My Last Hurrah

At my 28 week appt my blood pressure was 135 over something. The dr seemed pretty concerned about it and sent me to the lab for blood tests. She called later that night and said the blood tests were normal for now but she was predicting blood pressure problems in the future. I thought she meant way in the future....

So Saturday, April 9th, was my baby shower. We drove home the next day and stopped at the Motherhood outlet where I got some work clothes. I was supposed to start work on May 6th and I was going to be the cutest pregnant waitress ever!

I spent that night clipping tags off of our baby's new clothes and Brian put the swing, bouncer and stroller together. Now that the shower was over it was time to get down to business! I was so excited to wash all the baby clothes and organize them in the closet and get the nursery set up and finish shopping for everything else we needed. I would have washed everything that night but I was waiting for the weather to warm up so I could hang them on the clothes line. (We decided not to have a dryer in the house. We do have one but it was going to cost over $200 to get it hooked up to our propane tank PLUS the cost of propane which we all know by now is a very sore subject in this household. It costs us less than $1 a week to dry our clothes at the laundromat in the winter and we hang dry them in the summer.)

On Monday Brian started back at work after 5 months off.

On Tuesday we had a 3:15 OB appt and a 7pm childbirth class, both in Petoskey which is a 90-mile round trip. Obviously we're not going to come home between the two so Brian said since it was such a nice day out (almost 60), that we could grab some takeout after the dr's appt and have a picnic by the lake.

I remember a friend of mine asking me after my bridal shower in 2008 if I got everything I wanted and I said, "Everything except the picnic basket." And she burst out laughing. She said I was in for a major reality check. "You'll do a lot of things as a married couple. You'll argue over money disappearing from the checking account, bills that were supposed to be paid but weren't, you might even have to pawn your wedding rings just to keep your lights on, but you definitely won't be going on any picnics!"

So when Brian suggested a picnic I was stoked! Since we don't have a picnic basket I packed up a plastic bag with napkins, plates and silverware and practically skipped out of the house, without a jacket on might I add! As we were walking towards the car Brian said it was going to be even warmer tomorrow and I said I was definitely going to start yardwork and he said to make sure I wore gloves in case there were bugs in the flowerbeds. And we headed down the road with the windows rolled down. I felt great. I was happy. I was looking forward to so many things.

My blood pressure was 155/87. Nurse tells me to lie down on my left side and the Dr would be right in. Dr comes in and takes my BP while I'm lying down. 110/65. I made a comment about how I checked it at the Walmart pharmacy over the weekend and he said, "What were you doing at Walmart? Aren't you on bedrest?" I said no. And he said, "Well you are now."

Everything after that happened so fast. He said I needed to be lying down on either my right or left side for 23 hours a day. I can get out of bed to shower and use the bathroom and I can sit upright for meals.

He said he can't give me medication to lower my BP because the BP is a symptom of the preeclampsia and I'd still have preeclampsia even if the BP was under control. He didn't tell me what preeclampsia was though.

He said, "We're gonna hold off on delivering as long as we can. I'm hoping with the bedrest that we can get 4 more weeks but 6 would be even better." (I was due in 10 weeks at this point).

I asked him what would happen if I wasn't on bedrest and he said seizures, organ failure, placental abruption and even death for me and Ian!

When Brian asked if that meant we shouldn't go to our childbirth classes anymore, Dr said the classes would actually be good for me and I could consider that my weekly treat.

And that was it. We left the office scared and confused. But we were an hour from home and I still needed to eat so we got some chicken and went ahead with our picnic on the lake. I called it my last hurrah because apparently, my pregnancy was basically over.