Patiently waiting....

Friday, December 12, 2008 @ 11:00pm: Call my doctor's office because I thought I might have had a slow amniotic fluid leak. He says to go to the PET unit (Perinatal Evaluation and Treatment Unit) to get it all checked out... I call my mom to come with me, let Frank know, and tell him to hang out and relax until I know what's going on. He was ok with that. If something was wrong after being tested, my mom was there and Frankie was just a phone call away. The first-year resident comes in with a med. student and does an ultrasound to check the levels of amniotic fluid. He said everything looked good with the fluid pockets. Then he does an internal. Checks my cervix everything feels ok, and he informs me that I'm between 1-2cm dialated!!! Horray! He said that's some good news. The nurse came in, Lacey (a great nurse, btw!), came in to hook me up to the fetal monitors and take my blood pressure. Baby's heartrate is good, no contractions on my end... Well, my blood pressure was quite a bit high. 161/87ish... The continue to cycle the blood pressure cuff to take it every 15 minutes... It is still up 157/85ish, 155/85ish... Well, I get the results from the amniotic fluid testing, and there is no sign of leakage!! Just normal pregnancy stuff going on... The resident speaks with my ob/gyn who in turn is not happy with the high BP, considering I'm usually under120/78ish... Everything is ok with the fluid and CJ, but my high blood pressure earns me some blood work and a urinalysis. They lay me on my side in hopes to lower my BP... it starts heading down. YAY! Blood work comes back fine, but there is protein present in my urine. The protein indicates my kidney's are having a bit of a hard time functioning. Possibly due to a conditoin called Preeclampsia (pregnancy induced hypertension). My BP goes down, and my doctor orders a 24-hour urine collection (what fun!). They do that in order to quantify the level of protein to the amount of urine. They say start at anytime, and bring it back 24 hours later. Follow up with Dr. Victor on Monday. He will decided whether of not to induce labor if you do have preeclampsia and give you more information when you see him... It's 2:15am and I get discharged and head home with my lovely container and a potential induction on my mind...

Saturday, December 13, 2008 @ 9:00am: Ring ring ring... "Good morning, this is Dr. Dresner (the on-call OB at the group I see) calling." He went into the hospital to do his rounds, and looked at my chart. He didn't like the numbers on the chart and didn't want me to wait until Monday to see Dr. Victor. He asked me to go into the hospital that night between 7 and 8pm to get monitored again. Sure no problem. I get up there around 6:45pm, register with the PET unit again, get my loads of paperwork (again) and go into the room. The nurses tonight weren't as pleasant as Lacey was the night before. Thank goodness their shift was over at 7:00pm. (I was in the room at 6:58 after registering. Only 2 more minutes. AMEN!) They had NO idea why the doctor would send me back in to get monitored... Either way, they hooked me up and the BP was NORMAL! 121/80... How perfect. They do more blood work, that comes back normal. But again, still protein present in the urine... They discharge me at 8:10pm and my mom and I grab a bite to eat at a local diner.

Sunday, December 14, 2008 @ 7:00am: Wake up time! Collect my last specimen and head up to St. Barnabas again. Drop of the container and give one more blood sample. Head home, and I'm back to sleep around 9:00 just because I'm insanely tired...

So here is what all of this means... I see Dr. Victor in the office tomorrow for a regular visit, as well as the follow up and receive the results of the 24-hr test, and discuss the options of there is still protein present. From what I was told by the Dr. Dresner Saturday morning is that if there is still protein present, Dr. Victor may want to induce labor and make sure my kidney's are functioning properly. High blood pressure puts strain on the kidney's which in turn can complicate things for me. High blood pressure can complicate things with CJ, too.

Personally, I'm not sure how I feel about an induction. Everyone has a pre-set ideal on how they see their pregnancy, labor and delivery... THIS was not certainly something I saw coming, and honestly, I never even gave one thought about it. Rather than worrying, I'm going to wait until I see Dr. Victor tomorrow afternoon and see what his thoughts are. Who knows, he can say, "Everything is fine to progress on it's own", or "You need to be put on bedrest," or even "You're going to be induced." Whatever the case, all I want is a healthy baby and a healthy delivery without complications. Wish me luck at the doctor's office tomorrow, and I'll be sure to update when I know more!!! =) Till then, enjoy the waning hours of the weekend!!!