one last time

well, I'm about to go to bed to try and get some sleep before the big day tomorrow! I'm amazingly pretty sleepy, so I might actually be able to get some rest. I took some benadryl to help just in case. I had originally been scheduled to go in to the hospital the night before to get cervidil, but because I'm already dilated and effaced so much, my doctor said it was useless and that it might make me deliver before she even arrives in the morning. At first, I had really wanted to go in the night before just to make it seem like we were that much closer, but after the last 4 times in the hospital and two of those being overnight stays, I am SOOOO glad I'm not going in tonight. I don't sleep at all in that place. I'll get way more rest here at home and have so much more energy for labor and pushing tomorrow.

I can't believe it's finally here. I don't feel like it's flown by, in fact I feel like it was forever ago that I found out I was pregnant. I can't wait to see who/what she looks like and to just stare at her for hours. I'm amazingly calm about tomorrow. I mean, I'm very very excited in a happy anticipation kind of way, but I'm not nervous or antsy. Just simply looking forward to a long awaited day.

I'm not really nervous about the pain. Not that I don't dread the pain, it's just that it's the kind of pain that you know is okay to have. Different than if you knew someone was going to shoot you in the leg.... even if you knew you would be okay, it's a scary pain because it's not supposed to be there. This pain is supposed to exist. It's a means to a happy ending. That said... if I have the option, I'm going to do what I can to knock it out (epidural) I'm just explaining why it's not making me nervous. It may also have to do with the fact that I plan on having major pain relief, so I know I won't feel it for long.

I think I'm also not nervous because my doctor keeps applauding the progress I've already made and seems to think I'll have an easy delivery. That certainly does instill some confidence and get rid of some anxiety I think. I just hope she's right.

My biggest worry is something happening to the baby. That she might not tolerate labor or her heart rate would drop and we have an emergency situation. But, I try to convince myself that won't happen because I've seen her look beautiful on a monitor and tolerate contractions (at least mild ones) nicely.

I just pray that she arrives safe and healthy tomorrow.

In addition to being super excited to see her, I am also very excited to be rid of the diabetes and eat as many carbs as I want, not feel like I have to pee all the time, be able to walk and move without pain (in a couple of weeks anyway) and sleep on my back.

Looking forward to seeing you in a few hours baby girl. Mommy loves you.

