Last night at about 11, Luke woke up shrieking at the top of his lungs like he has never screamed before. He didn't even want to be awake, his eyes were mostly closed, but he was screaming and writhing like he was in pain.
I tried to calm him down for a few minutes unsuccessfully, then panicked and woke up Joe. My immediate thought was he had managed to swallow something bad, somewhere/somehow and now it was stuck.
Called our pediatrician's exchange which goes to a nurse at Children's Hospital, tried to answer her questions while examining our screaming baby. (By this point he had been screaming at the top of his lungs for about 20 minutes. One of the questions was "is his abdomen swollen?" And Joe freaking said yes, I really couldn't tell, but I went with what he said.) At that point she said, "Ok, you need to go into the hospital tonight."
Since I volunteer at the closest hospital to us, I know that they don't have a children's unit, everything is mostly adult sized and they are not really used to working with very many kids- especially babies. Since I was worried he would god forbid need surgery or at least an xray, we decided to drive the half hour to the nearest hospital (where both babies were born) which does have a pediatric ER and a children's hospital.
OF COURSE, 5 minutes into our car ride there, Luke stopped crying and started dozing to sleep. We started doubting bringing him in (though of course my mommy instincts were screaming to bring him in), but then he's act like he was still in pain and start crying and screaming again every few minutes, then calm down, then scream.
By the time we got to the ER and signed in (the nurse called ahead so they were expecting us), Luke was done crying. He looked around and chatted. He tried to squirm off my lap so he could crawl around. They luckily took us back into a room and got his vitals pretty quickly. He was really really amused by this cord thing they put around his toe (maybe a heart or blood pressure thing? not really sure), there was a spinny thing on the wall so after trying to keep him corralled on a not-baby-proofed-bed where he could have easily slipped through the rails, I let him stand on the chair and spin the toy while I sat behind him. He laughed and chatted and basically just had a good time playing.
The doctor came in and checked him over (barely). Made him scream and cry when she made me hold him down to look in his ears. (I'm not sure why she made it necessary to hold him down to look in his ears. Our pedi has never had any trouble looking in his ears with him sitting up.) His ears are fine, of course. She barely glanced at his stomach/abdomen. And then sent us home. She was nice enough. Thinks it was heartburn. We were pretty sure we were wasting our $250 copay by the time we got there and he started acting normal again, but I didn't feel like he even got a very thorough lookover. It's not like we do this all the time for fun- I've never even called the exchange line. I tried asking her that if he had eaten something, what symptoms should I look for? And she never really answered that at all.
Luke chatted to himself and then fell asleep on the way home. (By now it was 2 am.) I hadn't even been to bed yet (have a quiz today so I was up studying when he woke up.) Luke of course woke up when we took him from the car and wanted to play. Joe was nice (and knew he was calling in today) and took Luke and let me go to bed. Luke wasn't thrilled with that but settled down for Joe quickly. Then we all slept till 8 am today minus a couple of feedings. He is acting fine today though I am pretty sure he was constipated or ate something he was having trouble digesting, judging from his diapers today.
So that will be a fun $250 copay. I am glad it isn't/wasn't serious so we'll chalk it up to a lesson learned.
Not all that different from about a year ago, when I was 31 weeks pregnant and Luke *failed* his nonstress test. Not only was he not active enough, the test strip was downright ugly with a lot of sharp decelerations. It was bad enough that the nurse faxed it to my doctor immediately and sent us for a biophysical profile, which he also did not pass since he didn't feel like practicing breathing and he wasn't especially active either. So they sent us to the hospital, and as soon as I was on their monitors, he was perfect, they watched him for over an hour and he had no decelerations and was very active. Then they did another biophysical profile and he practiced breathing not once but twice in just a few minutes. So they deemed him fine and sent us home. (And obviously it was fine.) Apparently, our baby boy likes to keep things a little exciting with false alarms. I'd rather they be false alarms than real issues, although it would be a lot better if these adventures didn't cost several hundred dollars in medical bills, not to mention taking a few years off my life from the stress!
Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drama. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Picture drama
So a long, long, time ago, back in July 2011, when Lucas was 3 months old, we got pictures done by a photographer I found on Craigslist. Big, huge, massive, epic mistake.
