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2007-11-24 - 12:28 a.m.��previous entry��next entry
28 weeks - hospital visit, midwife appt, and a few photos
Sooooo much to write about! Matthew's napping (has been there over an hour already) and Arthur is in Big Boy Quiet Time while Neil tries to nap in the same room, so we'll see how long this entry lasts! I think I won't get very long, so I'll just have to save this in Word and continue later if I get chance. I just HAD to start an entry though! I'm so behind :(
I'm 28 weeks pregnant! My 28 week belly picture is now in Nathan's belly gallery :) Neil took it the day I turned 28 weeks, so even though I'll be 29 weeks in 2 days, it's accurate for once! Isn't that crazy though?! That I'm nearly 29 weeks?! Where is the time going?! I am so relieved that I'm well into the "viable" patch with Nathan now. If he was born at 28 weeks, his survival rate would be 80%, and I also know that if he was in distress inside me without any signs of labour, they would now induce labour to rescue him. Before 28 weeks they wouldn't. I like being this side of 28 weeks! I feel like I breathe more easily.
Although, talking of breathing more easily (!), that is a bit of an oxymoron (?) because this side of 28 weeks means I can breathe less and less easily! I am having problems with breathlessness lately. Not just the kind that happens when you try to slump in your seat a little and your big baby belly gets in the way so you can't breathe (which is also happening aplenty!), but the type where I just come over completely out of breath at random moments, and at the slightest exertion. My pulse often feels racy at random times too, in combination with the breathlessness, even when I'm sitting down doing nothing. It takes me an age, breathing heavily, to get my breath back from climbing the stairs or sometimes even just getting up suddenly. I feel very tired and like I can't do anything tiny without feeling like I've sprinted 100m or something!
I had my 28 week midwife appointment on Tuesday this week. It was the first appointment with my usual midwife at the doctor's surgery - and she's the same midwife that I had last time! Last time I wasn't too impressed with her because she made lots of mistakes and didn't seem to know much about lots of things that I asked questions about. She was in training to take over from the previous (very experienced) midwife at the beginning of my antenatal appts with Matthew's pregnancy. Now she seems a LOT more experienced and she had a student with her too. I felt more confident with her this time because of how she has now been responsible for the care of all pregnant women at that surgery for the last 18 months! She seems more competent and skilled than last time I was pregnant, so that's reassuring!
She was really confused when she saw me and started shuffling papers around the desk like she'd lost something or made a mistake, asking me odd questions like, had she been to see me before at home? And did I have a dog (I don't)?! I had left the boys at home with Neil so I just took myself and my little bumpy Nathan! Which was a HUGE relief! Anyway, in the end I figured she was thinking how she recognised me as a patient from VERY recently (you know how time flies when you haven't seen someone with kids for a year and then WOW you can't believe how the time has passed and their kids are growing up?!), and couldn't figure out whether she'd missed me or what. I just said, "I'm just back again very quickly, that's all!" and she said, "Oh!" She asked about the boys, and it seemed to explain everything for her when I told her that, yes, she HAD visited me at home before my homebirth, and that baby is now 17 months old (she couldn't BELIEVE he's that old already!). She asked about Arthur, saying to her student that Arthur was the sweetest little boy! *beam* She was amazed that he had just turned 3. Then she said, "And you're (glanced at my notes)... 28 weeks pregnant now?" I nodded, and she asked me (completely deadpan), "Now, did we not give you the proper information regarding contraception?"!!!! I could actually tell she was playing with me behind the deadpan front, and I did actually find it funny :) I can see how that could be offensive though, to mothers who PLAN to have many children, especially when the person asking IS serious. Anyway, I just laughed and told her I had "the bug" :) What she'll say the next time I show up pregnant, I do not know! ;)
Anyway. My appointment went well. No sugar or protein in my urine. It was ++ for leukocytes though, so she sent it off for testing. Blah. I always have something in my urine that is suspicious of infection, and it never is one. So that's okay. I have no symptoms of a bladder infection so I'm not expecting it to come back positive.
