40 Week Update

It's been an eventful week leading up to my due date (which is on Tuesday 4/17)! At my doctor's appointment on Tuesday, my blood pressure was officially high. The doctor was pretty concerned, so he wanted me back in on Thursday to recheck it and said that if it was still high they would do some additional testing and possibly induce me. I was also ordered to bed rest until then to keep the BP down (which I wasn't too happy about!). On Thursday, the BP was still high (in fact it was higher) so he sent me over to labor & delivery for some blood work and a contraction stress test. And since the BP was so high, he basically said be prepared to stay for an induction.

So, Mark and I headed over to the hospital. They took some blood and then hooked me up to an IV with low levels of Pitocin to induce some contractions. They were monitoring the contractions, the baby's heart rate, and my BP (which was down when we got there but stayed a bit erratic while we were there). The goal was to see how well he tolerated the contractions. One of the risks with high blood pressure is that the baby might not be getting enough oxygen from the placenta. If the baby's heart rate drops during a contraction it indicates that he's not getting the oxygen.

So we sat at the hospital for about 6 hours while they kept upping the dosage of the Pitocin trying to get a consistent pattern of contractions (apparently I'm not very sensitive to it). Meanwhile, my blood work checking my liver function came back clean which was good. The baby tolerated the contractions very well indicating that he's still getting enough oxygen from the placenta. Once they got the data they took me off the Pitocin to see if the contractions would stay and they stopped almost immediately. And after all those contractions, I had no more dilation. So the bean wasn't ready to debut and they sent me home under bed rest orders. It was the right move to not rush the bean, but we were a little disappointed that

So that's where I am! I'm very sick of resting and getting quite bored. I see the doctor again tomorrow afternoon to see what the next step is. If there is more cervical progression, then I'm thinking they will want to induce. So who knows, we may have this baby sooner rather than later!

Here is the 40 week bump pic and I'm hoping it's my last :)