Well, yesterday was interesting.
I went in for my 37 week appointment (which, for the record, folks, is currently what is considered full term by the majority of the medical community, and though I still read 38 weeks in some places, I'm going to go ahead and claim it). It was actually better than most have been lately, time-wise...I only had to wait in the exam room for about 15 minutes to actually see the doctor, which made me think, gosh, I didn't need to bring my Kindle after all!
Everything looked and sounded good, as usual...except for one leetle detail. My blood pressure was up. Now, we're not talking insane numbers, here...they checked me twice, and got 130/90 and 128/90. Up to now I've always been under the 120/80 threshold, so I knew that it would raise the doctor's eyebrows a bit that I was high, but I figured in the absence of any other symptoms of anything bad going on with the baby, I'd be told to rest, watch my sodium, and be sent home.
Instead, I got sent to the labor and delivery ward of the hospital to be given the full battery of tests that they'd need to decide whether I have pre-eclampsia.
The last words that the doctor said to me on my way to check out were, "well, you're full term now, so if your test results come back bad, we're going to have a baby today."
O.o!!
It's hard to describe how I felt in that moment. Unprepared, nervous, a little bit numb...distracted. Luckily, the L&D ward in the hospital is just downstairs from my obsetricians' office, so I didn't have time to stress much betweentimes, though I did have time to stop off at a restroom on the way and leave my Kindle on the toilet paper holder in the bathroom stall. (I had already changed into the sexy sexy hospital gown when I realized it was missing, and had to throw my clothes back on and dash out there to reclaim it. The nurse tried to find it for me, and came back empty-handed, but she was looking for a white or silver gadget; mine has a black cover on it and it blended right in with the tp. Luckily, she didn't check my blood pressure for another 15 minutes after that, because I think it might have skyrocketed there for a minute ;).)
So I was hooked up to a bunch of monitors, just like I'd have been if I was there to deliver Locke. There's one for his heart, to make sure he's doing okay, and one to measure the contractions I wasn't having (she said it was hospital policy to hook me up to that one...needless to say, the line on that graph stayed nice and level), and a blood pressure cuff that took a reading every 15 minutes. She took some blood for lab tests, and mostly left me alone for 2 1/2 hours to read my Kindle and watch Mythbusters.
Getting to listen to Locke for all that time was definitely the highlight of this adventure. Every time he made a movement, I could hear it on the ultrasound thing they use to simulate his heartbeat, which was really kind of cute. Little boy was extremely active the whole time, and his heart rate fluxuated between about 140 and 160 bpm, hovering mostly in the 150s. I take that to mean he's a stout, healthy boy, regardless of what mommy's stupid blood pressure was reading. :)
The longer I laid on the bed, the lower my blood pressure readings got, which is more or less what they seemed to expect. I got down to a respectable 114/73. But when I got out of bed to give them a urine sample, and she checked me again as soon as I was laid back down and cuffed back up, it was up to 127/86. The nurse didn't seem concerned at all about that reading, but given that my doctor was unhappy with 128/90, I figured that wouldn't have passed muster upstairs...
But every other test, I am happy to say, came back good. They discharged me at about 3:00, and given that I hadn't eaten since a small snack at 10:00 that morning, I came home and inhaled about half of the contents of my fridge. ;)
Poor Matthew was stuck at work for all of this, getting updates on my situation from time to time when I was texting him. I found out later that I'd stressed him out quite a bit...in fact, I think he was sweating it more than I was. Good thing daddy's blood pressure wasn't being monitored or they'd have admitted him for sure. ;)
What does this mean for the rest of my pregnancy? Well, the official diagnosis, in the absence of pre-eclampsia, is pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH). That often turns into Pre-e, which would be very bad. I imagine next week's blood pressure reading will be examined very closely by the doctors. If it's back to normal, they'll assume this was a one-time fluke, and it could have been anything from nerves to what I'd eaten in the past few days that gave me the bad measurements yesterday. If it's not...well, I don't actually know for sure what they'll do. Maybe send me back for another round of testing (just because I don't have pre-e this week, doesn't mean it can't or won't develop before next Wednesday). Or they might decide that at 38 weeks, I'm far enough along to go ahead and induce, just to negate the chance of PIH turning into Pre-e. (Note that I don't think they'll just ignore it and say, oh, your levels were all fine last week, they'll probably be fine again this week. I have 3 nurses in my family and all 3 completely blew off the notion that any of the testing I'd received was a waste of time, in spite of the negative results, lack of any other physical symptoms, and not-all-that-high blood pressure reading. Blood pressure is serious business in pregnancy, I have come to learn.)
I'm hoping that it was a fluke...not that I don't want to meet my son, but being induced because of a complication is not exactly how I wanted it to happen. Besides, the closer to my due date I get, the better it is for Matthew's school and work schedule, and my brother and his wife will be in Vegas next week. All very good reasons for me to chill out and hope the blood pressure goes down.
So now I'm torn. Should I engage in a tizzy of last minute cleaning and preparation, just in case they tell me next week that they want to induce me, so I'm as ready as possible for the baby? Or should I relax and take it easy, which would probably help keep my blood pressure down? Errm...maybe I'll tizzy first and rest later in the week. We'll see.
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