heard it before

yesterday I had to go to my regular primary doc to get a refill for the abx for the ear infection because the original presciber didn't give me enough. While I was there, they found my BP to be 144/88 and were slightly concerned. I told them it had been high before, but would eventually come back down once I laid down for a while. They checked my urine and found a trace amount of protein.
Protein in the urine while pregnant is a sign that BP s creeping up and restricing flow to the kidneys, so the kidneys aren't able to filter out the protein as well. Doc was concerned and asked me to call my OB and tell her these two things just to be safe.
I left a message with OB's nurse at 1450. At 1630 I recieved a call from the nurse that she has informed my doc, but was waiting for a response becuase my doc was in the middle of a delivery.
Office closed at 1700 and at 1830, I assumed I was not going to get a call back. I checked my own BP twice and it was 142/94 and this was after I had been resting a while. So, I contemplated whether or not to call the on call doc and decided to, only because I know the risks and dangers of leaving it unchecked.
On call doc wanted me to go into L&D to get checked. I gave her the entire story of the past three times I've sat at that stupid hospital and told her that my BP was high Friday night and there was protein in my urine, but that once I was in bed for a while, the BP came down and nothing was ever done. I told her my BP seems to be fluctuating and that I really didn't want to come into the hospital if we weren't going to do anything because I already had an appt with my doc for today.
On call doc was very understanding and said that she promised that if there was even a slight medical reason or borderline concern with my BP or labs..she would induce me. Otherwise she would send me home and not make me stay. Deal!
So, I'm thinking... alright, here we go... we're gonna have a baby tonight. So, we grab the big hospital bag this time and get everything ready to go thinking this is it.
I get to the hospital (for the 4th time) and my BP's are lower than they have ever been, running about 120/60. WHAT?! Of course that would freaking happen. The one chance I have to be induced and my body decided to behave and look totally healthy. ALso, there was no protein in my urine and all my bloodwork was normal.
So, we stayed for about 1.5 hours and were sent home. AAAAAAHHHHH.... I mean, at least I didn't have to stay overnight for no reason, but I had really got my hopes up that I was going to meet my baby. Ugh. Lets just say I was not in the best mood after that last night.
So I had my scheduled dr appt today along with a sonogram and biophysical profile. She is measuring 7lb 10 oz estimated and only two days ahead of her due date, which is really good. Doc says her porportions are great and her torso size is excellent and that she doesn't seem to be affected by the diabetes at all thanks to my fabulous blood sugar control. Thank you very much. Something good better come from this torturous diet.
Biophysical looked good, although the tech realy had to prompt her to move much cuz she's so crowded in there.
I tried to convince doc to do the induction this friday instead of next tuesday, but she said I don't have any good medical reasons to justify it and she is legally not allowed to induce before 39 weeks without need. She said she would get her head chopped off. Dang.
She doesn't actually think I even have a UTI. She said that once a woman has dilated, it's very easy to contaminate a urine specimen with blood, bacteria and even some protein because so much stuff is falling out of that cervix and she never believes a urine sample on a dilated woman unless it's from a sterile catheter.
But, she said it's good that I'm on the abx anyway becuase I'm now GBS positive, and I may not have time for two full doses of IV abx during labor, so these oral abx should kill it before I even get there.
She said if I get a yeast nfection, I can still deliver because yeast is not harmful to the baby, it's just annoying for me. She is more concerned that with all the abx that I could get CDIFF (a horrible intestinal bug) and said she's had women in labor with it and it's aweful. So, she said to keep eating yogurt and take a probiotic to help prevent this.
My BP was 130/84 today and she said that the fluctuations in my BP are normal with activity vs rest, and my "highs" are just a little higher now becasue I'm nearing the end of the pregnancy and I'm carrying a little extra fluid and blood which is totally normal.
She said she would only be concerned if I had consitantly high BP's that didn't come down with rest, always had a lot of protein in my urine, had elevated liver enzymes, was really puffy or had rapid weight gain, and I don't have any of these.
She said shes not concerned because we are inducing in less than a week and her only other recommendation would be for me to quit working and take it easy, which I've already done.
I'm still 4cm and 90% effaced. She is so surprised that I"m still pregnant and doesn't think I'll make it to induction date. She is convinced I will have her this weekend. I told her, she's been saying that for 3 weeks and nothing is happening. But, she still really thinks I won't make it. Uh huh, I've heard that before!
Luckily, she's on call all weekend, so other than me going into labor overnight one day this week, or next monday (she's off) she will be the one to deliver.
Here's to more waiting!
My official guess is July 20th, sometime between 1300-1500 and 8lb 1 oz

weekly hospital stay

Friday night and all day saturday I thought it would be fun to stay yet again at the hospital and then come home with no baby. I just enjoy those hospital beds so much, I can't stay away for more than a week.

Twice thursday morning and again friday afternoon I had more "fluid" of unknown origin so I called my doc to see if I should get it checked. Of course, she sent me to L&D just to be safe. I was sure I'd be in for a quick check and sent home right away, so I told husband not to leave work early, that it would be no big deal and I'd call him if he needed to come up to the hospital.

Well, both tests were negative for amniotic fluid and an ultrasound was done to check fluid levels and that looked good as well. Doc said I'm probably noticing what she calls "cervical sweat". Nasty, I know. She said that as a cervix dilates, it secretes a lot of loose, wet discharge that can be very "fluid-like". She said since I'm dilating so much, so early, I'm probably experiencing more of what someone wouldn't experience until they are in the hospital in active labor.

