It started last Wednesday with our Doctors appointment. I’d been doing everything (I thought)right…daily excersise, monitoring my blood sugars, eating pretty right, taking my prenatals…then we go to the Doctors office and once again my blood pressure is way high and ONCE again we get sent onto the hospital!
I tried everything short of begging to not get sent onto the hospital. But forward yo! it was. I’m getting pretty friendly with the folks at Celebration Hospital–especially the OB/GYN nurses.
We get there and pretty immediately get taken back to the OB/GYN triage area. We found out later that there had been a couple people that had been there for a number of hours and one lady that had been there since 10 that morning…it was 4-ish when we got there.
My triage nurse introduced herself…Allyson. She was extremely nice, albeit very stressed, and made us comfortable. We got wonderful blood taken, then got hooked up to all the regular monitors…fetal, heart beat, and my downfall–blood pressure.
Poor Barry got stuck in the waiting room with Chloe and Fox for what would turn out to be a 5 hour stay. Every once in a while when the doors would open, I’d hear either Barry, Chloe or Fox and the whole time I’m just thinking I wanted to see them and touch them.
For some reason, nothing was working. My blood pressure never went down, it kept going up. I can’t account for it. I was soooo worried about everything, I kept thinking how much is THIS gonna cost, but mostly I just wanted to see my family.
At times it got really confussing. The nurse would call my doctor with periodic updates. Sometimes it seemed like they would take Molly that night, then later it seemed like they wanted to wait. I could never get a direct answer. Allyson joked with me one time by telling me Dr Reinoso asked if ANY of my test results were normal.
My test results came back and after a diagnosis of pre-eclempsia, they let me go home with the orders I was on strict, nay, implicit orders for bed rest-which meant I could get up to shower, and have bathroom breaks…that was it. And I had to go to the Doctors office on friday again. Grrrr.
Got to the appointment friday and yep, the blood pressure was high. Graciously, they took it 3 times. This time at least they came down little by little. But not enough that they would send us home. Once again…off to the hospital. Luckily my now good friend Allyson was once again there. We pretty much got in as soon as I stepped in. This is a huge hospital. And for some reason that is beyond me, they have only 2 triage rooms. They opened up an operating room to use as an additional triage area. Strange.
Anyway, my BP’s were pretty good this time…I never went above 145/90. I had one that was 133/80. Dr Lemmert was there and took a few moments to talk with me and told me that they were trying to get as much time as they could for Molly’s lungs to develop. Right now I’m 35 weeks…almost 36. Beneath 38 weeks is considered pre-term and the lungs might not be developed. He was pretty sure things would be fine…80% of babies are at this state, but they just wanted to buy time. So essentially he said that he’d see how things were at my appointment on Wed. We may again have to go to the hospital. My pattern of late it seems.
After I got released from triage and was waiting with Barry and the kids for the nurse to bring me another 24 hour test I had to do…I saw just how many women were waiting to be seen. Looks on their faces told me they were in mighty amounts of pain. Again I felt guilty. Granted, I don’t hurt, but I guess that’s whats so troubling about all this pre-eclempsia stuff…you don’t really feel ANYTHING…one minute you could be standing and they next your having a stroke. It’s scary.
But I also realized that I don’t want labor to just start. I always thought I was missing out on something because my labor was brought on with drugs. I saw the looks of pain on some of these women’s face and I’m happy. I guess I kinda liked having the kids induced. You went into the hospital, got hooked up to an I.V., then a long time later we had two beautiful kids. Fo course there was an epidural. Sweet, sweet epidural!
Now, bed rest sounds mighty fine. There have been days in the last while where all I wanted was just to sleep. Just to sit. Do nothing. Yep, rest, watch tv, dozing, catching up on comicbooks sounds like nirvana…but after the first few hours, you go nuts. Then butt rot kicks in. No matter how you move, how you wiggle, you can’t get comfortable.
