38 weeks

Not the best picture ever of me, but you'll read below about how I wasn't feeling well this day

Here I am on July 15^th at 38 weeks. I went to work with a horrible headache that would not go away. I tried regular strength Tylenol and even a nap at lunch, but nothing helped. I didn’t think much of it…however, in the back of my mind I thought about how I’d read that as a pregnant woman, if you have persistent headaches that won’t go away with Tylenol, you should call your doctor. I was going to my scheduled weekly appointment the next day, so I decided I’d just talk to the doctor about it then.

The next morning (Thursday) when the nurse took my blood pressure, the excitement began. It was 130/100, so since I was full-term, my doctor decided to send me to the labor & delivery assessment area to see if I had preeclampsia. After 4 hours of testing and monitoring, they sent me home and said to call if my headache didn’t go away or got worse. Friday I called because I still had the headache, so they had me come in for an appointment that afternoon. They ended up keeping me overnight at the hospital for monitoring…oh what fun it was to be hooked up to all types of machines while I tried to sleep! They decided on Saturday that I didn’t have preeclampsia, I “just” had gestational hypertension (the precursor to preclampsia). Once again, when I left, they said to call if my headache came back, but otherwise I should come back Monday morning for some more monitoring. We did not go to the hospital Sunday (halleluiah!). We got there at 8:00 Monday morning expecting to hear that everything was normal and then we'd go home to wait for Riley to decide it was time for him to enter the world. However, after being on the monitors for about 45 minutes, the nurse midwife spoke with our doctor because she was concerned about the lack of variation in Riley’s heart rate. Evidently, when babies move in the womb, their heart rate should go up 10 bpm for 10 seconds. Riley’s would go up, but then immediately go back down to what it was before he moved. The doctor was concerned about him being too lethargic, so she decided it was time to introduce him to New Orleans.

To be continued...