The Great Catch-All

It's been a while since I posted here, I think for several reasons.  The last couple of months have been tumultuous at best, filled with uncertainties, celebrations, anxieties and one ginormous emotional roller coaster.  Every time I thought I'd make a post to update our gestational status I'd feel overwhelmed and anxious because I was sure no sooner would I post something than it would all change within a matter of hours.  Now that we are in the final week countdown to meeting our little Flynn I feel it is the time to catch upon what's been going on with us before we start the next chapter.  Read at your own risk as this is basically one huge brain-dump, rambling in nature in an effort to touch on all the significant happenings from the past couple of months.

This pregnancy has blessed me with gestational diabetes and hypertension.  The hypertension was... challenging, to say the least.  Every other time I had an appointment with my primary care provider or our midwives my blood pressure would alternate from nearly perfect to high.  I blamed a lot of my high readings on the fact that we were working through a 3rd pregnancy right after losing two back to back the year before.  Those emotions and fears were still fairly fresh and being a natural worrier it was hard not to worry, no matter how many times someone told me I just needed to relax (if only it were that easy).  In addition at some point I managed to develop White Coat Syndrome (anxiety just from walking in the office door), a condition that ended up getting worse the further along we got, especially once we started to learn about my higher-risk conditions.  My primary care provider gave me a blood pressure medication that, ultimately, didn't really help and our midwives monitored me carefully at each appointment, noting that my blood pressure readings sometimes ok, sometimes borderline concerning but always wonky within what they considered was an acceptable range that they could deal with.

The diabetes was much more noticeable (I never felt my blood pressure fluctuations) but it certainly seemed easier to handle.  At first I was not excited about the prospect of having to eat on a specific schedule and keep track of checking my blood at precise times four times a day but realizing that my dietary goals basically boiled down to a Weight Watchers-esque plan of counting carbs instead of calories and having a point allowance per meal instead of per day, following it was much easier than I'd originally feared.  It was great to be able to maintain my diabetes successfully by diet and avoid medications.

Around the second week of December I got a call from the midwives telling me during a routine consultation of higher risk patients it was decided that my care needed to be transferred from them to an OB.  This was heartbreaking news to me since I saw it as the beginning of the deterioration of our birth wishes.  I unsuccessfully held back tears as I called to make an appointment with the OB practice the midwives consulted regularly with, both because they were at least already somewhat familiar with my records and because I didn't have any other OB to transfer to.  I tried diligently to not let fear and anxiety over what felt to me like a substantial upheaval run rampant but I couldn't keep my worry in check.

On December 17th Clif and I had our first appointment the OB practice the midwives referred us to.  My unease started just walking in the door of the hospital and grew upon entering their office.  It just wasn't the comfortable, relaxing environment with staff I was already familiar with like our appointments at the midwives.  I felt completely overwhelmed and steamrolled when we met Dr. Jeffrey-Coker, one of the four OBs of the practice, who did little to hide her blunt, direct, matter-of-fact approach to our situation.  Clif liked her immediately for her approach, I felt more fragile and think I could have done with a bit more gentleness.  My blood pressure registered at 176/107, two numbers that utterly shocked and terrified me.  I stared at the screen, trying to process the words that seemed to be flying too fast from the doctor's mouth, trying to understand how I'd gotten to this horrible little room and trying to fathom how those numbers could possibly be right.  She took my pressure again and the second reading was almost the same.  By now I'd been nearly sobbing through the majority of our whirlwind appointment, tears that came even more freely when she told us we would need to go downstairs to Labor and Delivery to be triaged and further assessed with the possibility of being admitted overnight.

Possibility turned into certainty and before I knew it I found myself in a hospital gown and socks in one of their labor and delivery suites, attended to by a bustling nurse, drained of several vials of blood, set up for another 24-hour urine collection and strapped up to various machines for monitoring.  I kept telling myself it would only be one night and I could get through it, just one step at a time.

Some of my blood values came back slightly elevated, enough of a concern that my overnight stay was going to be extended at least another day with the possibility of us being delivered at any moment.  I felt terrified and numb at the same time, struggling to wrap my head around how the day before I'd left my office for a doctor's appointment thinking I'd be back to my usual routine but instead was facing the possibility of having to have a sudden c-section to deliver our son into the NICU at 34 weeks.  The next day my values had stabilized, still elevated but they hadn't gone up so we wouldn't deliver quite yet but the doctor made it clear that possibility was still very much on the table.  Our overnight stay turned two-day stay suddenly became an indefinite stay while we waited for my pre-eclampsia to take over and all of my values to tank.

