Reflections

I have been reflecting a lot in the last few days and doing what I need to do to get everyone ready. I was surprised that my inlaws did not run away screaming and that my mil actually feigned interest in what was going on. SHOCK. I told her that they said I will get sick. That they will be watching me intensively at 28 weeks and beyond. That I will have to be on mag at delivery. She asked what mag was. I told her it's a drug given by IV to stop and prevent seizures. I will be on it at delivery and for 48 hours afterwards. Hmm, guess I won't be leaving 36 hours after delivery this time huh? I think I freaked her out when I told her it was a drug that prevented seizures. They were not there when Kirsten was born. No one was. I am trying very hard to keep my anxieties in check, but not a lot of people understand. I have been emailing back and forth with another girl 8 weeks ahead of me who is already on bedest. We have been commiserating.

I keep thinking about my appts that I had. My peri was so dead set that I was going to get PE and I know she is right. She has been doing this for over 25 years. The plan that she has laid out for me ob is quite intensive and strict. I keep thinking about my ob appt. My ob has always been an optimistic guy for the entire time that I have seen him. I don't know, maybe he had a bad day. For once, he was not optimistic and he was dead serious too. Through severe pih with Sara. He was like this is ok. Through the staff freaking out over my bps when she was born. He never ever let me see him freak even when I was and others were. He did tell me after she was born how worried he was. I remember thinking, funny he never showed it. Even when I had the MC he was optimistic. You can try again. This isn't the end of the world. You can pick up the peices and go on. It wasn't my fault (somehow no one will ever be able to convince me of that, if I had only done a million different things, maybe things would have been different). Even at the beginning of this pregnancy (or maybe it was Peyton's), I asked what he thought about me getting pe and delivering early again? He said some women he thought he needed to deliver but they surprised him. This time there was none of that. Just that I was very high risk for pe again (I guess that is better than Dr. W's assessment right?).

Not this time. This time he came in with a very serious face and said Well. No it's a happy go lucky world today or anything like that. He knew that I knew. I know way more than the average patient on PE. I can walk you through the labs needed, what they mean, what they check for, what the levels should be. I don't have to consult a book or notes for that. I can look at the US and realize instantly that something was not right. I knew it that day at Dr. W's office. The tech kept trying to reassure me and said you know maybe I don't have the right artery. I told her I knew. I knew it meant that I was now even more high risk for pe (at the time I didn't realize that it jumped to 75-85% based on US alone). I knew that the placenta is not getting enough blood. I do know that it was unilateral and not bilateral. Bilateral is like the kiss of death and means a very early very premature delivery. The sound that the doppler US makes is pretty unique. I realized I had been hearing it on a doppler at home for weeks now (since I got the thing). At the time, I worried that maybe that it was the baby's hb I was hearing that was skipping like that. But it was too slow, so I put it out of my mind. Until the day of the US at the peri's when I heard that unmistakable sound again. It's like a heart skipping a beat or something when you hear it. I did tell my ob that I found it odd that Dr. W didn't even have to explain what it meant because I already knew. We just went over the gameplan and the plusses and minuses. Plusses - it's unilateral, not bilateral. You have great doctors and she seems to think I can get to 35 weeks. Baby is doing well for now. Minuses - bad ob history, notching, etc means pe. Hopefully it won't be as severe. I have this terrible terrible feeling that this baby might possibly be stillborn. Maybe if we hadn't of had a 2nd trimester mc I would feel different. I already know that bad things happen to good people. If I had the unfortunate experience of a 2nd trimester mc to infection, Severe pe and Severe pih well why not me. It happened once, it could very well happen again.

Like I said, what got me was the ummm Well. How else do you deliver bad news? I said you got Dr. W's report. That was all the intro he needed. I bet money he poured over my records from Kirsten again. Too bad they are all in french. You can get an idea of what happened. I have decided that if I am as sick as I was with Kirsten, I do not want to be induced. Just take the baby by csection. I do not want to go through as much as I went through with her. Quite frankly after discussing it with several military drs, the consensus was they would have done an emergency csection at midnight and worried about the transfusing later. I've had two vaginal births. So I am ok with it. A question for later at my next appt. I just can't get over how serious he was. I wonder if possibly another mom that had to have the emergency surgery on that day, I wondered if it was because he had to give the news there was no heartbeat as well.

So maybe things will look up at the next appt. Maybe it wasn't that my stuff wasn't all that bad and he just had a bad day. The good news is that they are watching me carefully. Baby will be here in January which means I can open the windows when I burn up from the mag.