Thursday, August 20, 2009

Avoiding Bed Rest

I was diagnosed with high blood pressure (BP) in October of 2007. It was successfully managed with meds until April of this year... as it turns out, I am healthier pregnant than I am when I am not... I was taken off the meds and have monitored my BP weekly since then and all has been well.

Until last week...

Thursday morning, my feet were pretty swollen when I first woke up... a bit unusual so I stopped at the hospital closest to me (where I will be delivering and where I work as well) to have them check my BP before I drove all the way into the city. It was a bit high but came down after I sat for several minutes so I went about my day. I was back at that same hospital for work that afternoon and checked my BP again before I went home. Again it was a bit high but nothing too horrible.

That night during my child birth class, my feet swelled enough to cause some concern so I stopped at that same hospital on my way home... 159/106... high enough for them to put me in a room, on monitors, and do a PIH (pregnancy induced hypertension) work-up. After 2 hours, my BP came down and my labs came back fine. They sent me home with orders to do a 24 hour urine...

This week, my doctor informed me that my 24 hour urine looked fine but that she wanted me back on my BP meds, off my feet as much as possible, and on my left side with my feet up for at least 2 hours each day after work. She wants to start seeing me weekly and wants a biophysical work-up on the baby each week to monitor growth, movement, heart rate, placenta health/function, and uterine fluid levels.

I had my first biophysical ultrasound (u/s) today. Things looked really good. Baby is growing well and the fluid levels were within normal limits (WNL). Movement was better than normal... very active and breathing a lot... babies get their oxygen from the placenta so breathing is a lot of unnecessary movement that they don't do unless they are doing really well... The u/s tech said if the baby keeps this up, barring any issues with my BP, we should have no problem making it til October 1st.

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34 weeks today... perfectly capable of thriving anytime we decide to enter the world... estimated 5 lbs 8 ozs at u/s today...

2 comments:

Jenny said...

GIRLFRIEND. If baby is already 5.8 oz, you do not WANT to get to October 1st. Cuz that's like a 12 pounder right there! You just take it easy now, ya hear?

KRH said...

We are on track to be between 8 and 9 pounds... but since the head is right on track, I figure I can handle a 9 pounder if its 25 inches long :-)