We purchased a first year package which was supposed to include a couple prints from each session, a 3x5 album of prints from all the sessions, a keepsake disc, and 4 photo sessions- 3 month,6month,9month,1 year. We paid half upfront and were going to pay part of the rest at 6 months and 9 months. She told us our pictures would be on her website in 7 day, a month later they finally were. She kept avoiding my questions about the disc and the 3x5 album (was it a disc after each session or one altogether?--she never answered at all.) And we were very underwhelmed with the pictures (although I was nice and did tell her I liked them. I liked them as much as I would have liked a random 16 year old "photographer" at Walmart or JCPenneys or BabiesRUs.) Anyway, since she started getting pretty sketchy/evasive early on, I asked if we could change our package to the one time basic package (which included 3 prints and a disc of all purchase images- per her website) and use the remaining $100 to just order prints a la carte from her website. We ordered 10 extra prints at $10 each. She agreed to this and told us the order would be in, in 4-8 weeks.
So eight weeks go by with no word from her. At nine weeks, I email her. No response. I email her again, no response. I try to call her. No answer, plus her voicemail is full and won't let me leave a message. I post on her facebook photography page, a nice comment "just wondering where our pictures are that were taken in July, since it's November"...she ignores this message too. FINALLY, when I email her threatening to make a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and take her to small claims court if necessary, she replies THAT DAY, within hours. She claims that she has had my pictures for "weeks" and has been trying to contact me to get my address. Her emails must be getting sent to my spam folder. I check my spam folder every couple days so I knew that wasn't the case, plus, when I filled out the "contact me" form through her website it included all of my information including my address, phone number, etc. So she says she will be sending the pictures THAT VERY DAY via priority mail and she will email me a delivery confirmation as soon as she has it.
No delivery confirmation came. She says there has been a death in her family and will get the pictures out next week. Fine. We finally got our pictures (from July) the last week of November. (In the meantime, we had Luke's 6 month pictures taken and back already from our new photographer.)
Except there was one huge problem. On her website, every image was in color and black and white. So for example, image number 1 was color, image number 2 was black and white. I ordered them by number, and we ordered them all in color except for one of his hands in ours we got in black and white. Every print that received was in black and white, EXCEPT for the one that was supposed to be in black and white came in color. (So basically they were the opposite of what we ordered.)
I emailed her about this immediately and gave her a week to respond before I started filing claims. She responded with an apology and that she would send a "rush order" to fix the pictures and that the pictures would be fed ex'd to us directly when they were done. I also mentioned in the email that the disc we were supposed to get with our package was not with our prints and to please send us that at least. In early January, we received the disc. (I think I had to email her again about it but I would have to go back and check.)
Life got busy and I figured the pictures might take 8ish weeks so I didn't try to contact her again until towards the end of January. (I think. I have every single email I've ever sent to her, and she's ever sent to me, so I can check the exact date later, but for now that's not really important.) I received no response. Here we go again. A couple weeks ago I made one more attempt, telling her all we really want is our correct pictures, and to at least please respond so I know what is going on with that. Still no response, so I emailed her once again giving her a week to reply or that I would file a claim. Still nothing, and I gave her two weeks because things were busy, but I finally filed a claim with the better business bureau this weekend.
I guess she received it because today I received an email from her saying that all of my descriptions were completely false. That a disc was never included in the package. (Her website now has different packages, the one we bought has the same name but now offers much less for the same price, luckily I took a screenshot of it and printed off every package.) That she sent it as a courtesy. And that she had no idea what I was talking about with black and white and color pictures, they are all in color. She was going to be very nice and offer me a $25 refund to resolve this. Oh, and she also mentioned that I "publicly criticized her" in her response. (I assume she's talking about the facebook thing, which is just funny, because she has no idea how much "public criticism" she is going to get once we finally have this resolved.And it will go well beyond Facebook.)
I replied back that I had saved and submitted her email about her rush order of pictures to the Better Business Bureau (true) so they know she is lying. Her options are to refund us the entire amount we have paid (because I figure by now at this point our kid is 10 months old- we have much better pictures of him from 6 and 9 months I'd rather get prints of and display anyway.) Or she can just send us the correct pictures, which is really been my goal all along, just to get the freaking pictures that we ordered.
She replied back that she "is not going to argue", she will "submit a 3rd order on our behalf" or refund the $25, but since we have the disc, we really should just take the $25 and get our own prints.
