Third trimester

It seemed like it took forever to finally get to the home stretch of this pregnancy but when I did finally get there it had news for me. My blood pressure had been steadily climbing from 20 weeks. I went in to the dr for a regular monthly check up and my blood pressure registered at 141/96. Mine had always been in the 120/70 range.  I didn't think this was all that bad. I knew it was climbing and my doctors had suggested cutting salt and exercising a little bit. We'll that didn't help. After taking an easy spring break if had an appointment with a high risk pregnancy specialist. While I was there my blood pressure came back 143/97. If my blood pressure were to get over 160/100 on either number. (The bottom is where we were worried for me.) they would have to take the baby.  With protein in my 24 hour urine collection it was official. I had preeclampsia. I was put on strict bed rest for the remainder of my pregnancy. Twelve weeks is a really long time when you are staring at the beginning of it. I had to go tell my principal that afternoon. We got a sub for the rest of the day and the rest of the school year. I've never been so sad in my life. It was like my entire life just stopped. We had to sell our tickets we had bought to George straights last concert.  And I was stuck flat on my back in bed for three months. I had a whole new schedule focused around growing a healthy baby now.  Mondays I would check in at school. Tuesdays I had a nonstress test. Wednesdays I got to pee in a cup all day for a 24 hour urine culture. Thursdays I took that into the lab, and Fridays were my regular appointments with nst and ultrasounds to check fluid levels around baby. We settled into a nice little routine with this and I became very close with my doctors and their staff at gila valley clinic. Amongst all of this

 I also had to do the three hour test for diabetes. And sure enough I got that too. This really bothered me. I had always had the opinion that if I was on bed rest that at lest I could eat whatever I wanted. Nope! Now I had to diet and poke my fingers four times a day. It was probably for the best though. I might have gained a hundred pounds otherwise. Then at 33 weeks I was having pretty regular contractions. They weren't painful but were coming about three minutes apart.  We went in to the hospital and sure enough I was in labor. They tried sand tried to get the contractions to stop. The mess they gave me were terrible and I didn't sleep the first night we were in there. I stayed in the hospital for three days. We figured out I had an electrolyte imbalance. I was very low on potassium and magnesium. Magnesium is what they use to stop contractions. So after getting two bags of magnesium and lots of ginormous potassium pills they slowed contractions down to every fifteen minutes and did a test to make sure I wasn't dilating. I got to go home for another few weeks of baby cooking.  I had one more small hospital stay a few nights before I was to be induced. My blood pressure was high at my 37 week appointment. We had all decided to induce me at 38 weeks to avoid any complications. We were sent to the hospital for observations. My blood pressure went down and we went home for three nights until it was time to be induced. Third trimester was not kind to me.