Friday, October 12, 2012

Crazy week.

Oy, what a week this has been.

Somewhere during the week, Luke either had a growth spurt or figured out standing on his toes and stretching to reach stuff, because areas that used to be toddler-proof by the virtue of their height suddenly aren't (like the door handles, the top edge and middle of our tall dresser/chest, etc.) I also watched Luke go in his room, or soon to be ex-room, and shut the door and then turn the handle and open it. A few times, actually, as he was pleased with this new skill and did it over and over again. I hate those handle covers so I'm going to hold off using them for a bit longer b/c he didn't open any other doors yet, I don't think he's figured out they are all the same, but that's probably coming soon.

On Monday I had a growth ultrasound, monitoring, and an impromptu MFM appointment. The growth ultrasound was fine, he's estimated at 5 lbs 9 oz at 34 weeks. I expected that he should have been a bit bigger than that by now seeing as he was 4 lb 9 oz a month ago and I thought they are generally supposed to grow half a pound a week. In any case, he's measuring about a week ahead for pretty much everything, and they aren't worried about it. I went on to do monitoring and while the baby passed easily and my fluid levels were good, my blood pressure was on the high for me side, and I mentioned the headache I had had most of the weekend and more swelling. The nurse mentioned it to the doctor who wanted the nurse to call my doctor and see if they wanted any labwork or tests ordered before they let me go. The nurse tried for an hour to get in touch with my OB, who was apparently on a plane, and her partner, who was in surgery (said my OB's office today.) Finally they just called my high risk doctor instead, who was right upstairs and told them to send me up to see her.

It was really weird going into the MFM office at a time when they had no other patients yet. (She only was seeing patients that afternoon, technically.) At monitoring, my top number was a little high but the bottom number was normal. Upstairs, the top number was normal while by bottom number was high. Still, not alarmingly high. (Like 131/70's, 122/91...though normal for me is like 110/60 and so that was why the 131 had the nurse a bit concerned since that was a little high for me.) No protein in my urine and my weight wasn't great but I'm swollen, same old, same old. My high risk doctor ordered labs but no 24 hour urine since my diptest was clear and my blood pressure is okay and they aren't going to deliver me for protein anyway.

But she talked a lot about pushing up my scheduled c-section from Oct.26th to the week before (37 weeks to 36 weeks), and with no amnio. (She actually asked when it was scheduled and how many weeks that would be and then laughed and said "god, she's such a hardass." But she acknowledged that without an amnio (to confirm lung maturity, not for anything that would actually help the baby), there was a risk of NICU time. She told me to see my OB and she would call her about it after my monitoring today. (My OB and MFM know each other well, my MFM was my OB's doctor for her two pregnancies.)

Oh yeah, and she talked about me "resting" again. When I asked her exactly how far I was suppposed to take that, she said lay down and "REALLY rest' for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No one gave Luke that memo. That sounds GLORIOUS. It hasn't happened yet. Though I did take a 2 hour afternoon nap with Luke one day. I can usually at least get some afternoon downtime while he naps.

We also had the "so are you going to do this again?" discussion, for probably the 20th time this pregnancy. I laughed and asked her if she's going to keep asking me because she wants to see at what point I change my mind or if I will. (I went from saying pretty emphatically yes, one more, in awhile... at the beginning... to just making a face and shrugging on Monday.) She grinned at me and said yep, then shook her head at my answer and said, "man, you have nerves of steel." (I guess because I didn't say emphatically "no! please tie my tubes!")

So then there was yesterday. After my bad headaches and swelling, it seemed like things had settled down a lot. Only for my OB to walk into my appointment and make a face and say I looked puffy and she wasn't thrilled that my weight is up 6 lbs in 2 weeks. (Swelling. Or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Blaming it on swelling over and over is starting to seem kinda lame, but seriously, I can't wear shoes or socks because they don't fit on my feet. Flipflops till November it is.)  Then she went on to say how she was glad I was still pregnant at least, because the last time she saw me, she wasn't so sure I'd make it two more weeks. (HUH? What the hell? After I left frustrated because she said she thought I'd sail to 37 weeks with no problems? Evidently she really was taking the "not stress her out" approach but that just made it more frustrating. Then again, she was pretty nonchalant when things were getting ugly with Olivia too as far as her growth and then my pain, while talking about maybe having to deliver at 24 weeks. So obviously she thought it was bad...I don't know. I don't get it.)

