37 wks 4 d. Ugh.

Well, back to bedrest for me. I worked all day yesterday and my blood pressure was fine. Then today I checked it at work, and it was the highest it's been. So I was sent home to rest. Then this evening we went up to L&D for some monitoring, labs, and BP checks. My pressure was still up, not as high, but not great either. Baby and labs look good, which is reassuring, and my pressure came down once I laid on my side. So I'm back to confinement. Bleah.

And I have hardly been contracting at all in the past few days. So I'm starting to resolve myself to the idea that he's not going to show up any time soon. I guess I had just decided it would be any day now, which leads to constant disappointment. He'll show up when he's ready. I just wish he was ready. I promised myself I wouldn't do this, but it's hard to not be ready to meet our littly man. There's too much anticipation.

Mmm, yummy!

Dennis is the best Christmas cook! He made the yummiest cranberry-cornbread stuffing to go with his awesome ginormous turkey. I ate so much I had to lay down! More than usual. And he stayed up most of the night getting all the prep together. He's so awesome! But I already knew that.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday to Mom!

39 again?

No pain no gain

Lots more irregular contractions for the past 2 days and nights--enough so that I can't get any sleep (even worse than just from getting up to pee). I had a check today--still a good 2cm, and baby's head is still engaged. We went up to L&D just for some BP and baby monitoring, and everything looks good. I had some decent contractions while I was there (or at least so I thought) but they didn't really get picked up on the monitor. Even the ones I consider pretty painful aren't so bad I can't talk through them. So apparently this is just a warm-up. Yeah. Can't wait for the real thing.

What's annoying about bedrest (today) is that I'm sort of getting the nesting instinct but I can't do much. So I keep making lists of things I want to do. So useful. I'm sure D appreciates it.

I told you not to get excited!

No more regular contractions since last night. Like I figured, they slowed down a lot. I'm sort of back to feeling like it will still be a while. Even Friday with all the excitement, I was never really convinced anything was happening.

In case you're wondering why I'm up so late, this bedrest thing totally screws up my schedule. Being in the bed all day leads to unplanned naps, and it's really hard to motivate myself to get up just so I can lay down! I guess my inner laziness is thriving.

I'm just glad Dennis is taking such good care of me.

Progress?

I awoke this morning at 4:30 to some pretty decent contractions. They aren't super regular, but they're fairly intense. My doc checked me (I was scheduled to see her today anyway), and I'm dilated to a good 2 cm. Not that it gets me too riled up, because I could hang out at 2 for weeks. But it's something. Apparently now everyone's into predicting when I'll go. So far I have a "before Christmas" from Kim; "definitely before your due date" from Sherry; and "soon" from Rob. Anyone else?

I guess the question now is, am I (and is the baby) ready? I'm 36 weeks tomorrow, which is practically full term. 37 weeks would really be better, but we won't be stopping any labor that starts on its own at this point.

At least my BP was a little better today. A little. And I've got 10 days off now, so there's no excuse for not taking it easy, I guess.

By the way, contractions hurt!

The countdown is on!

Yesterday was December 13th, so that means less than one month until D-day! I know, very few people actually deliver on their due dates, but there's got to be some day to count towards. At this point, if I went into labor spontaneously, we'd just let it go. Crazy! Next Saturday (the 23rd) is when I'll be officially full-term (37 weeks).

So maybe I got a little too excited about being off bedrest and having good blood pressure. I made the mistake of checking my BP yesterday, and Sherry happened to walk by, and of course it was up again. No symptoms, still no proteinuria, but I've got to take it easy again. But only one half day of clinic left tomorrow, and then I have next week off. I guess it's okay; I was getting behind on my knitting anyway. I've just got to get back to behaving myself. yuck.

Christmas shopping

is 90% done! Yay. Just a few more things to pick up, but we're darned close.
And (although I hesitate to say this) we're pretty much ready for the little guy, too. At least shopping wise, I think we've got almost everything essential on our list that we'll need immediately. Not that it's helping to keep me from being completely terrified. Someone asked me recently what exactly I'm scared of. My response is, what am I not afraid of? Seriously.

The fruits of bedrest

Our Christmas stockings are done, except for embroidering the names.

The baby's stocking (just in case)

Gipper's

My stocking

Dennis' (actually knitted last year)

Good news

Well, I had another check-up today, and it went very well. My blood pressure was normal and everything else looks great. So I can do some light duty now--a couple of half days of clinic, and otherwise I can do most of my Practice Management rotation from home. So I'm feeling much better about things. I just need to keep behaving myself, and maybe the babe will keep cooking for another 5 weeks. I'd be very happy with that.

So I'll still be on partial bedrest--when I'm not at the office I plan to keep my feet up and rest as much as possible. But it's do-able.

ND vs. LSU

To the Sugar Bowl we go.
I hope we don't embarrass those Tigers too badly on January 3rd!

I believe a trend has been started.

It seems like everyone we know is pregnant now.

Jef and Krista (February)
Will and Stacey (May)
Joe Paul and Kristy (June)
Sarah and Dean (June)
Tim and Kathy (June)
Sean and his wife --sorry, we haven't met her yet--Sean, you could at least fill us in on her name! (June)
Robin and Jeremy (January)

And we're officially 34 weeks in now. Which means that if I had to deliver tomorrow, it would be safe to do here at our hospital--not that this would be ideal, but the baby's lungs should be pretty mature. I don't think we're going to make it to January, the way things are going right now. I mean, everything is fine, but I can only be on bedrest so long. I imagine we'll probably induce once I'm full-term (i.e., 37 weeks), as long as everything is still going pretty well. But we shall see. That's just a VERY tentative prediction. So far everything has been less than week-to-week, more like day-to-day. I'm still hoping to get back to work at least part-time.

Right now the diagnosis is still pregnancy-induced hypertension (PIH). The thing to be more worried about is that it might develop into pre-eclampsia (aka toxemia), which is more dangerous. Basically the difference between the 2 is that PIH=blood pressure over 140 systolic or 90 diastolic, pre-e is that plus significant protein in the urine. In fact, just for those of you who love too much information, I had to do a 24-hour urine collection the other day. That was fun. Especially since you have to keep it in the fridge. The good news is that the results were fine and well below the cutoff for pre-e. But, we'll probably repeat the whole thing in a week.

Other than bedrest, I've been having twice-weekly non-stress tests (NSTs) at the hospital along w/ BP measurements. The NSTs basically involve putting the baby on the monitor to watch his heart rate and make sure he looks good. So far he's in great shape, but it's pretty standard to keep them up 2x/week until the end. Not that I'm too worried about him at this point--he won't stop kicking me! Of course my BP is always up for a while after I get to the hospital, since I've been up and around, but then it comes down after 30-60 minutes or so of rest. Which probably means bedrest is working somewhat.

Anyway, if you want to read up on the stuff I'm talking about (MOM), check out this link to WebMD:
http://www.webmd.com/hw/being_pregnant/hw2837.asp

One good thing about bedrest is that I've managed to knit a Christmas stocking for baby and me, and now I'm at work on the Gipper's. (Dennis' was done last year.) Although I'm starting to get some carpal tunnel!