I told her that it was interesting that she is now saying that there will be a "third order" when earlier she said there was nothing wrong with the first prints. (Admitting that she was supposed to send the 2nd CORRECT order, in her previous email, remember, she said she had no idea what I was talking about.) And the way she worded "submit on your behalf" about the "third order" makes me think that she will put the order in and then tell us to pay it (again.) So I reiterated that her options were to send us the correct pictures (whether she has to reorder them or not, I don't really care, the point is I want the pictures and I do not expect to pay a dime more than we already have for them.) OR she can refund us $150 for the prints- ($100 for the a la carte prints we ordered, plus $50 for the prints that were supposed to be included in our package.) If she can't agree to either option, we will gladly take her to small claims court. We have never spoken in person except for the photo shoot. I have every single email I have ever sent her, and every single email she has ever sent me, and exactly what the package we purchased was supposed to include, as advertised on her website. So this will be easy to prove, and she has backpedaled on so many lies already (that I can prove), she has only helped my case. All she had to do was take our pictures and actually give us what we ordered, and all of this drama could have been avoided. I guess she thought she could evade us and lie enough that we'd just go away. She thought wrong.
We purchased a first year package which was supposed to include a couple prints from each session, a 3x5 album of prints from all the sessions, a keepsake disc, and 4 photo sessions- 3 month,6month,9month,1 year. We paid half upfront and were going to pay part of the rest at 6 months and 9 months. She told us our pictures would be on her website in 7 day, a month later they finally were. She kept avoiding my questions about the disc and the 3x5 album (was it a disc after each session or one altogether?--she never answered at all.) And we were very underwhelmed with the pictures (although I was nice and did tell her I liked them. I liked them as much as I would have liked a random 16 year old "photographer" at Walmart or JCPenneys or BabiesRUs.) Anyway, since she started getting pretty sketchy/evasive early on, I asked if we could change our package to the one time basic package (which included 3 prints and a disc of all purchase images- per her website) and use the remaining $100 to just order prints a la carte from her website. We ordered 10 extra prints at $10 each. She agreed to this and told us the order would be in, in 4-8 weeks.
So eight weeks go by with no word from her. At nine weeks, I email her. No response. I email her again, no response. I try to call her. No answer, plus her voicemail is full and won't let me leave a message. I post on her facebook photography page, a nice comment "just wondering where our pictures are that were taken in July, since it's November"...she ignores this message too. FINALLY, when I email her threatening to make a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and take her to small claims court if necessary, she replies THAT DAY, within hours. She claims that she has had my pictures for "weeks" and has been trying to contact me to get my address. Her emails must be getting sent to my spam folder. I check my spam folder every couple days so I knew that wasn't the case, plus, when I filled out the "contact me" form through her website it included all of my information including my address, phone number, etc. So she says she will be sending the pictures THAT VERY DAY via priority mail and she will email me a delivery confirmation as soon as she has it.
No delivery confirmation came. She says there has been a death in her family and will get the pictures out next week. Fine. We finally got our pictures (from July) the last week of November. (In the meantime, we had Luke's 6 month pictures taken and back already from our new photographer.)
Except there was one huge problem. On her website, every image was in color and black and white. So for example, image number 1 was color, image number 2 was black and white. I ordered them by number, and we ordered them all in color except for one of his hands in ours we got in black and white. Every print that received was in black and white, EXCEPT for the one that was supposed to be in black and white came in color. (So basically they were the opposite of what we ordered.)
I emailed her about this immediately and gave her a week to respond before I started filing claims. She responded with an apology and that she would send a "rush order" to fix the pictures and that the pictures would be fed ex'd to us directly when they were done. I also mentioned in the email that the disc we were supposed to get with our package was not with our prints and to please send us that at least. In early January, we received the disc. (I think I had to email her again about it but I would have to go back and check.)
Life got busy and I figured the pictures might take 8ish weeks so I didn't try to contact her again until towards the end of January. (I think. I have every single email I've ever sent to her, and she's ever sent to me, so I can check the exact date later, but for now that's not really important.) I received no response. Here we go again. A couple weeks ago I made one more attempt, telling her all we really want is our correct pictures, and to at least please respond so I know what is going on with that. Still no response, so I emailed her once again giving her a week to reply or that I would file a claim. Still nothing, and I gave her two weeks because things were busy, but I finally filed a claim with the better business bureau this weekend.
