bekahcubed

The oddest part of being on hospitalized bedrest is the realization that life goes on…for everyone except me.

People get up and go to work and come home and make dinner and watch the World Series and update Facebook with the goings on of their day.

I lie in bed and try to occupy the time between every-four-hour vitals and daily nonstress tests and couple time a week sonograms. I call the nurse to let her know how much I voided. I call room service for a meal and sit up in bed for one hour afterwards to avoid heartburn before lowering the head of the bed to keep my blood pressure lower.

My day is wrapped around baby’s health and my own.

Baby’s still kicking. Biophysical profile is good. Heart rate is great. No contractions. Baby’s doing fine.

My health is harder to assess and more tenuous. Is this headache a sign of disease progression or is it my normal morning sinus headache prolonged because I’m not getting up to clear my head? I’m struggling to breathe – how far do I press the residents to do something about it when my O2 saturations are staying okay? I’m retaining tons of fluid – the doctors haven’t recommended anything but the nurse suggested restricting my fluids a bit to try to stave off some of it. Should I follow her advice? My blood pressure fluctuates, never quite high enough to need an oral antihypertensive – but high enough to make me worry.

People ask me what they can do to help and I have no idea what to tell them. I know what I’d be doing at home if everything were fine and I was getting prepared for my expected home delivery – but my life is on hold now and I have no idea how to carry on.

Do I need preemie clothing? Will I need to be prepared to take baby home right after we deliver? Or will there be weeks in the NICU before that happens? How important is it that my dishes be done, that the nursery be prepared, that the freezer has meals in it? I don’t know.

I can only think for the present day, because everything could change in an instant.

And I open Facebook and see all the kids in their new Halloween costumes and pregnant mommas wearing clever little mom and baby costumes – and I am baffled that life goes on…for everyone except me.

I saw our backup OB yesterday due to the blood pressure / protein spilling issues and my blood pressure had spiked to the point that he admitted me to consult with a maternal fetal specialist at one of our local hospitals. I’m currently getting at least 24 hours of observation as well as IV magnesium to reduce risk of seizures and steroid shots to help mature baby’s lungs for a sooner entry into the outside world. Right now, we don’t know when that might be, but this particular specialist (versus his counterpart in the hospital down the street) tends to like to keep babies in the womb if at all possible – which is very encouraging to me. We’ll have a better idea of what treatment will look like and whether I’ll be hospitalized for the duration of the pregnancy tomorrow after labs are complete. Either way, we’ll likely be spending quite a bit of time in the hospital in the next several weeks, whether in treatment for me or in the NICU with baby.

Good news is baby is healthy – growth is right on track, amniotic sac has just the right amount of fluid, heartbeat and fetal movements are great.

God has also been gracious to give me supernatural peace about this rather enormous departure from our planned home birth. The nurses and doctors have mentioned how remarkably calm I have been regarding the change – and how well I’ve tolerated the procedures so far (the IV and shot of steroids and the Foley catheter). I have to admit that’s not my strength at all – God has been gracious to grant peace and rest. (That said, I’ll be pleased as punch when the 24 hour sample is up and they hopefully let me start peeing on my own power again.)

Thank you all for praying and for continuing to pray. I know that God answers prayer according to the wisdom of His providence – and that He accomplishes all things for His glory and His people’s ultimate joy. I am currently resting in that sweet assurance – and praying that I would continue to rest in God’s good sovereignty.

My second trimester was relatively uneventful. I felt great, had plenty of energy, and was eating well. The only cause for concern in trimester 2 was my weight gain – which was taking place more rapidly than hoped for – and the swelling in my legs – which started during a hot stretch of summer during which I was also training the county WIC staff in Baby Behavior (thus standing for longer lengths of time than usual.)

Apart from my pride (which really wanted to have perfect weight gain – I am a dietitian after all!), no harm was done, I figured. Excess weight gain is normal (even if not always healthy) in the second trimester, when feeling better leads to eating more – and when I’m pretty sure a fair bit of the gain is fluid? Well, fluid gain is also normal during the second half of pregnancy – especially for first time moms and those who are working on their feet or in a chair all day long. I checked my blood pressure a few times with my handy sphygmomanometer and didn’t worry too much – blood pressure was normal.