My blood pressure was 126/81 which was fine, but I noticed the machine that she did it on had my pulse as 106. I was sitting relaxed (ish) in the chair and had been for five minutes or so. She was writing in my notes, and after a while I asked her if it was okay for my pulse to be 106 when sitting like that. She thanked me for pointing it out and said she had focused on the b/p and not noticed the pulse reading!!!! *sigh* Anyway. She took my pulse manually after I rested a few more minutes and it was 100. She asked how I was feeling lately, and if I was tired or breathless. I told her I was very tired and came over short of breath a lot. She immediately phoned the Day Assessment Unit at the hospital Maternity Unit, and said she was sending me in!! Yikes!
Then she checked Nathan. His heartrate was good and strong, and he was wiggly and squirmy while she was feeling him. He punched (with his fist, I could feel it) the doppler SPOT ON when she was listening to his heartbeat! I think he was NOT in the mood to be messed with that day! The student tried to listen with the doppler but she seemed to have never done it before and put it right on my side almost! She got some lovely squelchy bowel sounds :) She felt Nathan but couldn't tell his position, and then the midwife felt him and said he is head down with his back on my right side (which I already knew).
Then I had to go to the hospital. She said it wasn't normal for me to be breathless that much and for my pulse to be racing at rest, and she said I should probably get an ECG trace done on my heart to be sure everything was okay there. I had to have that done during Arthur's pregnancy at 32/33 weeks I think. It was the same scenario - I went to a GP antenatal appt and my pulse was high while I was sitting in the chair. When I said it was like that a lot and I was breathless a lot, the doctor was concerned and took me into the next room to do an ECG on me straight away (it was normal). That was at my last doctor's surgery. My new one doesn't have an ECG machine I guess.
Anyway. I went home and told Neil I had to go to the Day Assessment Unit, and then I went. My midwife appt was at 2.15 (though I had to wait 40 minutes, ugh), so I got to the DAU at 3.30pm. They put me on a fetal monitor straight away. Last time I was there, I was only 18 weeks so they listened in briefly with a manual doppler while I could hear much-more-pregnant women being monitored continually with those machines that have you strapped to the bed, etc. I remember wishing I was big enough to be monitored like that! I was so eager to be big and pregnant! So this time, I AM big and pregnant :) They put a thing on my bump to monitor Nathan's heartbeat continually, which was audible all the time, and I loved that! They also put one on my bump to monitor contractions, but I didn't even have a Braxton Hicks contraction during the 30 minutes of monitoring so I had a pretty quiet womb! ;) I had a clip on my finger to monitor my pulse and oxygen saturation, and they took my blood pressure a couple of times (116/76, nice and normal). My pulse was around 90 while I lay there. If I talked to the midwife it went up to 100. Weird. It's when I'm talking that I just run out of breath REALLY fast though, and it doesn't matter if I'm standing, sitting or lying down. My oxygen sats were at 98% so that's great. Nathan's heartrate varied between 130 and 155 - mostly sitting at around 150. They gave me a little wire with a button on the end, and told me to press the button every time I felt Nathan move. That way they could see if any heartrate changes on his trace were related to his activity levels. My tiny boy was VERY active while I was being monitored! In 30 minutes, I pressed the button 31 times! He had patches where I was just clicking away 6 or 7 times in the same 30-60 seconds, and then he would be quieter for 5 minutes or so. He was a very busy boy in there!
So, after they monitored me, they sent me to another part of the hospital (on foot - BIG hospital, mucho breathlessness!), to get an ECG done. That was done the instant I got there and took next to no time. The technician handed me the piece of paper with my ECG trace on it, and sent me back to the DAU. She let me rest on the bed for 5 minutes and got me some water! I was worried that she'd seen my trace and was treating me so carefully because it was all abnormal or something! I asked her if she could tell me if it was normal, or if the doctor had to do that. She looked at it and said it looked fine to her, but the doctor would talk to me more about it. I said, "Oh well. I must just be pregnant then." She said, "You did know that already, didn't you?!" I told her I had an inkling! ;)
Anyway. Then I had to wait a long time in the waiting area for the doctor to see me, back at the DAU. I saw a couple from church there! They are due their first baby in one week, and she has had trouble with high blood pressure throughout. She was looking very red and tearful, and they both looked a bit shell-shocked and anxious. I went over and they told me that she was going to be induced because her blood pressure was too high. She was so tearful and anxious as she talked to me. I felt as though that could be the very reason I was there that afternoon, not so much to do with me and MY health. Because I was able to sit with them and reassure them and say encouraging things, and they seemed visibly less anxious after I left to do another urine sample! I assured them I'd be praying, and when I got home I called our small group leaders (they're in our small group too) and let them know to pray, and then called and put them on the church prayer chain. I don't know what happened to them still. I hope everything went okay! They have been on my mind day and night, continually since Tuesday. Weirdly, I was thinking of them in the car on Tuesday when driving to my midwife appt! I even prayed out loud for them in the car, just wondering when their baby was coming and hoping they were doing fine!
