Thursday, April 23, 2009

Side Effects

So pregnancy is a wonderful thing and the resulting child an amazing reward for months of sickness, pain and hard work. But today...well today, I'm just having one of those "crabby preggo" days and so I've taken to the blog to vent it out. Please bear in mind, the remainder of this post will be full of griping, nonsensical whining and random ponderings about truly unimportant or previous resolved issues.

I had an appointment with my midwife this afternoon. It's my third time seeing her and I truly like her and the two student midwives she has working with her. Every time I've seen her I've felt like the only pregnant person on the world (in a good way) and not rushed or dismissed because I'm just the mom not the birth professional. So today totally caught me off guard. I had Pre Eclampsia with Nate which resulted in having to be induced four weeks early. If you don't know about Pre Eclampsia you can go here for more info. The short and skinny is that it's a condition of elevated blood pressure that can seriously endanger mother and child and result in death for one or both. In my case, I didn't show any signs of Pre E until 36 weeks and then when I did my body went for it. My blood pressure was 140/100 which is very high and so we were admitted and induced. Luckily, Nate and I were both fine, but it was scary beyond words.

Ok, so back to the present tense. When I first contacted our midwife I told her of this condition and asked if that would prevent me from having the homebirth that I'm dreaming of with this baby. She said it shouldn't, that she'll monitor things and if it gets to a point that we need to look at transferring care and such then we'll do that. Well today I went in and she essentially seemed to be deciding whether or not she could keep me on as a patient because I have a history of Pre E. I completely understand where she was coming from, she's running a business and I could be a liability given my history so I hold no anger or resentment towards her. I was just really surprised by this since I thought we had already covered it months ago. Anyway, everything is fine, there is nothing in her regulations about a history of Pre E just the protocol in case it presents itself. So, we're not switching midwives and things are good. BUT, the first 20 minutes of my appointment were spent discussing this and me (the worrier that I am) thinking I'd have to find a different midwife and knowing that there aren't any others in the area that will do a homebirth whom I feel comfortable with. So my anxiety was raised and for some reason, when I'm pregnant, it takes hours for it to come back down.

So, I sit here now with a new Prenatal Yoga dvd to start practicing, a cup of tea and two happy boys to keep my stress level down. I hate that my mind gets so wrapped up in things like this. I've always been this way so I understand why it happens, but it doesn't make it easier to resolve.

When it comes down to it, I just want a healthy baby in the fall. That's it. Time to refocus on that. Oh and to end on a positive note, our ultrasound is scheduled for next Thursday so I'll be sure to report back if we find out the gender. I was so opposed to finding out originally and now I can't wait. See, that there is also pregnancy related craziness.

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