37 Weeks and nothing but trouble

I am 37 weeks, and considered full term. Mommy has given me the eviction speech, with good reason. I am doing nothing but causing trouble in here. On Tuesday the ultrasound size estimate put me somewhere around 6 1/2 pounds right now, which is good news. Glad to hear I'm not a 10 pounder. I was very active on the ultrasound and the non-stress test, and that's pretty much where all the good news ends right now.

37 weeks will forver be known to Mommy as the week where everything went to crap. Last Friday when we had our usual NST and exam, I did beautifully as usual, but for some reason Mommy's blood pressure was a little high--not too bad, but high for her and not really where they want to see it. They sent her home with lab orders and a big jug to fill a 24 hour urine culture and she had to go first thing Monday morning to draw the labs and drop off the jug. Lab work all came back normal so they just waited until our Tuesday appointment to talk to us.

Tuesday we went, and again I did wonderfully during the ultrasound and NST. They estimated my size, and they did Mommy's Group B strep culture and checked her cervix. They estimate she is only dilated about 1 centimeter right now, cervix is soft, but I'm not locked down in there yet either, so it doesn't look like I'm quite ready to come out just yet. No problem, there's still time. However, the bad news all started when they took Mommy's blood pressure at the beginning of the appointment. It was too high again--somewhere around 138/96. They went ahead and did the exam and Mommy talked to them about some complaints she was having with not feeling too well. At the end of the exam, the midwife asked Mommy to lay down on her side for about 10 minutes and then she would come back and check her blood pressure again. When Beth came back to check on us, she found that Mommy's blood pressure was now 141/102. Not really what she was looking for! Beth told Mommy to go over to the hospital and check in for some monitoring. We went over there and they gave Mommy a bracelet and a gown and told her to lay down for awhile. They strapped a blood pressure cuff on her and checked her numbers every 5-15 minutes for about 2 hours. It was not fun and kind of scary for Mommy to be laying there all by herself in a hospital bed wondering what was going to happen. After monitoring the both of us, and waiting on the new lab results to come in, they called the doctor's office and checked in to see what they wanted to do with us based on the results. Pam, one of our midwives, decided that since the labs were still normal and Mommy's blood pressure came down some while she was laying and resting that she was ok with allowing us to go home on condition of bed rest. We stopped and ate a quick lunch, then we dropped off the doctor's note to Mommy's work so they knew she wouldn't be back, and went home to rest. Mommy is not confined to the bed, she can do some light stuff around the house, but she has to rest frequently and can not do anything strenuous. It's really hard on her and very frustrating, because she wants to be able to get everything done RIGHT NOW and it takes her forever to do the littlest thing. She gets worn out really quickly and then she has to sit for about an hour to feel better. Mommy is not one to just sit and do nothing either, so this is really a challenge for her. But she's trying to learn to rest and relax and let others help her right now. Hopefully for her sake, I'll come soon and this will be all over with.