I just need to vent and I figured you’d ladies could probably related to stressful appointments.

I have gestational hypertension so I go in twice a week for nst and ultrasounds. Well today I started out my appointment with an ultrasound. I’m 37 weeks so at this point they needed to see him breathing, I guess it’s just one of the check points. Well I laid there for 30 minutes and he wasn’t moving. I saw his heartbeat which was reassuring but the tech seemed worried because he wasn’t even moving. She asked if I had been feeling okay, and how many kicks did I feel today, when was the last time he had hiccups all while pounding on my stomach trying to get him to move/breathe. I kept having to roll over on my sides. Nothing was working! Until right before she went to go get the doctor he finally breathed! I was relieved but still kinda worried from how stressful the whole situation was.

So next I go in for my NST. (A little back story.... I was admitted to the hospital last week for dehydration and extended monitoring) well the nurse sits me down in the office and asked what kind of medicine I’m on. I told her my blood pressure medicine and an iron supplement. And she just looks at me like I’m dumb and says “that’s it??” And so I was kinda confused by her tone so I was like “well I also take a prenatal... and sometimes tums for heartburn” and she just stares at me. It’s making me nervous like I’m forgetting something. And then she says “well that’s weird because your test from the hospital come back positive for MDMA. Is there something you’re not telling me? Are you on drugs??” A wave of panic came over me! First off I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. I didn’t even know how to respond I kinda just laughed. And she got really serious and started harassing me about the results. I said “look, I don’t even take Tylenol there is no way that I’m positive for MDMA” and she would roll her eyes and just say “okayyyyyy”

Well after she left the room I was in a pure panic. How could this be happening? Did I breathe in some type of Molly in the air in public? Did someone lace a drink?? No... I’m pretty sure I’d know if I was high on Molly. Lol So I called my mom who works at the hospitals lab and I told her what was going on. I also live with her so she knows I’m not on any drugs or anything. She was trying to figure out if maybe my medicine made a false positive on the test but nothing I’m taking could have done that. So then she told me to go to medical records at the hospital and get copies of my records. Which was the best thing I could’ve done. I was so stressed out, having a panic attack and scared they were gonna take my baby all over something I’ve never done!

The way mom explained it is the hospital uses very cheap test on drug screens. And if there is a line on the test it means negative but if there isn’t a line it means positive. And sometimes there is a very faint line but it usually means negative because the rest are so cheap and the dye is horrible so even if there is a faint line you’re supposed to mark negative. And any test that comes up positive you mark it as “presumably positive” and it’s sent off to another lab for a confirmation result. So once I got my lab results we were able to determine which lab tech read my results. Apparently this tech is very anal and assumes the worst in all the patients. My mom said she had seen him countless times mark a drug test “positive” just so he can say “oh this person is definitely on drugs” which is so unprofessional.

So my urine was sent of for further analysis... keep in mind this all happened last week and the results from both labs are already back. It was confirmed negative. Obviously since I’m NOT FREAKING DOING MOLLY!! My doctors office has access to all medical records at the hospital so if I can have the confirmation results back saying it was negative why couldn’t the nurse read that today?? Also if it is called “presumably positive” it means that the lab isn’t sure and it’s being sent off for further test! She wasn’t even supposed to tell me it was positive until she had known for sure! And if she had looked at all the results she would have seen that it was actually negative!

My mom is furious!!!!! She is mad at the lab tech for doing a crappy job at reading the results and at the nurse for harassing me and causing me so much anxiety all because she didn’t look at the final results!

I have my copy of my confirmed results and I plan on taking it up there to my next appointment. And my mom wants to go so she can talk to the doctor about how it was wrong of the nurse to do that to me (which is so out of character of her. She is super laid back so I figured it must be a big deal)

Anyways.... so that was my experience at the doctors appointment today. Really stressful but I’m glad I got to the bottom of it.

UPDATE:

Apparently the blood pressure medicine (labetalol) can cause false positives for MDMA. They have similar molecular structures and the liver metabolizes them the same way. So the lab did the right thing to mark my results presumably positive and send it off for further analysis. An OB nurse at the hospital said everyone up there knows this and they don’t think twice when they see a momma on labetalol. It’s the Doctors office nurse obviously doesn’t know this and apparently doesn’t know that presumably positive and confirmed positive are two completely different things.

If anyone else is on labetalol please make sure your nurses are informed of this info so you don’t have to go through being accused of being on drugs!!