Wednesday, July 21, 2010

It Ain’t No Fantasy

It started two weeks ago, when my OB jinxed me.

You betcha. I'm blaming her. Totally.

At my 32 week appointment my uterus measured 37 weeks. "Whew," she said. "You're body just really wants to have this baby."

There were other symptoms too - constant contracts (despite the "magical" progesterone shots), horrible backaches, nausea. Blah, blah, blah, I'm pregnant and it sucks. Blah. So I was sent to the hospital for an IV bag then sent home an hour later.

Last week Aaron was out of town, the damn dog wouldn't eat and kept vomiting, I kept carting her to the vet and my backaches and nausea were worse and blah, blah, blah, on Wednesday they had me come in for a checkup.

No one was happy with my my contractions, I had some protein in my urine and so off to the hospital I went for another IV bag and monitoring. And given instructions to capture my urine for 24 hours. "Follow-up on Friday," they said.

Have you ever had to capture your urine for 24 hours? Have you? If you haven't considered yourself lucky. 'Cause that's a whole lotta pee to deal with. Then you have to cart it back to the hospital with two kids in tow to drop it off at the Lab, who will then tell you that your user number has expired and it takes over an hour for the hospital to figure out that yes! Yes, indeed they will take your gallons of pee after all.

Friday I called and an hour later I was back at the doctor, right after the dog threw up AGAIN. After getting my blood pressure done, my doctor ordered a comprehensive Apgar sonogram (so see how well he would be if born) and monitoring.

Of course, me in my infinite wisdom totally left my baby notebook and CD at home. BECAUSE IT WOULD ALL BE FINE, I thought.



After two hours, they told me my blood pressure was crazy high (168/102, where I usually run 115/75), more protein was in urine and with all the other symptoms? Back to the hospital I go.

THIS TIME I was a little more prepared and had places for the boys to go, just in case. My OB gave me the go-ahead to run home, pack a bag, pass the boys off to my parents and the damn dog to a friend's house (which at this point she knew she wasn't sick, after HUNDREDS of dollars of vet bills later; we thought she was either reacting to me and the pregnancy or needed to eat another dog's poop, so it was win-win to ship her off).

SO. Back to the hospital on Friday early evening. And Aaron? He needed to stay another day on his business trip. Lucky, lucky boy.

After a couple of hours of observation I was fully admitted and my OB said I have pre-eclampsia. Which, you have to have two of three symptoms to be considered to have pre-eclampsia: edema, protein in the urine and high blood pressure.

My and my overachiever-ness succeeded in having all damn three.

Late Saturday night I was released on strict bedrest and OHMYHELL, I hate bedrest. Hate. HATE. Haaaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I have my dad's blood pressure monitor (from when he had heart surgery a couple of years ago) and monitor my blood pressure every few hours (unless its high, then every hour). And I'm drinking lots of water. And I have two prison guards who yell at me if I get up and pee.

Monday I went in for a quick monitoring at the doctor's office, and back tomorrow I go.

As soon as I deliver a healthy baby, I'm scheduling Aaron a goddamn vasectomy. I will club him over the head and drag him there myself, if necessary.

13 comments:

amy h said...

Aw, man. That's how things were with E. High BP, super swelling and bed rest are no fun. At least she was my first so I didn't have other kiddos to worry about! Take it easy, lady.

And good luck with a vasectomy. :) I was the one who got the snip snip (since they were in there anyway with the c-section).

Michelle said...

You pretty much deserve a medal for this pregnancy. At least you get to do bedrest at home and you're not in the hospital.

Aimee said...

Okay, thank GOODNESS for your on-the-ball doctors. My boys and I are all preeclampsia survivors. Yes, survivors. I'm so happy your baby didn't come before you could collect that 24-hours of urine, like mine did. Not a pretty picture, and potentially much more severe than most people realize.

I'm really not trying to scare you, just to remind you not to take this too lightly, okay? If you're bored on bedrest (you are posting from a laptop, right??? No sitting down at a computer, lady!), you can meet up with some of the folks at the www.preeclampsia.org forums who are in the same boat.

Take care of yourself; looking forward to hearing about the healthy arrival of your little one!!

Kristi said...

Oh bless. Nausea is one of the greatest evils in this universe. I love when the docs try to give a mom with small people bed rest. Just what part of being confined and having small people running amuck is supposed to bring DOWN your blood pressure?

Wishing you all the best.

Rebecca F. said...

Aw, that sucks so bad!

I'm so sorry for you. Here's to a quick few weeks and a healthy baby.

Rebecca.

Gina Perry said...

Holy urine jugs Batman! Gentle hugs, bedridden mama... I hope blogging releases a bit of the stress. :(

Miga said...

oh no! Hang in there, it'll all be over soon. I managed to convince my husband, who was all "nobody's going anywhere near my nuts" to get a vasectomy. He went back to work a few hours after the procedure. Couldn't have been all that bad, haha.

Anonymous said...

oh my goodness, you sure know how to do this pregnancy thing RIGHT. Take care.

melekler korusun final said...

wowww baby :)

Jocey said...

Oh the good ole days. I had pre-eclampsia with my first born son.I think back that it may have been the only bed rest I had. But ten I developed phlebits. He ended up being 10lbs 3oz. No bloody wonder I just about fell apart. I remember for years afterwards when I would compalain to the doctor that my uterus "ached" he said it was because I was an over acheiver and a perfectionist and instead of getting migranes it went to my uterus also. Too funny. Be careful - you are an over achiever also! Best wishes

Theresa said...

Oh good luck. At 32 weeks I had pre-eclampsia with all the symptoms too....and refused to believe how sick I was. Take it easy.

tracey.becker1@gmail.com said...

:( I'm sorry! I hope you guys can control the pre-eclampsia, though.

And I am SO on board with snipping the husband. I need to be DONE.

Rebecca F. said...

Wondering how you are doing....