I was a day short of 27 weeks when I wrote of my dream of owning a pig. At that point, I had no expectation that a pig would be anywhere in the near future. Daniel had been looking around for land for a while, but I wasn’t in any hurry – and we’d resolved that unless a property was just right (and had the potential for a pig), we wouldn’t be really seriously looking until sometime next year.

At 27 weeks, 1 day Daniel found a piece of land he thought showed promise. He’d called the county and was reasonably sure we could put a pig on it. Would I be okay with taking a look that evening? The realtor told us to go right ahead and explore the property – and so we did.

At 27 weeks, 3 days we made an offer on the land.

At 28 weeks – the official start of my third trimester – we wrote a large check and bought ourselves a 2.4 acre lot outside of town.

At 28 weeks, 2 days I walked to the library and picked up a couple dozen books about evaluating builders, building houses, and running a homestead. That same day, the swelling in my legs went from nonpitting (not leaving a hole when I pressed on it) to pitting edema (leaving a hole when I pressed on it.) I knew that I needed to take it easy.

I woke up Sunday, at 28 weeks 3 days with a splitting headache and already sore, swollen feet. I really needed to take it easy. But it was a Sunday and we help out in the Preschool Sunday School classes on Sundays – and then there was the worship service – and the parade of homes just happened to be that weekend and what better chance to start to evaluate the builders in our area? We tromped through a dozen houses, taking notes on the quality of the construction. My legs were crying out by halfway through, so Daniel forbade me to climb stairs after that point. The headache continued. I stepped on the scale at the end of the day (not my usual pattern) and discovered that I’d gained 7 pounds from my morning weight.

Monday morning (28 weeks 4 days), I woke up with the same headache and knew I needed to call my midwife. Headache, pitting edema, very rapid weight gain. Those were symptoms of preeclampsia. I took the day off work and left a message with my midwife to call me. By the time she called back, the headache was gone but I’d already told her enough for her to be concerned. I didn’t have another appointment scheduled before our family trip to Williamsburg, but she wanted me to come in anyway.

At 29 weeks, we went in for a quick visit – which confirmed that I’d had a lot of weight gain and that my blood pressure was high (and not responding to positional changes, even more scary). But so far, I wasn’t spilling any protein in my urine. My midwife gave me some dietary suggestions, some supplements to start, and orders to spend as much time as possible resting during our vacation. She also told me she didn’t think I should plan on going back to work full-time after vacation. We scheduled a follow up for as soon as possible after my return from vacation – and I scheduled an appointment with my OB right after that.

We had a lovely vacation with Daniel’s family. I rested a lot, rode a wheelchair around historic places (now THAT’S an adventure), and ate absolutely nothing fun (pretty much just meat and nuts and fruits and vegetables – with no added sugar or salt). At the beginning, I was optimistic. I was doing everything right and I actually ended the day without any pitting one day.

At 30 weeks, we went about to all the drugstores in town to check my blood pressure – and couldn’t find a single store with an in-store automated blood pressure machine. So we bought ourselves an automatic cuff (much easier to push a button and let it check, rather than using the manual cuff and stethoscope that was still in Wichita) and I checked my blood pressure. It was high, still quite high. What’s more, my urine had started frothing – which could mean something as simple as dehydration, but could also mean protein in the urine.

This morning – 30 weeks, 5 days – we went in for our follow-up prenatal visit. I peed in the cup, ran the dipstick myself and confirmed my fears. I was spilling protein, majorly. Furthermore, I’d gained 9 lbs by my midwife’s scale in the 12 days since I’d last seen her. We still had a while to wait before we saw her, so I sat with Daniel in the waiting room, grieving over the homebirth I knew I had little hope of anymore.

Preeclampsia. The diagnosis I was afraid of, now the reality I must cope with.

I couldn’t sing it but my mouth could still say it, whispering hoarsely through the tears into Daniel’s chest:

“Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes:

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
O my soul, worship His holy name
Sing like never before, O my soul
Worship His holy name”

~From Matt Redman’s “Ten Thousand Reasons”