Anyway, she didn't mention if there was protein and I didn't ask. I'm really not in the mood to pee in a jug for 24 hours right now for the heck of it anyway. I told my OB about how my high risk doctor wanted to move the date up a week and skip an amnio and OB went on to tell me that if it was 36 weeks they HAD to do an amnio. I shrugged and said MFM was saying she was going to call her today. So my OB told me to have MFM call her after my monitoring. Monitoring went well although the baby nearly failed the NST for being too active to get a baseline. Finally they got it though he was CRAZY the whole time. The test strip was just a giant back and forth zig zag that the nurse had to get my MFM to okay. I told my nurse about the whole delivery date confusion and that my OB wanted MFM to call her. She went to talk to my MFM while I was on the monitors and came back and said, "She said you are delivering at 36 weeks. She's going to call and talk to OB after you are done with monitoring."  So all of that happened and then they had me wait until the doctors had talked. (In the same "naughty chair" I sat on Monday while they tried to call my OB.)  Luckily this took only 20 minutes and then I heard my MFM's loud voice looking for me. She was bemused. "So, do you want to know what [OB's first name] said to me?" ..."She said she will not deliver you at 36 without an amnio. And I do not want you to have an amnio." We talked about it a little and are going to try to make it to 37 weeks, again, the original plan. But my MFM wasn't completely thrilled about it and she said, "One more little thing. Just one more little thing comes up and that baby is out."  So I am on a short leash.

For the record, I actually don't really want to deliver at 36 weeks anyway right now. For one, I'm pretty sure my due date is actually off a little bit...I fudged the dates a little in the beginning because I wanted an ultrasound a couple days early. (The ultrasounds have always matched up to it pretty well though.) I definitely don't want to deliver at what they think is 36 weeks but is really 35+5. Secondly, Luke was born at 36+2 (we know for sure due to the fertility treatments I did), and had jaundice and issues eating. Neither was a huge deal, and both can happen even to babies that go post due date, but still, I'm hoping that delivering close to 37 weeks will help.

I also have a few more trivial reasons that obviously don't carry any weight if there is a real medical reason to deliver. (My ob is just arguing that swelling and even spilling protein in reasonable amounts is not a good enough reason to deliver if the baby is doing well and everything else is okay.) Anyway, my trivial reasons are...
#1- Next Saturday is the SHARE walk in remembrance for babies. And that's not really "trivial" but obviously I would not put this baby's health at risk for a walk if it came down to that. (I probably won't actually walk, even though it is a short and slow walk, one of my friends walked last year a few days after recovering from gallbladder surgery, so it's not like I'm running a 5k here. My dad is outraged that I'm even thinking about going, so if I walk, I'm going to have to hide from him.) It's a really nice ceremony and balloon release and I am hoping to go, if I'm not in the hospital.

#2- We are making progress, but our house is still nowhere near ready for the new baby. I need to wash the carseat cover and a bunch of stuff and drag out all the baby stuff I've packed away (and make room for it around all the toddler crap we have everywhere.)  I finally got Luke's room 98% cleaned out and he and I tried out sleeping on his twin bed (on the floor, we decided to skip the toddler bed thing- and we have a bedframe and box springs for the bed but he's rolled off the couch a few times sleeping so he's not ready to be off the floor yet) last night. It went pretty well, for the most part.But still, there's way too much to be done and I need more than a week.

#3- This is the most trivial reason of all. Olivia was born on the 28th (Sept.), Luke was born on the 27th (April), (so was I but Dec.), and my scheduled c-section for this baby just works out to be the 26th. So 28, 27, 26. If I have this baby before the 26th then it ruins that "connection". And I guess while that is trivial, it also gives me some inner peace that it will be okay, like it's some sort of sign, considering it's not like we planned to give them back to back numbers when we were trying to get pregnant. (With this baby, my insurance plan renews Nov.1st, so we were hoping to have an Oct. delivery date so we didn't have to pay the deductible twice for the same pregnancy. No worries with that! But we definitely in no way  planned for the 26th and it was my OB who scheduled it for that day.)

Also, my OB asked yesterday if I want to do anything "permanent" for birth control. Like she wants to sterilize me! (She hadn't talked to my MFM yet so it wasn't like they are conspiring about it.) I was surprised, because both baby factory and I'm pretty sure my first choice hospital are both Catholic hospitals and I thought they don't allow it, even during c-sections according to our grief support person who is a nurse there. (Although maybe with all of my medical history my OB has a good enough case for it. And maybe that has changed with the new healthcare laws.) And also because I'm only 28. I mean, I know I'm getting up there on c-sections, this will be my third, but before all of this drama, even my conservative high risk doctor was okay with me having one more. And while the drama is annoying and time consuming, I'm not so sure that it's so bad that I should consider NEVER having another baby. I mean, DEFINITELY, I don't want to get pregnant or do this again anytime soon. (I do not recommend having kids 18 months apart, at least so far from what I have experienced of being pregnant with a toddler.) And I'm well aware that the risks of preeclampsia increase with age and time between pregnancies, so it's not like we can wait indefinitely either. But I'm definitely not yet willing to consider shutting that door permanently at this point. I know my pregnancies are annoying and melodramatic, but sheesh, I didn't think it was that bad. Anyway, I just told her no. We may decide that we really are done as time passes and stop here. But it's nothing I'm ready to decide permanently.

1 comments:

Kim said...

Definitely do NOT decide permanently yet, I think it's absurd for her to ask! We should have spent today at your house and I could have helped:)

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