So, you would think I would have been sent home right? Wrong. Per protocol, they hooked me up to monitors and checked vitals and "surprise" I have a temp of 101 and a slightly elevated BP of 147/95, so now I had to stay a bit.

My urine showed a UTI once again and grew more white blood cells than it had the previous week and Group beta strep. Weird. This is probably not actually in my urine, but rather a contaminate from the outside, which would mean I'm now carrying GBS although my original culture was negative. This is important to know because we don't want her born through GBS and getting sick. So, I had to stay 24 hours to receive IV antibiotics and have my temp monitored. UGH.

Also, I had some protein in my urine and with my BP being high, they worried I might be developing PIH (pregnancy induced hypertension) so they drew my liver enzymes to make sure they weren't elevated. They came back normal, and my BP eventually came down, which is very good for my health, but I have to say I was kind of hoping things wouldn't have been normal so I could have delivered her that night.

I'm just about sick of staying in the hospital and not having a baby.

I had gone back to work on Thursday and was supposed to work Saturday, but had to call in "sick" because of this whole thing, which really upset me because that's more maternity paid time that I had to use again with NO BABY.

At 8:30 saturday night I was released home after 24 hours with no fever and a prescription for oral antibiotics.

In the meantime, my right ear is starting to hurt pretty bad and I realize I'm getting another outer ear infection just like I had a year ago. I have a kind of dermatitis in my ears that makes them itch terribly and if I scratch too much, the skin on the outside of my ear gets infected and swells shut causing LOTS of pain.

So, the next morning I call the on call OB who prescribed my antibiotic and ask her if it will cover the skin infection. She said no, that I would need a different one for that. I figured as much since I developed it while on the other IV antibiotics.

So, Sunday I made a trip to urgent care and got a prescription for my ear.

Now I'm on two abx- one has to be taken every 6 hours and the other every 8 hours for the next week. Which means I have to get up at night and carefully remember the times to take them during the day. This, on top of taking my blood sugars as scheduled got me thinking that working my last three shifts might not be such a good idea. In my job, it can be hard to get away from the bedside at exact times, and it's easy to get busy and distracted and not remember to do these things. I already have trouble staying on top of the blood sugars alone when I'm at work.

Also, I am now dilated to 4cm and still contracting about every 7 minutes (although still not painful) and the docs and nurses say that they can feel her head and amniotic sack bulging beneath and said it would be very easy to break it and that once it does, I need to get to the hospital quickly because they don't think it will take long for her to come and if I want an epidural I may not have much time and I will probably need to make it in time to get another IV dose of abx for the GBS.

This also had me worried about going back to work. I don't have the type of job where I can just run out if I need to. If my water broke, I would still need to finish up charting, figure out who can take my assignment, give report, get someone to come get me because I probably shouldn't drive myself at that point, wait for them and then make it to the hospital. This could take a long time.

Whereas, if I'm at home, I'm 7 minutes from the hospital, and if I feel it's necessary, my neighbor is home and has offered to drive me if I think I'm in a major hurry.

So, with all of this to consider, I decided that I should not go back to work anymore. I'm taking myself out one week early, which cuts down on my time with her, but I figure it's not worth the risks. Plus, I feel like my pelvis could shatter in to a million pieces with every step I take, which doesn't make for a fun work day.

So, I'm officially on maternity leave and should return to work in early october. Now, if she could just hurry up and come out so I could take advantage of this time off, that would be great!

Also, my new concern is that I'm on so much abx that I will develop a yeast infection, and I'm not sure if that will open a whole new can of worms concerning delivery, so it'd be nice if she would just come before I've been on these abx for an entire week. Everyone has been saying for three weeks "she'll be here any day, you won't make it much longer", but I'm starting to think this baby is very stubborn and won't be coming until we force her out. And at the rate I'm going of 1cm a week, I should be almost 6cm by the time we induce, which is a plus.

I'll just eat buckets of yogurt to try and build up some good bacteria in the meantime.