I guess she received it because today I received an email from her saying that all of my descriptions were completely false. That a disc was never included in the package. (Her website now has different packages, the one we bought has the same name but now offers much less for the same price, luckily I took a screenshot of it and printed off every package.) That she sent it as a courtesy. And that she had no idea what I was talking about with black and white and color pictures, they are all in color. She was going to be very nice and offer me a $25 refund to resolve this. Oh, and she also mentioned that I "publicly criticized her" in her response. (I assume she's talking about the facebook thing, which is just funny, because she has no idea how much "public criticism" she is going to get once we finally have this resolved.And it will go well beyond Facebook.)
I replied back that I had saved and submitted her email about her rush order of pictures to the Better Business Bureau (true) so they know she is lying. Her options are to refund us the entire amount we have paid (because I figure by now at this point our kid is 10 months old- we have much better pictures of him from 6 and 9 months I'd rather get prints of and display anyway.) Or she can just send us the correct pictures, which is really been my goal all along, just to get the freaking pictures that we ordered.
She replied back that she "is not going to argue", she will "submit a 3rd order on our behalf" or refund the $25, but since we have the disc, we really should just take the $25 and get our own prints.
I told her that it was interesting that she is now saying that there will be a "third order" when earlier she said there was nothing wrong with the first prints. (Admitting that she was supposed to send the 2nd CORRECT order, in her previous email, remember, she said she had no idea what I was talking about.) And the way she worded "submit on your behalf" about the "third order" makes me think that she will put the order in and then tell us to pay it (again.) So I reiterated that her options were to send us the correct pictures (whether she has to reorder them or not, I don't really care, the point is I want the pictures and I do not expect to pay a dime more than we already have for them.) OR she can refund us $150 for the prints- ($100 for the a la carte prints we ordered, plus $50 for the prints that were supposed to be included in our package.) If she can't agree to either option, we will gladly take her to small claims court. We have never spoken in person except for the photo shoot. I have every single email I have ever sent her, and every single email she has ever sent me, and exactly what the package we purchased was supposed to include, as advertised on her website. So this will be easy to prove, and she has backpedaled on so many lies already (that I can prove), she has only helped my case. All she had to do was take our pictures and actually give us what we ordered, and all of this drama could have been avoided. I guess she thought she could evade us and lie enough that we'd just go away. She thought wrong.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Sort of answers.
(If you missed the last post, you kind of need to read that first to understand what I'm talking about. )
One of my mom's good friends used to be our next door neighbor until they moved away around the time I was in high school. She was an L&D nurse for a long time and one of the places she worked was the other major "high risk"/level III NICU hospital. (The kind of place where they had women helicoptered in from other hospitals when things got ugly.)
I had my mom call her to get a little more insight, realizing that she's not a doctor but that she's probably seen her fair share of high risk pregnant women, and she ended up calling me. She confirmed the breathing thing really isn't a big deal, a lot of babies don't really start practicing breathing until after 28ish weeks. But the drops/decels/variables are not good. It's better that they dropped and came right back up (so on the paper of lines keeping track of his heart rate, it looked like a squished together v, not a u or half circle where the dip lasts awhile). But, they shouldn't be happening, it doesn't have anything to do with them starting monitoring so early, it's not something that they like to see at all at any gestation. (And I think now what the nurse who did the NST was basically saying was that it's better when they are fullterm because they just induce or are already in labor and watch it closely. Since it's early and we have a long way to go before we're at fullterm, it raises new issues.) Also, I wasn't totally aware of this but the dips are actually a sign/indication of a drop in his oxygen levels. (That's why they don't like seeing them.)
It could be a cord issue, it could be something to do with the notching they saw earlier, or it could be something else or it could just be a fluke and a "watch me even closer" warning sign. (It does not seem to be pre-eclampsia or anything pre-eclampsia/HELLP like, I have no pain or swelling or anything and my blood pressure is pretty good. Even now. And my blood sugars have been normal all day too.)
