At our last Dr. appointment the nurse said that walking was the best way to dilate the cervix. She followed that up with how they recommend bed rest for Pre E. I decided there is NO way I am spending these last days in bed, I will enjoy them the best I can with caution.

Shane’s mom flew in on Thursday so we decided to make Saturday a fun filled day with a trip to the Del Mar farmers market, a few hours enjoyoing lunch in La Jolla   with a lot of walking followed by sticking our feet in the ocean. I was exhausted at the end of the day but it was oh so fun! We managed to take a few pictures although they are not very good.

Since I didn’t receive a phone call from my doctor  after my 24 hour collection was dropped off  I figured I was out of the woods. Unfortunately the phone call did come last night. My doctor called to tell me I did have protein in my urine, it wasn’t a huge amount but alas I do have mild Preeclampsia.

At my OB check today we were told that I will be induced next week. If I have a headache that doesn’t go away  or I notice decreased fetal movement I am to head to Triage and chances are they will admit me for an induction. I will continue my non stress test Friday and next Tuesday and if my blood pressure is high or if the nurses are at all concerned I will be admitted.

The doctor walked us through an induction and it doesn’t sound very fun, especially if I don’t get my cervix opened up a bit more before heading in. I am only 1 cm dilated 50% effaced. Ideally I would like to be 3cm by next Wednesday…any ideas?

Next Wednesday night I will call the hospital at 10:00pm and talk to the charge nurse who will tell me what time to come in. Once I am admitted I can not eat anything and I will be stuck to the hospital bed the entire time.  If I am still only 1 or 2 cm dilated they will start me on a drug called Cytotec to ripen my cervix. After 4 hours they will check my cervix to see how things are moving along. The doctor said it usually takes a few doses and sometimes up to 16 hours. Once I am dilated and contracting they will start me on an IV drip of Pitocin, this really gets the contractions going fast, strong and hard. I am told I can have the epidural at any time throughout this process. Then the rest is history unless baby has any problems which would then lead to a C-section.

*http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001900/

Preeclampsia is a pregnancy condition in which high blood pressure and protein in the urine develop after the 20th week (late 2nd or 3rd trimester) of pregnancy.

Baby K is a champ during these non stress tests. Every time she gives the nurses exactly what they need and they are always complimenting me on how “gorgeous” she looks on the monitor strips. I can hear the nurses talking to other mothers about how they need to monitor their babies longer because of this or that. Not our baby, she is making momma proud!

I dropped off my 24 hour collection last night around 9:00pm. The nurse said the Dr would call me if we had an emergency situation, otherwise I would get the results at my appointment Wednesday. I haven’t received a phone call so I am assuming all is good. Well I am pretty sure everything is fine because my blood pressure looked great today..Go figure!

Before I left the office today the nurse asked me if I had scheduled the rest of my non stress appointments already. I told her I made them through the end of April because I am ready to have this baby 🙂 She said we should make them through May 6th just incase I go late. Grrreeaat!

About a week ago my cute little feet starting looking more like loaves of bread but Saturday they morphed into cankles. By then end of the day my whole lower leg was swollen.

At my last non stress test Friday, my blood pressure was a little high. After taking it 3 times in an hour the nurse let me go but said if I had more swelling, got a headache or blurry vision to go to triage.

So Saturday when I could feel my calves swell up and my head started to hurt I went ahead and called Triage. The nurse suggested I try taking Tylenol and resting, if the headache didn’t go away to come in. An hour and a half later I felt better. I thought the swelling looked better, however Shane disagreed.

Sunday the same thing happened and later in the evening after a nice relaxing bath I thought my face was looking a little swollen. Once Shane agreed I decided better safe than sorry and we headed to the hospital. It’s the usual protocol when you get to triage. They have you pee in a cup and fill out a form that asks questions like “Have you ever been beaten by someone in you household?” and “How many times have you been pregnant.” Then they take you to a little room where you hop on a gurney and they hook you up to a contraction monitor, baby heart rate monitor and strap a blood pressure cuff on you. The blood pressure monitor goes off every 10 minutes so the nurse can monitor you from the front desk area. After about a half hour the nurse said baby looked great but my blood pressure was high. She called the on call Dr. who wanted to get a blood test to see if I had PIH Pregnancy Induced Hypertension or also called toxemia or preeclampsia. The test came back negative which was good but the nurse still wasn’t convinced I was in the clear. They sent my home with a 24 hour urine test. I was given two big red jugs like this:

I was told to collect all my pee in these, keep them cold and bring them back to Triage tonight. The nurse suggested keeping them in the fridge but somehow putting this container between the iced tea and last night’s leftovers wasn’t appealing to the men in the house. So I put a bunch of ice in a cooler and kept it in the bathroom, this way I wouldn’t have to walk to the kitchen all night long either. Needless to say I didn’t sleep well, this whole thing is a pain in the ass.

When I bring my collection back tonight they will check it for levels of protein. Depending on how much they find, if any, the Dr. will call me and send my back to triage. I am not sure when will happen then. The nurse said they may want me to deliver if it can save us from an emergency situation.  I don’t think they will find any protein but that is just my feeling on the situation, who knows. I am term now so a planned delivery is fine with me.

I guess I wont be leaving the house today since I am bound to my new friend the red jug. I go back in for another non stress test tomorrow and my OB check on Wednesday.

I thought the full moon was tomorrow but apparently it’s tonight…..

Since I had been on bed rest I kept telling myself I needed a hobby other than reading and soaking up the sun. Well it took awhile but I finally went to an art supply store and picked up everything I would need to paint baby girl a picture. I had browsed thousands of painting on ETSY and kept telling myself “I can do that for WAY less than $80.00”.  I definitely need some practice and I will get better with time however I am happy with her first painting.

