The last post I wrote was on October 15th. That post took quite a bit of courage for me to write and it also came with a few tears. It took a lot out of me. I had to step away from this little internet space of mine to gather myself.
A note at my doctor's office
In the mean time, that same day I had a doctor's appointment. That's a fairly normal occurrence for someone who is pregnant to see their doctor's office quite a bit. I especially visit the doctor often as I've lost a baby in the past. For all I knew this was going to be a nice, quick check up. Wrong...
My body isn't the most agreeable to pregnancy. I'm ok with being uncomfortable, massive heartburn and all kinds of things that go along with pregnancy so long as my growing baby is healthy. Well, my body has a different idea about what should be going on inside of me. As I arrived to the doctor's office, I felt fine but as I sat down to get all my regular vitals checked my blood pressure was up. Crap. I know what that means. I've been there before.
And we wait...
I headed back to the examination room and awaited my doctor's entrance. In a moment of irony, at my previous visit she made the comment, "it seems that the more pregnancies you have the better your body handles them." Well, we should have both realized at the exact moment that shit would head downhill just because she said that. Why didn't I knock on wood?! As she entered on this visit she remembered her comment from my previous visit and said without hesitation, "you couldn't have waited one more visit huh?" Nope, there were other plans in the works. High blood pressure in pregnancy may be a sign of preeclampsia. That is no good. It can be dangerous to both the mother and the baby. The result of the conversation with my doctor included things such as:
- "So you are done with work" to which I responded, "yup, I'm off for the day." No dear not the day... until the baby is born. Whoops!
- "I'm going to need you to take it easy this weekend." Say what?? What does that mean? Are you talking about not going to the birthday party for a two year-old with bounce houses and my 4 year-old nephew, almost 2 year-old daughter and 18 month niece? Or perhaps the Harvest Festival I promised my grandparents I would come to? Nah, you couldn't be talking about those things.
- And I've saved the best for last, "I"m going to need you to keep track of your urine for 24 hours so we can send it to the lab for testing. All of it." Come again?? Did you say that you needed me to keep my pee in a refrigerated environment for 24+ hours?? I know you do not expect me to keep waste that came out of my body in my fridge! I'll find another way to keep it cold. Gross...
I will admit I failed at every single one of these tasks. Sorry doc, I tried kind of.
I just needed to clear up a few things before I followed your instructions. I was so worked up about cleaning up the last few things at work I arrived at work on Friday at 5am and worked from home for a few hours before I went in because I couldn't get it all off my brain. I only went in to clean up the last few things I needed to take care of and was gone before noon. That was pretty good in my book.
On the Saturday I went to the birthday party and the Harvest Festival however, I did hold back some, I didn't jump in the bounce house with the girls like I would have if the doctor hadn't told me to take it easy. Two semi-wins.
On the Saturday I went to the birthday party and the Harvest Festival however, I did hold back some, I didn't jump in the bounce house with the girls like I would have if the doctor hadn't told me to take it easy. Two semi-wins.
On Sunday, oh dear Sunday. I did pee in a hat (what a horrible name). In addition to uncomfortably peeing all day, I kept almost all of it. I was told by my doctor's office that: 1) I should have saved all of it. You mean like in a Tupperware container? I thought that it might be a contamination issue if I did. I did think about it. Oh well. 2) They've never had someone fill the container completely. The container that they send you home with wasn't big enough for me... I guess I drink too much. I'm thirsty!
This my friends is a "hat"
After that beautiful weekend of clear insubordination. I headed to the doctor's office and had to hang out in the NST room for a while. The NST is such an uncomfortable thing for me. They sit you in a semi-uncomfortable chair tell you to lean back and then strap two monitors onto your stomach so they can check on the baby. Now you are thinking, "you are sitting. How bad can that be?" Well, I'm supposed to sit still for like 30 minutes and with my stomach all exposed in a room that is much too cold for my liking. In addition, I swear they always leave the sound on the monitor up way too high like the entire office is trying to hear what is going on with my kid.
My stomach resembles a watermelon at this point. Yup, I've earned my stripes :-)
In typical me fashion the beginning of the test was not showing the results that my doctor wanted. So, she wanted me to hang out for an additional 20 minutes or so after I had some apple juice. I guess the baby needed more sugar than what I'd had for breakfast. Not really sure how that works since I had raspberry cheesecake for breakfast (#HeyBigGirl). Finally my doctor looked at the test results and saw what she wanted to see.
Again I was sent home with orders to chill and try to stay off my feet. Since my husband was at this appointment, he was kind enough to take it upon himself to make sure that I followed the given instructions. My daughter was already at her GG's house like normal but he than arranged for his mom to pick her up after work so I wouldn't have to be running around later that night with her. I almost felt like I was on forced relaxation punishment.
Rest and relaxation is something I struggle with. I can always find something more productive to do with my time (like writing a blog post, work, laundry, dishes...). Home I went, to relax... or at least try a little. I decided turning on the computer was a bad thing. I wanted to blog but didn't want to tell anyone what was going on. (If I had been smart I would have written the post and just not published it. Hindsight is 20/20 right?). So, I watched more television in one day than I had in probably the last month. It was relaxing but not. All I kept thinking about was all the things that I should be getting done and how I should be spending my time off hanging with my daughter because it was going to be the last time in a while that we'd get to hang as just the two of us.
The next day was a little less punishment like. I kept my daughter at home instead of sending her to her GG's house and that made me feel better. We hung out at home and played all day. It was nice just spending time as two.
Sleepytime in the morning. I love the snuggles.
Wednesday, October 21 was the day that it all changed. I received a phone call from my doctor that my test results had come back. Sure enough I'd developed preeclampsia again. Not as severe as the last time but yes, my blood pressure was up and my protein levels were elevated. So, basically the new instructions were: gather your hospital bags, call all the necessary parties to take care of my daughter, the dogs and the house and get myself to the hospital some time in the afternoon cause the baby was getting evicted. At least I'd made it to 37 weeks (yay! We made it to full term!!).
Our last picture as a family of three
I won't say that things went according to my plans (well, because they didn't even come close), but I'm very happy that things are all good. I'm happy that because I was just put on modified bed rest that I was able to finish packing my hospital bags and my daughter's "while we're away bag" (maybe I'll write a post on that one day soon). It was much nicer to have the opportunity to rest and relax a little before life as I knew it changed completely. And, most importantly, I'm happy to say that I have a beautiful healthy baby boy in addition to my already adorable daughter (I'm biased ok??).
p.s. It took me
p.p.s. Today is one day before my actual due date.
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