Why keep things boring?

Yesterday afternoon I spent the afternoon in Labor and Delivery.

I had my regularly scheduled non-stress test (NST) at 11:30 in my regular OB's office.  As per usual, I drank a little caffeine to ensure that Miss Isabella was moving sufficiently for the test.  They are looking at her heart rate over 20 minutes (or more) and want to see at least two significant accelerations and then back to baseline.  They also monitor uterine activity to see if I'm having any contractions.  It is hit or miss if she is active or napping during these tests, so that is why I've taken to drinking a little caffeine.  Worst case we have trouble keeping her on the monitor because she moves and we have to "find" her heart rate again.  It has worked fine until yesterday.

Yesterday the office was busy.  I was taken into a different room than I'm used to (one that is usually used for "procedures" so very medical and sterile feeling as opposed to the soft lit office I usually am in), with a Nurse that I hadn't met before.  Generally speaking a new nurse wouldn't make me anxious, but we started out with the ultrasound to check fluid levels and she was having trouble finding one of the pockets.  She even brought my regular nurse in to help.  Hard not to start to feel a little anxious, you know?  Well once that was done we got me hooked up to the monitors and started the business of the NST.

Isabella was moving like a mad woman and her heart rate was quite a bit higher than I am used to seeing.  Usually her "baseline" is between 120 and 140 with an acceleration getting up into the 150s maybe up to 170.  Well yesterday she was hovering around 170 for quite a while, with the range between 150 and 180!  On top of that, the numbers on my uterine monitor were also higher.  I usually baseline in the 20's with a contraction taking me up to the 40's or so.  On this monitor I was consistently up near 40, even hitting up to 60 a couple of times, but no real evidence of a contraction (it looks like a hill on the monitor).

So of course, being the crazy person I am I sat there trying to keep calm and think that perhaps the machine was just calibrated differently or something, but really, my anxiety was just building.  Then they take my blood pressure.

Great.  My number one cause of high blood pressure is stress/anxiety.

So of course, my blood pressure was a little high.  Not scary high, just enough to be concerned.  They took it again and it was still high.  On top of all of this I had been feeling really bad the day before.  My stomach was upset, and I had a migraine.  I went home and slept and felt better for awhile, but it came back until I took a vicodan, which took care of it again.  But I had the hangover headache yesterday morning, so I didn't know what to think.  Stomach issues and headaches can all be signs of preeclampsia, which is what they were concerned about.  They are also normal parts of the end of pregnancy!  Go figure...

So anyhow, the nurse called the doctor in and they decided that I should go to Labor and Delivery for additional monitoring.

I promptly text Nick to let him know that I am coming to get him and we are taking a drive into the city.  I managed to stay mostly calm until we arrived at the hospital, and once we were in triage settled in, I was fine.  My blood pressure started coming down to "normal" range, and Izzy's heart rate was back down to normal.  We couldn't keep her on the monitor (totally normal) but eventually we captured our 20 uninterrupted minutes (after a severe case of hiccups stopped our ability to monitor her for about 8 minutes!- it was shaking my whole belly they were so strong!).

They took blood and checked my urine for protein.  As usual, everything came back negative or normal.  Unfortunately a trip to labor and delivery means the doctors are a little more careful with you.  So the doctor who was caring for me wanted me off of work (I'm modifying for this last week since realistically I can do most of my work from home with just a couple of hours in office a day, which will keep my blood pressure down).  I am also now doing home blood pressure checks two times a day, and checking my urine for protein once a day, with daily phone calls to the perinatalogists office.  This is in addition to my now twice a week NSTs, my now weekly OB visits, my three times a week visits to the chiropractor (have I mentioned my hip is KILLING me???), and my every other week visit to the acupuncturist... Good thing I'm only trying to work for 4 more days!  I don't know how I'd fit all these appointments in!!!

The good news is that everything is fine.  I really do not expect this to turn into preeclampsia, because for whatever strange reason I feel like if it was going to happen, it would have happened by now.  I trust that my blood pressure was high due to circumstances and not my body processing something poorly.  Nick and I are also comfortably familiar with the hospital we will be delivering at (good thing we did our hospital tour on Wednesday night- just in time!).  We have our route down and even parking.

So we officially have 4.5 weeks left and I'm trusting that despite the trouble, things will go just fine from here on out.

I guess we just needed a little excitement in our lives!  Can't be too boring right??? =)