22 weeks + ob appointment

Monday brings us to 22 weeks (so today is actually 22 +2). I'm not sure when/how it happened, but it seems my belly has exploded.

By this time with Olivia, she was measuring about 2 weeks behind, I had already started having the upper right quadrant pains under my shoulder blade and back and around my rib cage, and it was pretty much the beginning of the end, we just didn't know it yet. My last appointment whilst pregnant with my ob was at 22+2 weeks exactly, it was an impromptu appointment because of the pain, but my blood pressure was normal, urine was normal, and nothing else was glaringly obvious wrong so she chalked it up to baby growing pain and said try prenatal yoga. I think that if she had done bloodwork then, it probably would have been normal even despite the pain, because even a week later when I was admitted to the hospital, my labs were *nearly* normal at first (my liver enzymes were just a little elevated, but that was it, it wasn't until 6 hours later when they had more than doubled and my platelets had dropped by more than 100,000 that the problem became apparent.) I've pretty much come to peace with the fact that we were just flat out doomed with Olivia. So much went wrong so early, so drastically.

So anyway, I do feel like we're in better shape this time, that we'll at least make it to the 24 week "viability" milestone and possibly even the 28 week milestone. (I suppose I should probably be more optimistic but I prefer to take it one milestone at a time and not get my hopes up too much about a 36 weeker.)

My blood pressure was up to my "call us" number Sunday morning and again in the afternoon, (but the instructions are to take it again in 20 minutes and if it's still up to call, and my numbers had gone back down plus I knew I was seeing my OB the next day and I felt fine, so I didn't call). Anyway, my OB isn't worried about it yet- it was normal again Sunday night and all day Monday and has stayed normal (albeit a little bit higher for me than my numbers a month ago, but not even a 10 point difference), she thinks it may have been something with the cuff. Anyway, so far, so good.

My ob is concerned about the notching and was surprised that high risk doctor hadn't put me on bedrest or modified bedrest because of it. She was happy to hear I'm "taking it easy" on almost bedrest and thinks it's a good idea. She said they'll be looking at the blood flow at every ultrasound from now on, and if the notching gets worse and possibly if it stays the same, I should expect official bedrest, and she forewarned me that it's a good idea to "tie up anything" now, basically saying she does expect me to end up on bedrest sooner than later.

It turns out that Dr.Everyone Hates at the perinatal center did not mention if the notching was unilateral (in one spot) or bilateral (two spots) in his report. It's kind of an important detail because it gives us a lot less information for a "baseline" to compare to later. (So if it's bilateral next time, we don't know if it's gotten worse or if it was bilateral all along. And if it's unilateral, we don't know if it's gotten better or it was unilateral all along.) I'm glad he's not my regular (high risk) doctor because he clearly sucks, and I'm hoping someone different will be there for my next ultrasound- the high risk doctors all have different days in the perinatal center keeping an eye on the ultrasounds, I'm going on a Tuesday instead of Friday next time, so it should hopefully be someone else.

My ob does want me to get the high risk doctor to schedule my amnio when I see her next week, so she can put me on the schedule for my c-section. (I have to deliver at our local "baby factory" hospital because it is the only level III NICU, and apparently they book up quickly so my OB wants it scheduled asap.) High risk doctor said amnio will be at 36+1, which would be April 26th, and provided his lungs are mature (they should be because I'm going to push for steroid shots at 34 weeks and my ob agrees that I should get them for just in case), delivery day will be 36+2 on April 27th. If anything comes up or starts acting up sooner (or I start having contractions), we deliver sooner without the amnio, which I think my OB suspects will probably be the case.

 I'm starting to get a little bit excited to be 22+2 weeks with no glaringly obvious issues except for that freaking notching, but it will be even better to be 24 weeks. My OB pointed out that we're only 6 weeks away (ha! "only"! She must not know how slowly these past 3 weeks have gone by) from the 28 week milestone.