it’s not about you

Joshua got to come with me to my 39-week appointment today (I will be 39 weeks officially as of tomorrow) and things actually got a little exciting there. I’ve been a little concerned about my blood pressure - it is higher with each visit I go to since I was 36 weeks, and today was no exception. i normally have amazing blood pressure - while pregnant, it’s about 110/60. Stellar. Today’s reading was 120/86, which, while my midwife said that was still within normal limits for this point in my pregnancy, she knows I’m concerned about it, so we would check my urine for protein and then do another reading after a while when I could lay down for a bit.

I checked my urine and it came back +1 for protein (it either comes back negative or for trace amounts, both of which are considered normal - I’ve been trace the past two weeks - or +1, +2, and so on, indicating protein is present in your urine). We took another blood pressure reading, and this time it came back 130/90. She said the elevation was probably due to my nerves at the high reading and the urine result, but that she wanted to go ahead and send me over to the hospital to do some more checking.

The problem with elevated blood pressure and protein is that they can be indicators of pregnancy-induced hypertension, which can lead to pre-eclampsia, which can be very dangerous and even fatal to both mom and baby. My edema’s getting worse, which can also be a sign. There are other symptoms as well, which I’m not experiencing, like headaches and vision changes, nausea and specific pains, but she wanted to rule it out.

Other than that, she said the baby’s in a great position, with his little head really low, and that his heartbeat sounds good. She offered to do a cervical check, which I was hoping for, not cause they’re fun or anything, mind you, but because it could tell us how much I’m progressing, but won’t really give us an indication as to how soon we might be in labor. We decided to save the cervical check for the hospital, since I was going to have other tests as well.

So off to Labor and Delivery I went. I’ve never been to an L&D unit for myself, and the only time I’ve been since probably my sister was born was last Christmas for my nephew’s birth. I’m not real partial to hospitals. Joshua had rented a CityCareShare to come down for the appointment during his lunch break, so he ran the car back downtown and went by his work to get his stuff and BARTed back down to St. Luke’s, since we had no idea if we’d be there for an hour or admitted to start labor. So it was me and Judah, and she crawled in the bed with me during my NST and we watched ducks swim in a lake and flowers blow in the breeze on some restful channel on the TV.

While uncomfortable during the process, the NST results looked fine, and my other midwife showed up shortly after I arrived to monitor me and do an Amniotic Fluid Index (an AFI - a sonogram which measures my bag of waters), take my blood pressure some more, do another urine test and collect some blood for some tests.

After the initial adrenaline rush of being sent to the hospital, I attempted to calm myself down and relax (of course, the ducks and breezy flowers were BOUND to help). My BP came back 120-ish/80ish each time, which is better. The AFI results showed good amounts of fluid and looks like baby is perfectly content to be right where he is for the time being (and at one point my midwife made the remark, “well if that’s not the best indication you have a boy right there, i don’t know what is” when he flashed us for a moment, guaranteeing that he does have both his testicles).

My urine came back with no protein in it, though I’m not sure if it was a complete negative result. My midwife said that if I wasn’t well hydrated or if I didn’t have a clean catch the first time, those could both affect the outcome. So I drank a lot of water and made sure to use the little wipes, and am proud to say that was one of the better urine sample catches of my pregnancy, despite not having a clue where anything is located down there anymore. I got a call a little while ago and my bloodwork looks great.

So the only thing left is the results of the cervical exam - you’re dying to know aren’t you? I was. I am three centimeters dilated and 70 percent effaced, so we’re still making progress. He’s also at a zero station, which means he’s working his way down, but not ready to be born yet. My cervix is also slightly posterior. So no baby yet. But things could always change at any moment. She offered to do a “stretch and sweep” if I wanted during the exam, but if things aren’t ready, it’s just going to make me really uncomfortable and wear me out and not go into labor. So no, i’m not ready for labor augmentation.

Between the symphysis pain (which is also really bad today) and how we were certain we would have birthed a baby by now, I really do NOT want to be pregnant anymore. There was a slight hope in our hospital visit that maybe today would really be the day. So I’m a little disappointed, but I’m really glad that we’re not having to induce or intervene because of problems. As long as my body continues to be a healthy environment for my baby and since he’s obviously not ready to come per my vaginal exam, I don’t want to force it - the likelihood of intervention rises that way - I want things to progress when they’re supposed to. I just keep praying and wishing it would be sooner than later.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 9th, 2006 at 6:19 pm and is filed under Pregnant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.