Barry brought in the laptop and that has made thing SOOOOOO much easier. I’ve actually been able to get quite a bit of my freelance work done, sent off emails here and there, surfed the web–I feel connected!!
The bad stuff:
Chloe celebrated her 3rd birthday. We had plans to go to one of the waterparks, have cake, a nice dinner…
Turns out I didn’t even get anything for Chloe for her birthday. Barry made it so special. He had bought her the 2nd season of Futurama (Chloe is as bad as her daddy when it comes to The Simpsons and Futurama!), a cool Ben 10 watch–which she loves, and her ‘big girl’ bunk bed got delivered…and it looks fantastic!! I am so happy with it. Barry even bought her a gorgious sheet set…purple with butterflies and stars. Chloe loves it. Now if only we can get her to sleep in her damn bed!!!
Of course, she got packages from her Mawmaw and Grammy. She had lots of wonderful things to unwrap. Barry made her a special sugar free cheesecake so I could have some. She loved blowing out her candles. I took lots of pictures.
Barry has really had it rough. He’s had everything dumped on his lap. EVERYTHING!!! I felt bad enough just at the hospital when he was stranded with the kids with no food, no toys for them, and worrying about me. Then you bring it home and it’s compounded. I don’t feel bad. I don’t look like anything is wrong. I feel like I could do anything. But you can’t. So Barry is running around chasing the kids, changing the diapers, cleaning the place, cooking every single meal, having to do the most mundane things and juggling everything, to giving Chloe a fantastic 3rd birthday while I just sit on my tush on the couch. That’s been the horrible part of all this. Guilt. It sucks. But it also makes me realize how lucky I am and how much I admire Barry. The guy is sick with a nasty cold, and he never complains. I know how much work he’s got to do for his business, and he’s taken off work from that and the day job. I see how much he loves his kids and how much they love him, I see how he’d do anything for his family, and I realize how I love him all the more.
Part of me also is facing this kind of… sadness. There’s been so much going on, a lot of problems, stresses, worries, yet at the same time I also realize that this is the last pregnancy I’ll ever have. No…really. I mean it!
From here I’ll be moving on to a different phase of life…it’s exciting, scary and…a tad bit sad. I’ll never feel this kicking sensation again, I’ll have this little person along with me everywhere for 9 months. Yep, it’s a weird time. Chalk it up to prenancy hormones.
So ALL this time spent sitting on my butt has made me realize I absolutely LOVE DVD season collections! So far we have watched:
Desperate Housewives…which didn’t look at all interesting to me, then we got a hold of the season set and I became a junkie!!!
We’ll start season II soon. After we finished DH:
Firefly I love Joss Wheden. I mean what’s not to love about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel? I mourn the passing of these shows. But thoughtfully Joss also gave us Firefly. I admit we never watched it on TV and I kick myself. Both Barry and I are amazed at how much we like this show. It has funny, fantastic characters…Can’t wait to watch the movie “Serenity” after we finish the DVD collection.
The Unit: I’m not at all a guns/army kinda chick. But DAMN, this is one good show. We got the first season all watched and loved it. Glad to see the second underway, but I’m kinda worried about it. Supposedly they are beefing up on the beefcakes to appeal to more chicks, and I hope that doesn’t detract from this great show.
Penn and Tellers Bullshit! I LOVE these guys anyway. Anyone who shines light in the stupid things people believe has my attention. I’ve enjoyed watching their show. Sometimes I think I’ve got them pegged and know exactly where they’ll go with a story and then I watch it and I’m like I can’t believe they really believe that crap!
I’ve also come to realize that there is sooooo much crap on t.v. I can’t stand soap operas, talk shows (except for Daily Show and Colbert Report), and if Chloe makes me watch Dora or Maggie and the Ferocious Beast one more time I’m gonna scream. Now thankfully the girl likes Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and Ben 10. Otherwise I’d seriously go off the deep end.
Ok…off to bed..this went on FAAARRRRR too long. See what happens when I have time on my hands and a computer at my fingers? Bad. Bad stuff.