First trip to L&D

Well.. Friday, September 1, 2006 marked our first ever visit to Labor & Delivery at BIDMC. I had one of those persistant headaches that just wouldn't go away. It started over the previous weekend and while it never got to migrane status, it was annoying. Given my history of high blood pressure, shiela had been worrying and harping on me (*duck*) to call my OB. I finally gave in and called on Thursday. They weren't very conserned, but wanted to be sure something wasn't going on. They gave me a list of things to do that night (eat red meat, drink lots, take 2 tylenol and call in the morning)..

I woke up on Friday without the headache, but it soon returned by mid-morning. I called back in to my OBs office and they surprised me by saying "we'd like you to head over to L&D". I thought that they'd maybe have me come in to the office for a quick bp check... nope.. the big L&D!

After calling shiela and freaking her out.. i signed myself out at work and headed over to the hospital. I met up with shiela in the lobby.. i think we were both a bit pale during the elevator ride up to the 10th floor.

They set me up on a nice cot with a 10th floor view over the city toward Cambridge.. not too shabby. The visit was fairly uneventful. My bp was highish when i was sitting up (155/95ish), but not much higher than it normally is. The surprise came when they had me lay on my left side. My bp dropped immediately to 118/66.. lower than it has been in my adult life! both of us were shocked and panic started to set in as we started seeing the horrible words "bed rest" flash before our eyes.

The OB on call (who rocked, by the way) came in to talk with us for a bit. We both learned a whole lot about chronic hypertension versus gestational hypertension. Since our baby has always been exposed to my highish blood pressure, if they were to put me on bp meds now, it could cause problems from my bp dropping way lower than the baby is used to. As long as my bp doesn't jump too high, and as long as the baby continues to develop, i should be good to go.

the downfall with all of this is the headache that won't go away and the fact that my right arm has started to ache when i'm up and about.

any guesses when i'll be put on bedrest? my current guess is by early december.. ugh!