Three days in I was moved to a smaller antenatal room and the barrage of testing maintained: five vials of blood drawn and tested twice a day, fetal heart rate monitoring twice a day, blood glucose values checked four times a day, better blood pressure medications administered twice a day, bio profile ultrasound scheduled every 3-4 days, 24- hour urine collection about once a week, blood pressure evaluated frequently.  I felt a bit like a lab rat but I was determined to be a pleasant, cooperative lab rat.  It became my personal mission to strive to be the best patient these nurses had ever seen, an exercise that helped me get through the situation as much as I hope it helped them to have to take care of me.  Eventually I started leaving my room door cracked open so I could smile as they would walk by, encourage them to peek their heads in to say hi and in general not feel as much like I was in time-out.  I felt more like a fixture of the hall than a patient.

I started knitting scarves to help pass the time and soon had so many my reputation on the wing grew to the point that nurses who didn't even have me as a patient would come by my room to see my brag board of goodies.  One of the nurses bought a scarf for herself while another I gifted to a mother who had been admitted for almost the same reason I was, except she was really sick and they did deliver her baby while I continued to skate by.  I thought I understood how she must have felt, was thankful that so far I wasn't exactly in her shoes and asked her nurse to give it to her for me as a gesture of support.  I later learned that she cuddled the scarf instead of her baby who she wouldn't even see until the next day at the earliest, I hope it gave her comfort.  The rest of the scarves continues to take over the single bulletin board in my room and we decided to open an Etsy store to sell them.  That decision escalated into multiple donations of yarn from my mother and dear friends, donations that would help populate our little shop and in turn, hopefully, help us pay down a growing hospital bill.

Sitting and knitting consumed the majority of my two-week stay in the hospital, punctuated with visits from a great number of family, friends and loved ones who came to say hi and see how we were doing.  Clif would come as he could and work on writing his book while I watched tv and cranked out scarves, it helped just to have him there with me.

We were settled in for the long haul since our doctor told us I would be on bed rest in the hospital until we delivered the baby, which still could be as early as the next day or as late as 37 weeks, then as late as 38 weeks then 39 weeks.  The time extended as my blood values slowly, and surprisingly, normalized.  That was a direction none of our care providers were expecting them to go, I think I had them all stumped about what to do with me.  Finally Dr. Jeffrey-Coker came to see us and told us she'd taken a stand to have us discharged to finish bed rest at home, under strict instructions to monitor myself carefully and follow the rules of rest.  Clif packed my belongings as if he were fleeing the country and within an hour we were home sweet home.  My position and activity hadn't changed, I was still perched sitting up on the chaise part of the couch, watching tv and knitting scarves, but being able to do it in the comfort of home made a world of difference.

We have somehow managed a full 360 in terms of the final stages of this pregnancy.  We started out with dreams of a natural labor and delivery, dreams that were yanked out from under us as we faced the possibility of a very early c-section with NICU time (no skin to skin delivery or immediate bonding time, no immediate breast feeding, etc.) but are now back to our final march to 39 weeks and the ability to induce labor for delivery since Flynn finally turned into head down position (c-section at 39 weeks has still been on the table since he was breech) and we are so thankful.  We have gone through things we never could have even imagined having to face but we are stronger and better prepared because of it.  On many levels I could have done without the turmoil, chaos and emotional exhaustion from the constant changing of our status and resulting delivery plan, the difficulty in trying to get the exact story from two different practices (OBs and Maternal Fetal Medicine) who saw me independently while seemingly not talking to each other, but I'm grateful for what we've learned and who we've been able to meet as a result of the entire experience. 

At this point Clif and I are as prepared as possible for Flynn, which is not to say I feel anywhere near ready.  Worry, anxiety, fear, uncertainty are all forefront in my mind as we face the arrival of the biggest change of our lives.  We often hear sentiments along the lines of "you'll never be fully prepared for a baby" and "everything will work out, you'll be great parents", which are both completely unhelpful and the most true statements that could ever be made.  I don't think it's possible to find words that can take away those anxious feelings, I believe it is part of the process, but it sure is hard to navigate them.  I want to be completely consumed with excitement and confidence, but I'm not and know I won't be.  I'm trying to be ok with that.  Instead I'm cruising this final week, trying to prepare myself as best as I can, thankful for the health Flynn and I have, the negative situations we've been able to avoid so far and know that each day moving forward will be a learning curve, some with good results and some with harder ones.  I have every faith that Clif, Flynn and myself will navigate our new road together to the best of our combined abilities and that while it won't be easy in the beginning over time we will get better at it.