Bi-Weekly NST

So after my hospital visit my doctor decided to have me go into a doctors' office in the hospital for bi-weekly NST's and an AFI. An NST is a Non-Stress Test, and an AFI is an amniotic fluid check. My doctor just wants to monitor my blood pressure really closely to make sure it doesn't go up too high. So twice a week I go in and they do an ultrasound to check the amniotic fluid levels and then they hook me up to two different monitors. The first one measures Colin's heartbeat and the other one sits at the top of my uterus and measures to see if I have a contraction. I am also hooked up to a blood pressure cuff that goes off about every ten minuets. I usually am there for about half an hour. What they are wanting to see is my blood pressure going down from me resting and they want to three good spikes in Colin's heart rate. The spikes are good because it tells them that he is moving well and getting the things he needs from the placenta. I really like the nurses that are there. They are super nice. They will even print me out pictures of Colin when they are doing the ultrasound.

Hospital Visit

So on Thursday I had a doctor appointment. Everything was going fine until the nurse took my blood pressure. She took it right after I peed in the cup and it was high, so she had me just sit there for a few minuets hoping it would go down after getting on the bed. When she took it again, it was still high. It was 141/84. This number caused concern with my doctor and she had me go to the hospital after my appointment. She checked Colin's heart rate like normal and he was right where he needed to be, which was a relief. At first I was really scared that my blood pressure was so high. I was thinking off all kinds of worse case scenarios. The one I thought of most was that I would be delivering Colin that day. Having Joel with me the whole time was a great comfort. I don't know how well I would have handled things on my own. On the drive to St. Mark's I had started to calm down, which was really helpful with being able to talk to the nurses. When I got to the hospital I had to talk to the billing and coding lady to be put into their system. I then went to get an ultrasound to check the amniotic fluid levels, which were all good. They then took me to the triage room and had me take a stress test which consisted of them hooking me up to the fetal monitor and a blood pressure cuff and having the thing take my blood pressure every 15 minuets. After about 2 hours they sent me home with a 24 hour urine collection jug and told me that every time I went pee I was to put it in this jug and bring it back the next day so they could see if there was protein in my pee. (Having to do that was so weird and a very annoying task.) So on Friday I went back and they did another stress test and they took some blood to do some other labs. All of my tests came back just fine. I just have gestational hypertension. So far the doctor's orders are that I just need to take it easy and not do too much. The OB that was at the hospital said that I might be delivering 4 to 5 weeks early, but we will see how things go. It is going to be hard to just sit. I am more of a doer than a sitter. But I know that my wanting to have Colin be healthy is more of priority than curing my own boredom. While we were at the hospital Joel took the liberty of taking some pictures, mostly out of sheer boredom. And the picture of the drinks is included because on Friday the ice chips were all that I could have. I didn't complain too much because they were abnormally tasty.

Baby Registry

Last night Joel and I went to Babies "R" Us to register for baby things. We went through the store and registered for most of the big things. Joel started to get tired so we went home and I finished registering on-line. Today I went on-line and made a baby registry for Target. It's nice to have the registering out of the way. Now I just have to see if anyone gets me the stuff we put on the registries. If anyone reads this and wants to check out the registries just go to www.target.com or www.babiesrus.com and click on find a registry and type in my name.

Glucose Test

On Thursday I had another doctor appointment. For this visit I had to drink a glucose drink and then they took my blood to see if I have diabetes during my pregnancy. Everyone was telling me that the drink is super gross so I was expecting the worst. But the drink wasn't too bad. It just tasted like over sugared Orange Crush. I haven't gotten the results back yet, but I'm sure I am fine. They took three vials of my blood because they need to see what my blood type is and they are going to check and make sure my vitamin D levels are where they need to be. I am hoping my levels are where they need to be because I have been taking a vitamin D pill with my prenatal vitamins everyday since the doctor told me my levels were low. I just hope everything is good when I get the results back. And now that I am in the third trimester I will be seeing the doctor about every two or three weeks. It is hard to believe that I only have three months left...

St. Mark's Hospital

Last Wednesday Joel and I went and took a tour of the Womens Pavilion at St. Mark's Hospital. The tour was of the Labor and Delivery room and then the Recovery room. They have a very nice facility with excellent security. I am very pleased with everything there. Just walking around on the tour I felt very comfortable, so I know I will feel more comfortable during the time that I will be there. It was very interesting to be around so many other pregnant women on the tour. There were about 8 other couples on the tour. All I need to do now is get signed up for the birthing class...