Hopefully I won't be making another trip to that hospital until I have this baby, but I also said that last week. We shall see.

slow progress

had Dr appt today with different doctor cuz mine is on vacation. She was very nice. Everything looked good. Still 3cm dilated, but head is now at zero station (has moved down more) and she said somewhere between 80-90% effaced. She didn't make the comment that my cervix was posterior like everyone else has been and she had an easier time finding it. She was much quicker and it was way less painful. I don't think she had to reach as far back, so I'm wondering if it's more anterior because that would be a sign of progress as well. Dang, I wish I had asked. She said I should be happy because I'm way ahead of the game, especially for my first baby. YAY.

So, just more waiting. Still having random contractions that come and go but don't progress into anything serious. It's back to work tomorrow, so maybe once I get back into my normal routine and put a little stress back in my life, I'll send my self into labor! All this lazing around seems to slow things down, which was good for the last two weeks, but now I have the green light to speed it up again. Come out baby!

sleepless night

Warning: this post may contain TMI including talk of bodily fluid. Discontinue reading if this will bother you.
Wednesday and Thursday at two seperate times I noticed some wetness with no color or consistancy. Each time it was probably about a tablespoons worth and soaked through my clothing. Knowing that sometimes the amniotic sack can develop a small tear and slowly leak, I wanted to be sure this wasn't amniotic fluid because this can be dangerous in two ways: if the sack is torn, bacteria can enter and infect the baby and the longer she's exposed, the more danger there is, also if fluid slowly leaks out without me realizing it, her protective cushion goes away and suddently she's in a very hard environment that can easily injure her in many ways including brain damage.
So, I called my doc at about 7am leaving her nurse a message to see what she thought. At about 0930, the nurse calls me for details and says she wll leave a note for the doc to see what she wants to do. At 1330 I still hadn't heard anything, so I called back to see if the nurse had talked to the doc. She said she still hadn't heard anything from the doc (slightly frustrating). While we were on the phone I mentioned that my contractions had picked up again that day, although they still were not painful. She said to time them for two hours and then call back.
I timed them and they were 4-5 minutes apart. I calld back at 1530 and left another message telling her this.
At 1600, she called back and said she had talked to the doc and she wants me to go into L&D right away. UGH. I sighed and said: "really, again? But the contractions don't hurt and I haven't had any fluid since 6am, so I didn't think there was anything to test at that point anyway." I was a little frustrated because I called so early hoping I could just get into the office that day and simply test the fluid. But, now it was so late that the office was closing, so my doc said the only way to do the test was to go to L&D. But, my last experience in L&D wasn't the greatest, so I really didn't want to go back until I was really having this baby.
But, for the safety of my baby, I went back in to check the fluid.
I arrived and they hooked me up to the monitors (standard procedure) and proceeded to tell me about the two tests that can be done to test for amniotic fluid. The first is a little strip of paper that is placed near the outer "area" and will change color if amniotic fluid is present. This can be performed by the nurse, but is less accurate than the 100% accurate "fern test". The second test can only be performed by the doctor and a swab of fluid is taken from the cervix and looked at under a microscope.... if the fluid creates a "fern" like crystal shape, then it is amniotic fluid.
The first test was performed and was negative, and the on call doctor (not mine) decided not to do the fern test. Instead, they had now become more concerned with my "strong" and regular contractions on the monitor.
I told them that I'd been having these for a couple of weeks and that they didn't hurt and they are really nothing to get excited about. Well, they disagreed and decided to "watch" me for a while. They checked me and said I was 2cm, 80% effaced and -2 station (where the babies head is... -4 being far away and +4 is basically the head is out). I contracted every 3-4 minutes and nurse came in once again with the terbutaline to stop the contractions. This time I refused and told them that my doc didn't want me to have that. Nurse seemed annoyed and said she would go out and call the on call doc again.
She comes back in and decides to start an IV to give me fluids and a muscle relaxer because I had told her that this is all my doctor wanted me to accept. Here we go again.
