Thirty Weeks and One Long Night

It all started on a Tuesday morning. I left work around 1130 am because I had completed the hours I'd needed for the week before starting my round of midnight shifts. I got home and my feet were hurting and tingling. Took off my socks to find some pretty crazy swelling! This is the first swelling experience I've had with pregnancy, and I'll admit, I was a little shocked to see such swelling so early in day, when I'd really only heard about the typical end-of-the-long-hot-summer-day swelling from friends. I didn't think much of it, and continued on my through to-do list.

I'd written bills, done the dishes, prepared food for my midnight shift, worked on Hugo's quilt and finally, around 130, I decided to take a shower. In the shower, I got really lightheaded and felt like I might faint, so I slowly lowered myself to the seated position.

I finished my shower (which was now cold water making fun of me), dried off and got dressed. I decided to take a short nap since it was still early. About an hour later I woke up to strangely blurry vision (even with my glasses on) and more dizziness. Fell back asleep for another 45 minutes or so.

Hubs came home around 5, we ate dinner, and then I went to bed around 6 to prepare for my coming midnight shift.

I woke up around 7 in tears from a horrible sharp pain just below my ribs. Decided to get up and use the restroom, and ended up getting sick (and all the while thinking, "Oh no, are we back at the end of the first trimester?).

I went out to the living room and sat with Hubs and struggled to take off my wedding rings because my hands had swollen up.

We decided to call the doctor's office to see what they thought.

"Go to Labor and Delivery and we'll page the doctor for you." Now, even when I was in the hospital in January, the nurse never told us she would inform our doctor, so at this point, Husband and I were starting to get worried.

As an aside, my mom went to the hospital when she was 30 weeks pregnant with me, with several of these symptoms, and didn't leave until 3 weeks and a birth (mine) later. So we were truly hoping not to follow in her footsteps.

We arrived to L&D and they got us set up in a room quickly, and hooked me and Hugo up to the fetal and contraction monitors, took my blood pressure, a urine sample, and asked us some routine questions. Every few hours, the nurse would come by and look at our monitors, and one time, she said "Okay, we're going to page Dr. C now and we'll get back to you."

I asked what they were seeing that they still wanted us to see the doctor, in spite of the hope I had that they'd say "Oh everything is alright, you guys go home and take it easy."

The nurse told us that they'd been monitoring Hugo's heart rate and that they had noticed it drop several times for no apparent reason. They'd also seen that I had experiences a few contractions (not related to Hugo's heart rate dropping as the times didn't coincide), which I was finally able to attribute to the random general belly and pelvic pains I'd been getting throughout the day.

They decided to keep us over night to monitor Hugo's heart rate. So then Hubs was tasked with getting Poor Lonely Puppy to his parent's house, at midnight, in the pouring rain, while I thirsted for water because the nurse kept forgetting to bring me some.

Hubs got back about 2 hours later with some nice warm socks for me, and a pair of sweat pants for him to sleep in. He zonked out pretty quickly, but I had a hard time getting comfortable with the two hockey pucks and elastic bands around my middle. And every time I did actually fall asleep, the nurse would have to come in to reposition the monitors so that it picked up Hugo's heartbeat.

After a long night of not a lot of sleeping, Dr. C came by in the morning with good news- everything looked OK. He did ask that we go to his office for an emergency/unscheduled ultrasound to make sure that Hugo is doing well.

After our ultrasound around noon Wednesday, we waited in a room to get to speak to the doctor. As expected, he vetoed our plans to go to Chicago this weekend (that makes two attempts to visit Chicago foiled by Hugo, if you're counting), and took me off shift work stating that the stress on the body to change sleeping patterns was too much for us (us= Hugo and I).

We were told, though, that Hugo looks perfect. The word "perfect" was used to describe my son. He is growing and thriving perfectly, and is the perfect length and weight for his gestational age. We were also told that even though I've been having a bit of a rough go at it, that I am also in picture-perfect health and that the side effects I've been experiencing (most notably the dizziness) is just a normal side effect, that is amplified because I'm naturally just smaller, over all.

The dizziness comes and goes pretty much on time if: I stand or walk for any length of time, or eat too much or too fast. And nauseous, apparently.

Unfortunately there is no remedy for the dizzy spells, except to avoid the triggers. And thus- why we were denied our trip to Chicago where our plans included walking around the city for 3 days, and attending a Bulls Playoff game where our seats were in the nose-bleed section (seriously, if I have a hard time walking up one flight of stairs, how would I have ever gotten to the nose-bleed section?!).

All in all, I'm happy we went to the hospital and didn't just write off the symptoms I was having (which all pointed to pre-eclampsia, which my mom had in both of her pregnancies, and grandma had in all three of hers). I'm happy they kept us overnight in order to get a better look at the trend of Hugo's heart rate, rather than a few worrisome snapshots. It ended up being determined that the most likely cause of his heart rate drops was when I rolled over and he may have landed on his cord or something, because as soon as I fell asleep, his heart rate leveled out perfectly.

I'm bummed that we had to cancel our second trip to Chicago this year, and I'm bummed that I'm no longer going to be working on console until after I return from maternity leave, but I'm happy we were told that everything with both Hugo and I is looking perfect and that we have a healthy baby boy coming soon (but hopefully not too soon).

How far along?- 30 weeks
Total weight gain?- 24 pounds
Symptoms?- Heartburn, extreme dizziness.

Sleep? - Still very well, thankfully. As a predominantly back-sleeper, I've devised a way to trick my body into thinking I'm sleeping on my back, by resting a pillow under my right side, to prop me up (and to avoid having my uterus squish all those important arteries).

PEAK of the week? - Learning that Hugo is looking perfect in all his tests!

Pit of the week? - Basically everything else in today's blog post.

Missing anything? - Being able to walk around a store without a buggy to lean on when I start to get dizzy.

Food Cravings - Ice cold water, still. Grapes. Waffles, again.

Anything making you feel sick or queasy? Pizza.

Happy or Moody? Happy, except for that food thing, still.

Looking forward to? - Nothing happening in the next week or so for me.

Upcoming Events?- A few expecting friends and I are throwing the dads-to-be a Beer and Diaper Shower, and I'm pretty excited about that.