapped after a harrowing medical ordeal.
SCENE: BACK AT THE HOTEL
Around 3 or 3:30 a.m. we finally returned to our hotel. The driver wanted $250 cash for the speeding/police/almost-kidnapping adventure; I assume the bad soundtrack was complimentary. I stayed with the driver as a sign of good faith (which was only a bit terrifying because a hotel security guard was snoozing nearby) while Bald Hugh ran to an ATM in the downstairs casino of the hotel. Along the way he tripped on a misplaced rug and tumbled down most of the flight of concrete steps. Really. I couldn't make this up. Hugh limped up to pay the driver, and told me he thought he might have sprained his ankle. "But we're not going back to the goddamn hospital," he added. I suspect he didn't want to wear the Pampa.
Back in our room, the clot was still resting on the otherwise pristine countertop, in case you were wondering. I can only imagine what the cleaning staff thought when they came in to tidy up, turn down the blankets, and fashion a romantic swan out of our bath towels.
 |
| Well, this is awkward. |
SCENE: FIVE DAYS LATER, ATLANTA AIRPORT
As soon as we landed for our connecting flight home, I started calling my doctor. I listened to badly recorded orchestra music -- relieved that at least it wasn't Jamaican remix -- while standing outside of U.S. Customs. I was promptly chastised by a TSA agent for using a cell phone in a restricted area. But I paid no attention -- profuse bleeding, bad music, and attempted kidnapping had toughened me. I had street cred now. No G-man (or woman) was going to push me around. So I yelled, "Stand down, sucka!" Actually, Hugh told the agent I was having a medical emergency and added that he is a federal employee. We got an escort through Customs so I could stay on the phone and arrange a doctor's appointment while simultaneously having my visa picture taken. I consider this standing up to intrusive "big government."
SCENE: DOCTOR'S OFFICE
The day after returning home, we saw a specialist who confirmed that I had suffered a subchorionic hematoma, or a bleed in the tissues of my uterus. Doctors don't know what caused it, but the baby was fine. The hematoma hung around until about 20 weeks or so, then disappeared on its own. Not before one more episode of bleeding, but it was less severe and happened in the safety of the United States. No Magnum Wine Tonic was involved whatsoever.
Despite our misadventure in Jamaica, Bob Marley knew what he was talking about. Every little thing really was all right.
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