Anyway. So my urine was ++ for leukocytes again, but otherwise fine. I eventually saw the doctor at 5.40pm. She said with breathlessness and racy pulse, they are mostly just concerned about (and wanting to rule out) a blood clot on the lungs, which rather freaked me out since it's kind of potentially fatal! But the doctor listened carefully all over my chest with a stethoscope, and double checked my ECG, and she doesn't think that's what it is. She said I have to go back in if I get more breathless, or if it gets to be really bothersome. Or if I get chest pain (I haven't got any), or get a cough, or cough up blood! Yikes!
I got way too anxious about the pulmonary embolism thing later on in the evening, breaking the golden rule (Do Not Google) and discovering that it's the leading cause of maternal death in the UK! After a while of anxiety, I checked my older entries from this diary at this stage of my other pregnancies, and discovered that I was just as breathless and knackered, and my pulse was racing then too, even at rest. I did have a suspicion that this was actually a "norm" for me at this stage of pregnancy, so I told that to the doctor and one of the midwives I saw at the hospital. They both said that it might just be that this is the way I am when pregnant, and that's all it is. They did want to rule out anaemia, because the doctor said that all my symptoms would be NORMAL if I am anaemic. I had to phone them the next day for the results from the FOUR blood tests I had done at my midwife appt that day. I did phone the next day, and my haemoglobin was 12.8, which is great, and not remotely anaemic. So I guess it's just the way I am when I'm this pregnant. I hope that's all it is!
Anyway. I am just sooooooo glad and grateful that I've kept this wonderful diary for so many years, through 3 pregnancies and TTC Arthur, and even through thinking about trying to conceive Arthur, before that! It means I can look back on my other pregnancies at any stage to compare and find reassurance, and it really is a huge help to me now. I'm so glad that I put in the effort! Now I just want to make sure I try to keep up with my diary a bit better during this pregnancy, to keep that going. I know I'll want to read all the detail another time when I'm pregnant again. I'm so glad of my older entries now!
Okay, it's now way too late in the evening, so I'll have to cut this short. I saved it on Word earlier, but then one of Neil's friends from his old workplace came round and stayed all evening talking to us about a work thing, and I just started to feel soooo unwell after about 1.5 hours. He's such a lovely guy and I DID enjoy his visit, but I just wanted to say, "Please go home!" eventually! I had been reclining on the sofa all that time, but started to feel faint and woozy and nauseous, and it just got worse and worse. Neil noted that I was really pale, and I felt just completely wrung out physically. It was weird because I hadn't DONE anything! Except a lot of concentration, focusing on this guy chatting for so long. Maybe that was all it was? Anyway. I needed him to GO so I could relax and feel better. I needed Neil's full attention because the way I felt physically was making me feel really shaky and anxious, and I wanted his reassurance. The guy would not stop talking! Eventually I said I wasn't feeling well and he left about 15 minutes later. I felt soooo dreadful by the time he left! I was scared that I would pass out or be sick or something, and I couldn't fathom where it had come from. Neil thought maybe I was just toooo tired and focusing and concentrating for that long when tired had been too much for me. That seems like the only reasonable explanation, but really pathetic all the same! Urgh!
Anyway. I lay on the sofa and felt grim for an hour or so, and then eventually got the laptop out and read some of my older diary entries here, lying down, to see if there were any similar occurrances in my other pregnancies. I didn't find any, except for both my other pregnancies I hit a stage (same both times) around 32 weeks where I would be suddenly exhausted and the room would reel and spin and not stop for hours. I would even feel it spinning in the night except I couldn't SEE it because it was too dark. Ugh. It happened both my other pregnancies, so I wonder if it will happen again this time at around 32 weeks too? I HOPE NOT! I remember it was horrible, and I never did find a way to fix it. Those spells passed in the end though.