So, if things aren't better on Monday, there's a good chance that they'll send me to the hospital, I guess for more continuous monitoring + trying to figure out what is causing this + possibly steroid shots to help mature his lungs. And if they can't figure out why it's happening or stop it and it stays status quo, we'll either have lots and lots of monitoring (like daily if not keeping me there), or deliver soon. I'm leaning towards "deliver soon" rather than wait to see what goes wrong next and he ends up *really* in distress. Maybe it will be normal Monday and we can hold off for awhile longer...but I'm really not liking this dips in oxygen thing at all, even if it is normal on Monday, I'm kind of feeling "lucky" that they saw it today, because my high risk doctor didn't think monitoring this early was actually necessary since everything looks good with me (besides my zillions of risk factors) and the baby seemed good between the growth ultrasounds and quick checks with the doppler. She decided to start it early mainly for my peace of mind. So that kind of backfired but I'm actually a little more relaxed now that I know they are watching us even more closely. I'd rather know about it and be stressed out and overly vigilant than be oblivious and things go horribly wrong later. If I hadn't had monitoring today and he's normal Monday, we wouldn't have even known there could be another issue. Luckily, he's been a busy boy for the rest of today so far so I'm feeling relatively okay in the scheme of things for right now. I hope this weekend goes by quickly though. And I haven't used our fetal doppler in forever, not since I started feeling movement every day, but I think we'll dust it off and will be using it quite a bit this weekend unless he stays pretty active constantly.
So, I guess I'll make sure I have my hospital bag packed and in the car for just in case. And I really hope this weekend goes by quickly and uneventfully. (I know I've already said that but I think it bears repeating.)
One of my mom's good friends used to be our next door neighbor until they moved away around the time I was in high school. She was an L&D nurse for a long time and one of the places she worked was the other major "high risk"/level III NICU hospital. (The kind of place where they had women helicoptered in from other hospitals when things got ugly.)
I had my mom call her to get a little more insight, realizing that she's not a doctor but that she's probably seen her fair share of high risk pregnant women, and she ended up calling me. She confirmed the breathing thing really isn't a big deal, a lot of babies don't really start practicing breathing until after 28ish weeks. But the drops/decels/variables are not good. It's better that they dropped and came right back up (so on the paper of lines keeping track of his heart rate, it looked like a squished together v, not a u or half circle where the dip lasts awhile). But, they shouldn't be happening, it doesn't have anything to do with them starting monitoring so early, it's not something that they like to see at all at any gestation. (And I think now what the nurse who did the NST was basically saying was that it's better when they are fullterm because they just induce or are already in labor and watch it closely. Since it's early and we have a long way to go before we're at fullterm, it raises new issues.) Also, I wasn't totally aware of this but the dips are actually a sign/indication of a drop in his oxygen levels. (That's why they don't like seeing them.)
It could be a cord issue, it could be something to do with the notching they saw earlier, or it could be something else or it could just be a fluke and a "watch me even closer" warning sign. (It does not seem to be pre-eclampsia or anything pre-eclampsia/HELLP like, I have no pain or swelling or anything and my blood pressure is pretty good. Even now. And my blood sugars have been normal all day too.)
So, if things aren't better on Monday, there's a good chance that they'll send me to the hospital, I guess for more continuous monitoring + trying to figure out what is causing this + possibly steroid shots to help mature his lungs. And if they can't figure out why it's happening or stop it and it stays status quo, we'll either have lots and lots of monitoring (like daily if not keeping me there), or deliver soon. I'm leaning towards "deliver soon" rather than wait to see what goes wrong next and he ends up *really* in distress. Maybe it will be normal Monday and we can hold off for awhile longer...but I'm really not liking this dips in oxygen thing at all, even if it is normal on Monday, I'm kind of feeling "lucky" that they saw it today, because my high risk doctor didn't think monitoring this early was actually necessary since everything looks good with me (besides my zillions of risk factors) and the baby seemed good between the growth ultrasounds and quick checks with the doppler. She decided to start it early mainly for my peace of mind. So that kind of backfired but I'm actually a little more relaxed now that I know they are watching us even more closely. I'd rather know about it and be stressed out and overly vigilant than be oblivious and things go horribly wrong later. If I hadn't had monitoring today and he's normal Monday, we wouldn't have even known there could be another issue. Luckily, he's been a busy boy for the rest of today so far so I'm feeling relatively okay in the scheme of things for right now. I hope this weekend goes by quickly though. And I haven't used our fetal doppler in forever, not since I started feeling movement every day, but I think we'll dust it off and will be using it quite a bit this weekend unless he stays pretty active constantly.
So, I guess I'll make sure I have my hospital bag packed and in the car for just in case. And I really hope this weekend goes by quickly and uneventfully. (I know I've already said that but I think it bears repeating.)
