38 Weeks Pregnant

Wow, I cannot believe there are only 14 days left before Aurélia is due! That seems like no time at all! Everything has been going well, except for yesterday's bit of drama in the blood pressure department. I tried to clean without taking breaks every 5 minutes, like I usually do (my sweet friend Melissa came over to entertain Ashton for me just so I could finally make a dent in all this without my sweet little toddler causing a tornado in my path!) and I ended up seeing spots of light and needing to lie down for about 30 minutes. This is no unusual thing for me...at the end of my pregnancy with Ashton, the same thing happened. And it was pre-eclampsia. And they induced me, and he was born. So I feared that all of that was about to happen yesterday! Fortunately, I already had a regular dr's appointment scheduled about three hours later, so I knew they would check me then. I still wasn't feeling right, so I asked Bill to leave work early to drive me. It was right in the middle of Ashton's nap, so another very sweet friend, Stacey, came over to hang out at the house while he napped, so we wouldn't have to wake him. We got to the appointment and they had to do some routine bloodwork and when they took my blood pressure, as expected, it was high. What was different this time around though, was that I had no other signs of pre-eclampsia. I have had zero swelling anywhere on my body (pretty lucky for any preggo at this stage!), I had only gained one pound in the last week, and they didn't find any protein in my urine. But given my history with Ashton, the dr decided to send me to the hospital where they can do more comprehensive tests to determine if pre-eclampsia is GOING to occur soon, even if it hasn't shown up in routine tests yet. I was told that if there was any sign of it developing, to be prepared to have the baby. I already know that pre-eclampsia is something they do NOT mess with, and was just grateful to already be almost 38 weeks along, because people much earlier in their pregnancies have had to be induced for it. There is no medication they can give you. The only solution is for the baby to come out, and to stay pregnant can be potentially fatal for mother and baby. I want to add that the doctor checked my cervix and I was about 1 cm dilated. Definitely not on my way into labor on my own yet. So we went home and I made sure I had everything I needed to potentially stay at the hospital for a good three days and come home with a newborn. My mom, who was supposed to come on November 2, managed to change her flight to a week earlier (this Friday). Bill and I decided it was best for me to go to the hospital alone, since I didn't know how long I would be there and there was no need to wake Ashton from his nap and drag him to wait for some undetermined amount of time. The plan if I got induced was to labor on my own and then Bill would drop Ashton off somewhere in time to make it to the birth. Not ideal, by any means. Fortunately, after about three hours at the hospital with more blood tests and constant blood pressure and fetal monitoring, they determined that I was NOT developing pre-eclampsia! The baby was not distressed in any way and my blood pressure gradually returned to normal. So they let me go home! The blood pressure is a concern though, so I was told to drink a lot of water, avoid caffeine, and stay off my feet. That last one is pretty much impossible with a toddler, but I'll do my best. Two more days until my mom arrives and I'll have another set of hands. I would love to do a little bit of walking every day, to try to help myself go into labor on my own, so I'm going to see if I can handle that. It's the constant bending down to pick things up that stresses me out more than anything else, which I need to avoid. So here's to hoping that this week will be uneventful and that I can spend some more much-needed time with Ashton before derailing his life forever with another tiny person! :)

Baby size: Pumpkin
My weight: Up 43 lbs since pre-pregnancy