33 Weeks - Surprising Developements

Everything had been going great this pregnancy, even with all my extenuating circumstances.  I had an ultrasound and appointment yesterday and my blood pressure was elevated.  I was so bummed...  They decided to take some blood and double check urine to rule out pre-eclampsia.  It is much more common with first pregnancies, so both the doctor and I were surprised when my tests came back questionable.  I got the call just before noon and knew it wouldn't be good since the doctor herself was calling.  She said I needed to head to labor and delivery to repeat the tests and be monitored.  I was trying not to have a complete break down since I needed to finish up some work before driving to the hospital.

I got there about 12:30 and was checked in pretty quickly.  They hooked me up to heart rate and fetal monitors to make sure baby girl was doing well and started checking my blood pressure every 10 minutes.  Jimmy and Parker arrived shortly after and it made me feel a lot better not being alone.  Good news is that my blood pressure was great!  The doctor has increased my dose the day before, but I had only taken that twice and it usually takes longer to take effect.  They redid all of the labs and the results pretty much came back the same.  Protein in my urine, but just one of my liver tests was abnormal.  This was a bit perplexing since it's unusual for just one test to come back that way.  This means is may not even be pregnancy related, but they just don't know.

These results have a few implications for the remainder of my pregnancy.  First, I will have to have appointments twice weekly to monitor blood pressure and other labs to make sure I don't take a bad turn.  They will also not be letting me go beyond 37 weeks.  This is 2 weeks earlier than we had hoped, so we have entered #fullonbabymode (as Jimmy dubbed it!)  I got a betamethasone shot to help mature babies lungs and will get another one tomorrow.  We are now just focusing on staying put for the next 4 weeks and lot having to go any earlier.

The car seat base got installed tonight and I have pulled out our swing, bouncer, infant tub, changing pad, bottles, and breast pump.  Just the pack and play to put up and one more load of laundry and we should be mostly ready!

It was great to have the boys there and Parker was so well behaved.  He was really intrigued by all the machines hooked up to me and played really nicely.

We are hoping not to be back for 4 more weeks, but are excited to meet baby girl.  She just needs to cook a little longer and be as healthy as possible!