I have been anxiously counting down the days to both the end of school, and also the end of my 40 weeks. It's kind of become a joke with the people I work with. At least twice a day someone will ask me...."How many days left?" which has forced me to kind of know at any given moment the answer to BOTH countdowns. Some days it's depressing, and other days, it's exciting.
Hearing the answers to this question I think has made Chris a little nervous. He has been frantically working on the office in the basement trying to get it done so we can move the office downstairs, move Cameron's room into the office and THEN get started on the Nursery.
I haven't been too stressed out about not having a Nursery done yet. I thought 50 days seemed like a long time, plus I also took into account that NO ONE has their baby on it's due date, most people go over with their first baby and so it would probably end up to be more like 60 days left and not 50! I also haven't had time to do a lot of Nursery shopping either. The end of the school year is always hectic with testing and all the other things that go along with sending a class onto another grade. Not to mention, most if not all our "extra" money has gone into the office and truth be known, I have thought that it would probably make me even MORE anxious to walk by the baby's room every night and see an empty crib. So for these reasons, I have not really been pushing the "Let's get this thing done already" card until Friday afternoon.
Friday, the 25th, I went in for my regular Dr.'s apt. which is now every two weeks. Chris came with me, but actually got hung up on a phone call in the waiting room, so he didn't get to come into the exam room with me. I went back like normal, and had all my "usual" tests done. I was a little saddened by the three and a half pound weight gain when I stepped on the scale, but told myself it was probably "all baby" anyway, (which I'm sure isn't exactly true either) and I tried not to stress out about it. Then I went over to get my blood pressure taken.
After they take my blood pressure, it is usually the point where the nurse says, "Ok, come on back with me.", but this time that wasn't what she said. She looked at my chart, and then said "Have you had a history of high blood pressure during your pregnancy?" I said, "No, I don't think so. They mentioned last time that it was a little high, but no one has ever said anything to me about before then." She said "Hmmmm, well, it's 150/82 today?" Seeing as how I know NOTHING about blood pressures, I said, "So is that bad?" She said, "well....usually hypertension is measured at 149/90, and that's not where you are exactly, but the Dr. will talk to you about all that." I suddenly got very nervous and scared. I had read about hypertension/preclampsia in my pregnancy books, but I figured since I was long past the 20 week mark, that was something I didn't need to really worry about.
I walked back to the exam room and probably only waited a whole 30 seconds for Dr. Holmes to come in, but it seemed like I was there for an hour! She came in and asked how I was feeling, and I told her I thought I was fine, but the nurse didn't seem to like my blood pressure. She said, "Yeah, we need to talk about that." She looked at my ankles and my hands, asked me if I was still working, and then told me that it was looking like I was borderline preclampsia and she was going to be putting me on bed-rest. Just what every mom to be with 7 weeks of pregnancy left wants to hear!!!
Well...I immediately started to cry after she said that. I asked her what I had done wrong, or what I could have done differently, be she said I had done nothing wrong and there was probably nothing I could have done differently. She said this just happens sometimes to women, and it happens a lot to women during their first pregnancy, no one really knows why it happens to some and not to others. I guess I was the 4th woman that week that she had put on bed-rest. Then, we talked about what would happen now.
I have to go in on Monday (tomorrow) to do some lab work, to see how borderline I actually am. The top part of my blood pressure, the 150 is bad, but the bottom number, 82 is still with in "acceptable range".
If my labs come back as having preclampsia, then I will have to start taking steroids tomorrow so that Keric's lungs can develop faster. The only "cure" for preclampsia is delivering the baby.
If I am still with in the borderline range, I will have to stay down for 2 to 3 weeks, and then be evaluated again. There is a possibility she would start me at around 36 or 37 weeks depending on how well I do. I will be going into the hospital twice a week for non-stress testing and a growth ultra-sound on Friday to make sure Keric is still growing normally.
Bottom line is I won't make it to 40 weeks, the good part to that statement is that I wont go OVER either! :) We are all hoping I can make it to 36 week which is three weeks from tomorrow. By 36 weeks, babies are considered pretty much "full term". If they have to take him earlier then 36 weeks, he will still be OK, but will probably be a little small, and may have some breathing issues in the beginning.
It wasn't my favorite Dr.'s visit by any means, and the fact that I was in there alone made things a little more scary, but I think things will be OK. I have been reading a lot on pre-clampsia, and it's really not an uncommon thing. I read that 7 out of 100 women get it, and the risk is much higher when it is your first baby. Just because I may have it now, doesn't mean I will have it the next time I have a baby, and the fact that I have made it to 33 weeks, is also a very good thing. They say 90% of babies born after 32 weeks are born healthy and have little to no problems.
So...what can I say, he is his mommy's boy! Poor boy has no patience what so ever! Guess June wasn't fast enough for him.
So the "good" part of the bed rest is that a) He wont have to share his birthday with our anniversary. b)My last day of school was Friday and c) Chris' mom is going to teach me how to crochet, so I am not so flippin BORED out of my mind lying on the couch.
The bad parts are obvious, but thankfully I have a wonderful husband and kids who are great helpers and who have been taking very good care of me!!! Cameron kept asking me all day yesterday if there was anything he could do to help me, and Mae Mae cleaned her room, and took all her toys upstairs for me, but then afterwards she wanted to know how much longer I was going to "have to take a rest". ha ha. She's trying very hard to understand this whole thing. :)
Unfortunately this also means I just put a whole lot of EXTRA stress on Chris that he really doesn't need right now. He was frantically working down in the basement most of the day yesterday, and his Dad and brother have offered to come help do the Nursery and Cameron's room in order to get things all ready to go. Chris has told me more then once that he works "better under pressure", so I guess this will be the true test to see if that really is true. :)
Maybe this is a hard lesson in NOT counting down the days till the "end" of something?? Hmmm....another hard lesson for Nati to learn? Couldn't be!!! :)
I imagine I'll be doing LOTS and LOTS of blogging in the very near future, so if you get bored, check our little page for updates. You very well might find yourself getting DAILY updates. :) Until then.....
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