Here it is in her room

I had my first NST at 7:30 this morning and I will continue to go twice a week until baby arrives. First thing they did was measure the amniotic fluid via ultrasound to make sure there is enough. I asked the nurse what happens if it’s low and she said that if it’s borderline low then they would put me back on bed rest and increase my fluids…AWESOME! But if it’s really low the Dr. might go ahead and have me deliver. No fear though my fluid level is fine. Then they moved me to a little area where I sat in a recliner with two monitors on my belly. One to monitor contractions and the other to measure baby’s heart rate. I was also given a little buzzer (think Jeopardy) that I was to push every time I felt baby move. Then they left me alone for about 20 minutes. The nurse came back in after 10 minutes and said that they want to see 2 accelerations from baby’s borderline heart rate in the 20 minutes. Baby K had already given her 3 so everything was looking good.

These NST are a good anxiety reducer. I can get my kick counts done under supervision and I go home knowing she is just fine. So from now on  I will get to hear her heartbeat 3 times a week until she decides she wants to meet her mommy and daddy.

Did you know that 85% of parents install their child’s car seat the wrong way? That percentage made me a little uneasy so we decided to take ours to a local car seat inspection. Not that I don’t trust my wonderful husband and father in law but the hospital will not let you leave with your newborn if they feel your car seat is unsafe.  The inspection was at the CHP station and officers came around to each vehicle to check the handy work of to-be dads, moms and grandparents. Seemed like most cases the officers were taking the car seats out and putting in back in the correct way. Our car seat was not leveled and definitely not tight enough so he showed us how to do the “right”way. After Shane installed it with his supervision and was given a thumbs up we went on our merry way. I think it was worth the piece of mind.

Last night was the Breastfeeding class at our hospital. I went solo since Shane was out of town and I didn’t want to drag anyone else with me. I knew more than I actually thought I did but in the end I am happy that I went. A few things I learned were:

• Diet doesn’t have to change, you can eat and drink anything in moderation.
• Don’t need to wash your breasts they clean themselves.
• Feed baby every 2 hours until mature milk comes in.
• It takes 45 minutes for a breast to refill milk
• Milk can “letdown” when you hear another baby cry or just think about your baby.
• Cabbage leaves help with engorgement of breasts.

But the best thing she said was no matter how long you breast feed for, be it a week or 1 year to never feel guilty about stopping. Even one drop of colostrum has 3,000,000 immune cells in it!

The pregnancy wall I couldn’t see about a month ago, well I ran face first into it yesterday. All of the sudden my body went from medium rare to well done. My knees are so weak now I can barely get myself off the couch. My right foot is now resembling a loaf of bread and the only shoes that fit are my flip-flops. I have so many contractions that I can’t be on my feet for very long and on top of that I have to pee every 30 -45 minutes.  The doctors advise me to drink 3 liters of water a day to help with the contractions but they also say that having a full bladder can cause contractions so I might as well put a pillow, blanket and take my computer into the bathroom and just live there until baby decides she is ready to come out.

I had my weekly OB check yesterday and nothing has really changed..oh wait I take that back, I managed to lose a pound. It must be the little bit of walking around I have been doing. Oh and now that I can cook my own meals we are eating more vegetables, quinoa and protein and less macaroni, pizza and CRAP. Although I did have to whip up a batch of cookies the other night 😉 I think my nesting is coming out in the kitchen. I have made a Thai chicken pizza, pesto pasta with vegetables, marinated skirt steak with quinoa tabbouleh and last night we had chicken gyros with a greek salad. I think Gordon is wishing I was back on bed rest so he can have his macaroni with chili or hot dogs again.

My doctor is sending me on weekly non-stress test starting next week. They hook my belly up to two monitors one to measure babies heart rate and another to measure contractions. Movement, heart rate and “reactivity” of heart rate to movement is measured for 20-30 minutes. If the baby does not move, it does not necessarily indicate that there is a problem; the baby could just be asleep. A nurse may use a small “buzzer” to wake the baby for the remainder of the test.

I also was informed that I will have internal fetal monitoring during labor.  That is where an electrode is attached to the baby’s head to record heart tones, and a pressure catheter to record contractions. This is more accurate than the electronic monitoring, does not use ultrasound, and can provide continuous monitoring for the high risk mother. I don’t know much more that, hopefully all will go smoothly.

So for now I just sit and wait, hoping she comes soon. Maybe the end of next week. I am sure I will miss being pregnant but I sure would like to start moving around again…pain free!

Annoying things etiquette-challenged people tend to say to pregnant women…but shouldn’t!

1. Any sentence that starts with ” Are you allowed to…?” eat that? take that? drink that? As long as I am not smoking, taking crack or drinking a 5th of vodka a day…leave me alone!

2. Any statement that starts with ,”Wow you”… eat a lot now… gained a lot of weight… Thank you Dr. obvious!!!

3. Telling me your pregnancy and or labor horror stories.
I have worried enough I don’t need to start worrying about that too!

4. Don’t tell me how out of shape or uncomfortable you are. I just don’t want to hear it!

5. Please don’t comment on my body. Don’t ever say, “wow you are big.” And please don’t tell me how small I look either, that is not comforting.

6. I really enoying hearing this..”You should get as much sleep now as you can, because when that baby comes, you’ll never get a chance to sleep.” Jeez thanks! I never thought of that…Ugh if I could get comfortable enough and didn’t have to pee every 45 minutes I would.

7. And for the women who have been on and off bed rest, we don’t need to hear “take it easy” and “don’t overdue it”  I am not stupid!!

8. Finally, do not touch a women’s belly WITHOUT permission!! If you didn’t put it there then back away!