Then It Became Scary

     I suppose I exaggerated a bit. The trip to Texas was not so bad. We went to the circus and Josh and I got to take our picture with a big brown bear, which was fun.

(Me at 32 weeks)

(Taken before we went to Texas)

     I still had my original appointment with my doctor that Tuesday so I kept it. When I got there my blood pressure was still pretty normal but I was swollen. When she measured my belly she told me I was in fact measuring big, but that in all the prior months I measured right on track. She asked me when was the last time I had a growth ultrasound and I told her never. My last ultrasound had been at 20 weeks, when they checked to make sure the baby had all the parts told us what the sex was (even though we knew already thanks to my wonderful friend Adrian), and made sure everything measured correctly. The doctor made me start a 24 hour urine collection (which was not so much fun since I had to work that night) and scheduled an ultrasound for the next morning.

     Wednesday September 7th I  told Josh he could stay home and sleep. We both worked the night shift and the ultrasound was around 8am. I went by myself, and was late because I thought it was at 8:30 but I was supposed to be there at 8:00, whoops!  The ultrasound tech was very nice, she did a really great job, but I knew what she was doing since I had a lot of "practice" ultrasounds at my friends school. She measured the babies head, her legs, and her tummy. I noticed when she measured the head and legs that everything was normal, baby measured around 33 weeks on each of those, but when she measured the tummy it measured 38 weeks. This had never happened before and it worried me but she didn't say anything about it so I thought we were okay. When she was finished she helped me sit up and told me that my doctor had asked to see the images and would be right in with me.

     As soon as Dr. Noland came in I knew something was wrong. She had never looked at me that way and I felt like she was waiting on me to break. She told me that the babies stomach was distended and they didn't know why. She asked me to go straight to triage where they could monitor her.  I went to my car first and tried calling Josh over and over, but he was asleep in the bedroom and his phone was on the kitchen table. I sat in my car and cried for a couple of minutes, then pulled myself together and headed to triage. Ive never been in the hospital before, not for myself anyways. I kept calling and texting Josh, and then I text his Mom, and she and my father in law started calling Josh. The nurses in triage had me give a urine sample and hooked me up to the fetal heart monitor. They sent off my 24 hour collection and we basically just waiting for results.

     After maybe two hours Josh finally called me. He didn't have a clue what was going on or why I was texting him asking him to bring me socks (my feet were cold). He rushed to the hospital and sat with me in triage for a couple of hours. Then I told him to go ahead and go to work because he didn't have enough vacation time saved up, and we were not finding anything out soon. While he was leaving the nurses came in and told me I had to be admitted because there was a lot of protein in my urine.  Josh went to work and called my Dad to tell him what was going on. My parents came to visit and Josh stayed with me when he wasn't at work. I had to stay hooked up to the fetal heart monitor for 24 hours.  For some unknown reason the Toco left a big round rash on my belly. The nurses said they have never seen anyone have a reaction like that.

     After 24 hours they let me off of the monitor and I only had to go on it every few hours. Dr Noland ordered ultrasounds every morning so they could see if the babies condition was getting worse. They said it could have been a bug I contracted that affected her too, or she could have Cystic Fibrosis, among many other things. They just were not sure what was happening, but Dr Noland seemed certain that whatever was wrong with the baby was what was causing my Preeclampsia.  Every time the doctors thought they had an idea of what it might be they would take away my food and water for 12 hours, then the tests would come back negative and I could eat and drink again. This caused the contractions I had apparently been having for at least a month to worsen.  Whatever the problem was I was told to stay in the hospital until the baby came, which was going to be around 3 weeks.