Monitoring= big fat fail
Today was our growth ultrasound and our first monitoring appointment. The good news is that he's measuring good and looking mostly good, in between a week and 2 weeks ahead, estimated weight 3 lb 3 oz (+/- 7 oz) which is very good since we're just 27+4 wks. I had hoped that he would be at 3 lbs and I know that ultrasound weight estimates aren't very accurate the farther along and bigger the babies get, but just "guessing" that he's at 3 lbs makes me pretty happy. I know lungs and other stuff still need time in utero to get a bit better, but I'm feeling pretty good now that if we had to deliver soon, he's in pretty good shape for a 27.5 weeker. (I guess thank you gestational diabetes.)
I can't believe how much his little legs filled out. They even look like little baby thighs even on the ultrasound. He had his feet over his head the whole time and is head down on his side with his feet by his head too. (So we're expecting quite a contortionist.)
The bad news is that they had me start doing monitoring today too, and he totally failed the non-stress test (NST) because of "variables" she called them where it (his heartrate?) dropped sharply and then went back up. That happened about 4 times in the 20ish minutes of monitoring, which she said they really don't like to see this early at all. She (the RN) said that it sometimes happens with full-term women and they usually are just delivering are about to deliver so not a big deal. This early, I don't know. She was a little vague about it and just reiterated that they don't like to see it especially this early. It can indicate compression of the cord, etc. And then they kept saying that they don't usually start monitoring until 32 weeks or so, so I don't know how much that might account for it or not. (Maybe this happens with a lot of 27 weekers but they don't see it because they aren't monitoring many 27 weekers? Or maybe it's just bad?) Again, not having a doctor around kind of backfired, there was a doctor they kept consulting at the real perinatal center (which is a half hour away from us with about a 45 minute waiting time, we go to this place instead because it's 5 minutes away and there's almost never a wait and there's still a doctor keeping an eye on everything at both sites, but if we had been in the first site, he would have came in and talked to us, instead we're kind of playing telephone between the RN and u/s tech and they are super nice and answer what they can but they aren't doctors.) I suppose I could have asked to talk to the doctor about it but he's not my doctor anyway, and whatever.
That earned us a full biophysical profile (BPP) where they watch movements, muscle tone, fluid level, and have to practice breathing, etc. He failed that because he's decided that practicing breathing for 30 seconds is lame. (They give you points for everything, it's either 0 points or 2 points. So we got 0 points for breathing and 0 points for the NST. 8/10 is passing, we were at 6/10.) But they said practicing breathing for 27 weekers is iffy- he did actually practice a few times but not for the required 30 seconds. So we failed monitoring on both counts, but I think everything else on the BPP was okay. For now they are having me go back Monday and I have an OB appointment too. Then monitoring again Friday (at least as far as I know, who knows what will happen depending on how it goes Monday.) I'm not too worried about the breathing but really not sure how worried to be about the decels, they kept saying they don't usually do monitoring this early as if that might explain it but it doesn't seem like it's normal at all to me. His movements were fine, I've felt him moving in the time since we left, his heart rate was okay except for the decels, fluid was good, his growth is good...so...I don't know what to think of all this. I'm strangely kind of reassured because we're being watched so closely, I'm just not sure if I'm being naive and I should be packing for the hospital, or what to think right now. I think if he keeps failing, I probably am going to at least end up in the hospital with constant monitoring until they can figure out what's going on and we may be meeting him sooner than later. I really don't like this not knowing. First the unexplained dizziness which I know might just be normal, but now this, I can't help but feel like there is something going on that's not quite right that they haven't quite figured out yet and my body and the baby are trying to compensate for whatever *it* is the best they can, but eventually something is going to give. The point of the monitoring was supposed to be to ensure that the baby is okay, but he failed both tests, so now what? I understand why they didn't send me straight to the hospital, it wasn't *that* bad, my blood pressure was good, he looked good otherwise, (he's kicking me as I type this). But, I don't know. I've done some googling and came up with some crappy stuff regarding cord issues (really, there may be a cord issue too on top of everything else?) and stillbirths. Right now I can only assume that if things remain as they were today, we'll either be delivering soon (I'll take the 90% ish odds of a 28 weeker vs. the 0% odds of a baby born still, any day) or at least earn ourselves a hospital stay while they try to figure out whatever is going on and keep a closer eye on him.
