(Part Two in a Series)

Two weeks later, I had another beer ready for Jeff when I proudly pronounced that the little one “caught up” in size and that we were definitely pregnant with three! It was a very easy pregnancy until I was placed on home bedrest at about 27 weeks. The next four weeks were incredibly hard as I’m not one for just laying around. I pushed the envelope as much as I could and the doctors knew it. Hindsight is always 20/20…I could have probably carried further if I were to have really stayed horizontal for 90% of my waking hours…no sitting up, just completely horizontal. In my defense, though, I must say that if a patient is placed on bedrest, then the doctors shouldn’t have you going to either the OB’s office or the high-risk doctor’s office every three-five days…oh yeah, then there are the trips to the hospital for those non-stress tests!

It was the morning of Friday, June 16th. I was at 31weeks and 4days. I told Jeff over breakfast that I had a rotten night’s sleep and that something just “feels off”. I had my 5th non-stress test (NST) scheduled at the hospital for later that morning so I decided to take off after breakfast and see if they could get me in a little sooner. By the end of my very first NST, I knew to bring my own pillow for subsequent NSTs. So there I was on June 16th, standing with my pillow in tow and I told the lady at the check-in that I was a little early and that I didn’t want to complain but that something felt “off.” Well, before they even hooked me up to the monitor, they took my blood pressure and it was sky high…198 /(something)…close to seizing, they said. I politely informed them that if they’d kindly turn the TV on, that the U.S. Open was on and that watching golf on TV always lowered my blood pressure. My OB and my high-risk specialist found my request very amusing.

After I got settled in a room, I called Jeff and told him that I’d be there a while so he came to the hospital and we ate Subway (pregnant with three…always eating!) and watched a bit of the U.S. Open. There was some question of whether or not I was having the babies that day or if it would be sometime before the weekend was over. They gave me MagSulfate and that still didn’t settle “the shakes” down. Anyway, when one of the nurses came back to say “its not going to be today,” Jeff and I discussed and agreed that he should keep a meeting that he had later that afternoon with a very important potential client. At some point when Jeff was gone, the HR Doctor came in and we visited. She looked at some numbers and asked me how I was doing. By that point, they found some medicine that was helping my blood pressure get back down to a normal count and I told her that I was fine and would like to hold off having these babies as long as I could (because I just knew I could carry longer!) I think I remember her saying “OK” but that decision was later overridden when she and my OB talked together on the phone. Dr. Brillhart came in my room and looked over some recent numbers and then we had a funny conversation. I'll share the conversation in my next blog.