After a while she checks me again and says I am now 3cm dilated, 80% effaced and -1 station with no change in contractions. SHe calls on call doc again because now she tells me they are concerned that I'm having cervical changes with these contractions, but I am not yet 37 weeks.
Doc says she really wants to stop the contractions and would like to give me IV morphine and an extra shot of muscle relaxer three hours before I should be able to have another ( the normal dosing is every 6 hours)
I absolutely refused the morphine and told her I would feel more comfortable not taking an extra muscle relaxer until the 6 hour mark. Annoyed, the nurse agreed to wait. I told her that I have a script of this at home that they had given me last time and I could take another if I needed. But, they wanted to keep watching me, which meant I had to stay until 3am to take this next dose. Sigh.
Meanwhile, they have also started IV antibiotics for my "unknown" GBS status even though I had told them it came back negative on Tuesday. But, the on call doc wanted to proceed anyway with every 4 hour antibiotics.
I fell asleep (as much as you can in a hospital) around 1am and my contractions really slowed down, almost completely going away. I'm not sure if this is from the muscle relaxer or if this shows that they were not real contractions, but simply an irritable uterus that calms when I go to sleep.
The nurse comes in at 3am and wakes me up to take another muscle relaxer, although i clearly don't need it.
Then at 4 she comes in to hang another antibiotic and bag of IV fluids. At this tme, I ask why I'm still here since I'm no longer contracting? She said the on call doc decided to keep me overnight until my doc can come in the morning and decide what to do with me.
So, I'm thinking the on call doc got a little annoyed with me not following her orders and said "fine, let her doctor deal with her in the morning if that's what she wants".
I also asked if I still needed to have so much IV fluid because the point was to rule out dehydration as a cause of contractions and since I was no longer contracting, was swelling up with excess fluid and having to pee every half hour, I thought we could just turn them off. But no, doc has orders to keep running them, along with the antibiotic because apparently my urine sample had a possible infection and the luid would flush it out.
This showed up in my urine sample last week, but when looked at closer they realized the bacteria was simply a contaminate and not really a UTI that needed treatment. I told the nurse this, but it did no good. Antibiotics and excess fluid would continue "just in case."
So, we laid there all night. When my doctor arrived in the morning she was very confused as to why I was there. She said "I sent you in simply for a fluid test, what the heck happened around here?" She said she was confused about what had gone down overnight. I told her the frustrating story and she was also frustrated to say the least. She asked why they didn't do the fern test, because that was the whole purpose of me being there. She quickly performed the test herself, it came back negative and she said I could go home.
She was annoyed that they once again were so focused on trying to stop contractions that aren't painful and unproductive. SHe thinks I just have an irritable uterus and that I will just continue to do this for a while. She said she is frustrated because they are only looking at the monitor and not looking at the patient or listening to anything I say. She said that I probably dilated more because they checked me so much (by day nurse, day nurse in training and night nurse twice, and so rough that I was now bleeding a little) and my cervix is already so soft that she said it would be easy to manually dilate. She didn't think it was the result of the contractions.
She said she would leave specific notes in my chart to not bother trying to stop labor as this is just a slow progression for me. She told me that I will know when it's real because they will definitely hurt. She still thinks I'm close to going into real labor, but that this was not it.
So, we came home at 9am very very tired and frustrated.
Now, we wait some more.
Oh, and the fluid is still a mystery. I refuse to believe I peed myself without knowing it. That's just too embarassing.
Other complaint- hospital beds are the most uncomfortable things in the world. When they asked me to rate my pain I wanted to tell them that the contractions were a "0" but my back and butt were about a "6" from the stupid bed and the fact that I can't really change position being hooked up to the monitors and IV fluids.
I'm going to avoid that place until I'm in some serious labor pain or I'm pretty sure my water breaks. And I really really hope my doctor is there when I deliver.