In the mean time, I'm semi-reassured that he's been moving a lot this afternoon and my blood pressure and everything else is decent. (It's up slightly this afternoon but I think after this morning, that's pretty much to be expected.) Hopefully he'll be a busy boy all weekend and decide that breathing is cool and the drama is not cool on Monday. (Although I guess I'll always be wondering about this until he is safely out.)
I can't believe how much his little legs filled out. They even look like little baby thighs even on the ultrasound. He had his feet over his head the whole time and is head down on his side with his feet by his head too. (So we're expecting quite a contortionist.)
The bad news is that they had me start doing monitoring today too, and he totally failed the non-stress test (NST) because of "variables" she called them where it (his heartrate?) dropped sharply and then went back up. That happened about 4 times in the 20ish minutes of monitoring, which she said they really don't like to see this early at all. She (the RN) said that it sometimes happens with full-term women and they usually are just delivering are about to deliver so not a big deal. This early, I don't know. She was a little vague about it and just reiterated that they don't like to see it especially this early. It can indicate compression of the cord, etc. And then they kept saying that they don't usually start monitoring until 32 weeks or so, so I don't know how much that might account for it or not. (Maybe this happens with a lot of 27 weekers but they don't see it because they aren't monitoring many 27 weekers? Or maybe it's just bad?) Again, not having a doctor around kind of backfired, there was a doctor they kept consulting at the real perinatal center (which is a half hour away from us with about a 45 minute waiting time, we go to this place instead because it's 5 minutes away and there's almost never a wait and there's still a doctor keeping an eye on everything at both sites, but if we had been in the first site, he would have came in and talked to us, instead we're kind of playing telephone between the RN and u/s tech and they are super nice and answer what they can but they aren't doctors.) I suppose I could have asked to talk to the doctor about it but he's not my doctor anyway, and whatever.
That earned us a full biophysical profile (BPP) where they watch movements, muscle tone, fluid level, and have to practice breathing, etc. He failed that because he's decided that practicing breathing for 30 seconds is lame. (They give you points for everything, it's either 0 points or 2 points. So we got 0 points for breathing and 0 points for the NST. 8/10 is passing, we were at 6/10.) But they said practicing breathing for 27 weekers is iffy- he did actually practice a few times but not for the required 30 seconds. So we failed monitoring on both counts, but I think everything else on the BPP was okay. For now they are having me go back Monday and I have an OB appointment too. Then monitoring again Friday (at least as far as I know, who knows what will happen depending on how it goes Monday.) I'm not too worried about the breathing but really not sure how worried to be about the decels, they kept saying they don't usually do monitoring this early as if that might explain it but it doesn't seem like it's normal at all to me. His movements were fine, I've felt him moving in the time since we left, his heart rate was okay except for the decels, fluid was good, his growth is good...so...I don't know what to think of all this. I'm strangely kind of reassured because we're being watched so closely, I'm just not sure if I'm being naive and I should be packing for the hospital, or what to think right now. I think if he keeps failing, I probably am going to at least end up in the hospital with constant monitoring until they can figure out what's going on and we may be meeting him sooner than later. I really don't like this not knowing. First the unexplained dizziness which I know might just be normal, but now this, I can't help but feel like there is something going on that's not quite right that they haven't quite figured out yet and my body and the baby are trying to compensate for whatever *it* is the best they can, but eventually something is going to give. The point of the monitoring was supposed to be to ensure that the baby is okay, but he failed both tests, so now what? I understand why they didn't send me straight to the hospital, it wasn't *that* bad, my blood pressure was good, he looked good otherwise, (he's kicking me as I type this). But, I don't know. I've done some googling and came up with some crappy stuff regarding cord issues (really, there may be a cord issue too on top of everything else?) and stillbirths. Right now I can only assume that if things remain as they were today, we'll either be delivering soon (I'll take the 90% ish odds of a 28 weeker vs. the 0% odds of a baby born still, any day) or at least earn ourselves a hospital stay while they try to figure out whatever is going on and keep a closer eye on him.
In the mean time, I'm semi-reassured that he's been moving a lot this afternoon and my blood pressure and everything else is decent. (It's up slightly this afternoon but I think after this morning, that's pretty much to be expected.) Hopefully he'll be a busy boy all weekend and decide that breathing is cool and the drama is not cool on Monday. (Although I guess I'll always be wondering about this until he is safely out.)
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