Anyway, back to this evening. My lips and nose and hands felt too cold, so Neil got my duvet and I covered up with that. After about 30 minutes I started to feel better, and then I ate some cereal and felt better still. Now I feel back to normal except really tired. I am someone who just can't bear going to bed feeling horrible - I know that sounds crazy! Most people would go to bed just BECAUSE they feel awful, to help them feel better! I hate the feeling of being isolated in bed away from people who could give me constant reassurance if I'm anxious or need something. I'm just alone and awake, feeling ill, and my physical symptoms seem magnified by it all. So I hate going to bed until I start to feel better. My anxiety levels drop LOADS when I start to feel a bit better, so that's when it's okay to go to bed, for me. So, now it's really late, and I am tired, but I'm still up because I was waiting to feel better first :) I really wanted to get a diary entry on here tonight, especially since I had written a good portion of one earlier. I just needed to add a little to it and then post it.
There's a ton more that I need to write, but maybe I should just post what I've started and do another entry when I can. It might end up being a while though, which I DON'T want, but that's how it seems to be going lately. Let's see, is there anything else QUICK that I can make note of for this entry?
Nathan is now 15 inches long!!! And he weighs about 2.5lbs. His femur bone is 5.1cm long, isn't that amazing? He is 3% body fat, and he most likely has a full head of hair already. My babies so far have had a LOT of hair at birth, so I feel fairly confident that Nathan will be the same way :) I wonder what colour his hair will be?
I am SO grateful to have Nathan. My precious baby boy. A lady at FF posted on my due date group (though she was due months after I am) asking a question about subchorionic haematomas. She said she had bleeding (at 14 weeks) and was diagnosed as having one of these, just exactly as I was this pregnancy. I had a lot of bleeding at 11 weeks and again from 13 weeks. This lady said her haematoma measured 5cm at a scan, and asked if anyone had experience with it, and how long the bleeding might last. I missed her post because I didn't check in to my due date group for a couple of weeks, and I found it when I was catching up. I saw a follow-up post from her that said she lost her baby at 16 weeks. She said that apparently some blood had got into the amniotic fluid and caused her waters to break, and the baby died. I felt like my heart stopped when I read her post. My own haematoma was even bigger than hers - 7cm by 3cm by 2.5cm - and my bleeding was heavy. The huge thing was right up against the amniotic sac where Nathan's head was. But for me, it dwindled and passed and reabsorbed, and THANKFULLY did not get into Nathan's amniotic sac and cause trouble. I am just so so so thankful. It really could have ended for Nathan like it did for this lady's tiny baby. I felt so terribly sad for her, and just awed at how blessed I was to have that condition and come through it, haematoma resolved, healthy baby still inside me. Thank you God. So much.
I have so much to be thankful for! I know it was Thanksgiving yesterday in the States. We don't have anything like it here, but I think it's a nice thing to do! I'm thinking of things that I'm thankful for here, all the same :)
Arthur LOVES Nathan! He seems to already be so fond of him like he is of Matthew. He's such a wonderful big brother! A couple of weeks ago (26 weeks and a few days I think), Matthew was napping and Arthur and I were snuggling together on the sofa. I got the camera to take a picture of him, and then he wanted to take a picture of Nathan! He couldn't work the buttons very well, and asked me to point it at my tummy to take the picture. Just as I was about to take it, he leaned towards my bump slightly and said softly, "Smile, Nathan..." :) Bless his heart! He was totally talking to Nathan, excluding me by his body language and soft voice. I thought it was so sweet! Here's the resulting photo, at Arthur's request:
And lastly, here are a couple of photos that are reeeally special to me! Neil took them earlier this week. One of them is blurry, and they are from a slightly weird angle, but I LOVE them because it's me and my THREE little boys!! In age-order, no less, hehe! I was sitting on the floor, and Matthew came over and gave me a huge spontaneous hug over my bump so that his whole body leaned into me. Arthur came right up behind him and hugged us both (well, mostly Matthew!), and so there I was with Nathan on my front in my tummy, Matthew on top, and Arthur on top of him :) How precious!!! I'm so thankful for my three sweet baby boys! I can't wait till Nathan is here and I get to cuddle and kiss him, and see his brothers with him. I can't wait to post photos of the three of them here. Oh I am so thankful, and so blessed!
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