36 weeks and counting

It has been a month exactly since I did a post - wow how time is flying. I can't remember if I posted about my hospital stay at 31 weeks if not here is a recap I ended up being really dizzy, short of breath, with a headache, and a few other things and called my clinic. Went in and my bp was 160/100 or something like that. I was sent to the hospital for monitoring and ended up spending the night. After a 24 hour urine collection and several blood tests they were unable to determine the cause of the bp raise and upped my medication.

At 35 weeks at my NST I came in and again I had highish blood pressure with a reading of 125/90 and then 140/100. Again I was sent to the hospital and 6 vials of blood and some monitoring later once again they could find no cause for the raise and I was sent up with higher dosage of medication.

Yesterday, at my second of my twice weekly NSTs my starting bp was 179/100 and so I was again hooked up for more BP monitoring and they took 8 vials of blood. My bp came down and the blood work all came back fine. So with no answers to the reason behind my higher blood pressure (and ultimately an average of 122/63) I was sent home to do a third 24 hour urine collection.

I am so frustrated by this blood pressure problem because there is no clear cut answer as to *what* is causing it (other than being pregnant). There is no rhyme or reason to the foods I eat and my bp (example yesterday all I had within the hours before the NST was some chocolate to wake up baby boy so he would move for the heart rate spikes and I had that high starting bp on Tuesday I had coffee and a chicken biscuit from McDonalds and my bp was 125/75). I don't have pre-e. There is nothing that anyone can point at and say this - this is what we need to adjust so that you can feel normal again.

And I'm looking forward to feeling normal again. Right now I can only be on my feet for 10-15 minutes before I get dizzy and my vision blurs. It isn't fun. If there was something I could do I'd be all over it. But it looks like all we can do is wait for baby boy to make his appearance. Overall, I love being pregnant I love feeling Sammy move and kick and grow. But I'm ready for this to be over so I can go back to being a normal person in regards to how I'm able to live my life.

Speaking of Samuel in the last 3 weeks or so he has started this fun game of not behaving during our NSTs. Example on the 15th of this month (November) we were hooked up and Sammy was moving but his heart rate was not going up. In fact it pretty much stayed on the baseline for over an hour. The blood pressure changes we did have went the wrong way. He actually had readings in 80s that last for several minutes. Finally after what felt like eternity his heart rate went back up and he was back to normal. The next NST (this past Tuesday) he was pretty baseline but did give a few 10-12 point heart rate jumps. Yesterday he was the perfect little man.

So here we are just over 36 weeks along and waiting to see when the boy will come. We are nervous and excited and ready to hold our little man in or arms. Brett actually told me the other day that he is about ready for it. It is going to be such a life changer but we are ready.

Me as of this morning with a nice round belly. We had family visiting for Thanksgiving and baby boy refused to move. After they left he started stretching and wiggling and continued to do so non-stop through yesterday evening. It was actually the best part of my day sitting in the car before my NST watching my tummy stretch.

We aren't doing much for the boy for Christmas this year (having him is his gift lol) but we are doing a few small things and one of those is a book that I actually ended up having to order from Amazon because for some strange reason B&N didn't have it. Anyway Love You Forever is the book. I remember my mom reading it to my brothers and I can't wait to read it to my own son.