Lately I seem to leave the doctor's office with something. The past weeks have included my belts for the NST monitoring, and this week included a big orange jar for a 24 hour urine collection!
The beginning of the appointment began a little rough. I am nearing the 30 pound mark in terms of weight gain (yikes!). There was a slight trace of protein in my urine and then my blood pressure was over 150. But then we hooked the girls up. I had a big glass of apple juice (and a little mountain dew, I know I know...) before my appointment and the girls were thoroughly enjoying it while they were strapping me up to the monitors. They were moving like crazy!!! Their heart monitor strips looked great! So all is well with Madelynn and Matilda. Dr. Fallon was really pleased with the girls, but not with my blood pressure. High blood pressure and protein in the urine are signs of pre-eclampsia. According to wikipedia, pre-eclampsia is
"a medical condition where hypertension arises in pregnancy (pregnancy-induced hypertension) in association with significant amounts of protein in the urine. Because pre-eclampsia refers to a set of symptoms rather than any causative factor, it is established that there are many different causes for the syndrome. It also appears likely that there is a substance or substances from the placenta that may cause endothelial dysfunction in the maternal blood vessels of susceptible women.[1] While blood pressure elevation is the most visible sign of the disease, it involves generalized damage to the maternal endothelium, kidneys and liver, with the release of vasopressive factors only secondary to the original damage."
It's not good for me or the girls if this is really what is going on. So, they repeated the blood pressure and it was down to 134. They sent me home with the tools to collect urine for 24 hours to determine how much protein is really in my urine and to help determine if this is really going on. The hardest part is that the "collection" must stay cold (ie refrigerated)! Also, they will repeat my blood pressure and do a urine dip before my ultrasound on Thursday. I am suppose to call or go to L&D is my hands or face are swelling, I have a headache, feel light headed or start seeing spots. Oh, the only real solution for preeclampsia is delivery.
The good news is that I hit 35 weeks on Wednesday and my blood pressure did come down when they redid it. So, I am not worried quite yet - but it does put a little pressure on us to make sure everything is ready for the girls to be here any minute.
On a side note - Josh was so funny! Over the weekend he kept wanting to talk about serious topics while we were running errands like healthcare reform, the new cigarette tax to fund the trauma center here, the stimulus package etc... We often sit on different sides of the issues, and I kept telling him he was raising my blood pressure! So he felt like all of this was his fault!!! Bless his heart! I am sure I will be even more spoiled than I have been for these last few weeks ;-)
On a non-pregnancy funny note - we are the head and neck section in school. Today was removing the scalp from the head. One of my peers came by and was like "That is so gross" and we were like "I know, the skull is so hard" and he was like "No the moustache." I laughed so hard because I was like we have this disected cadaver and what is gross is the moustache, not the eyes...!!! You know your in medical school when...
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