At 35 weeks I was told that I again had pregnancy-induced hypertension, just like I did with Preston. Fortunately, this time it was much later that it developed, so I didn't spend several weeks doing extra lab tests and bedrest to keep my blood pressure in the "safe" zone. Instead, I watched how I was feeling and had extra labs for 2 weeks. Then at my 37 week appointment my blood pressure was 150/100 so I got sent to labor and delivery for monitoring and testing, and possibly to be induced if things didn't look right. Immediate labs looked ok so they sent me home after a few hours to do the 24 hour labs a third time. However, between my appointment and getting to the hospital for monitoring, I developed a headache and Tylenol did nothing for it.
So I got home and did the 24hr stuff, and that evening noticed a few new things. Mainly, my ability to pee seemed to be almost completely gone. This is kind of important, as the main part of the 24hr labs is collecting urine for 24hrs straight and taking it in to be tested. My urine output over that 24hrs was about 1/4 of what it was when I did the 24hr labs a week earlier. The headache also started getting worse the morning after my appointment, so I put in a call to my midwife and ended up sent back to the hospital.
Anyone who has kids knows that being sent unexpectedly like that can be a bit of trouble to find a sitter on a whim, so I ended up having to wait until Scott was at lunch break to get him on his way home to drop me off at the hospital and watch the kids. I wasn't thinking too clearly at that point, as the headache was getting in the way of that, or I would have called one of a couple people I had lined up for this birth.
I was monitored less than an hour while the midwife on call (my midwife was out sick the last couple days) looked over my chart to see what this pregnancy and the one before had done and she waited on labs. I got 3 high blood pressure readings in a row, 15 minutes apart each, and she decided to induce me. So, Pitocin and antibiotics for me and then 4 hours later the lovely epidural (I knew what Pitocin does to me already and chose to take the wimp route with NO regrets). A total of 8 hours after the induction started, little Nathaniel was born clocking in at 6lb 6oz and 20" long. He was perfectly healthy, though TINY for us after having three 8lb newborns before him.
I had the foresight to take off that week from lessons because I just didn't feel good at all, and I was induced on Friday afternoon (he was born at 12:20am Saturday) so the kids and I had a week of me just feeling yucky and resting. Then we took off on baby break so I could obviously recover, as an epidural is one of those things that just takes a little time to recover from. He is now 9 days old and my back still aches a little once in a while where it was done, but it is much better.
We picked up schoolwork again today. Yes I said today. We needed the routine back in our life, that normal feeling. We started with just math, science, and literature (science and literature is me reading to them and then on weekends they do the experiment with Scott maybe, but he doesn't know that detail yet heehee). Later in the week I'll add in reading some of "A Child's History of the World" to cover history with a little about the middle ages while I pull together a few resources to finish an Ohio unit that we had started just before we went on break. Next week, we'll add in some electives.
And now, enjoy a little bit of tiny new baby cuteness.
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