39.714 Week Update

Why hello there! I figured my first post here could be an update on baby Reagan and what’s going on / why she isn’t here yet…especially considering we took a fun little trip to the hospital last night!

I haven’t been shy about complaining that I’m over being pregnant, so I’ll spare the details but my biggest issue for about the last week has been horrible sciatic nerve pain on my left side. Back issues run in my family (thanks dad!) and I have dealt with sciatic nerve pain before, but nothing has ever come close to this level of pain – I’m not exaggerating when I say I can barely walk. Also I should mention we live in a 3 story townhouse and have 2 dogs that need to be walked a few times a day. I’ve tried everything at this point aside from going to a chiropractor or for acupuncture – I have a heating pad, I’ve bounced/stretched on my exercise ball, gone on walks despite the pain, taken the safe dosage of tylenol, and had a reflexology massage and nothing has helped. So my goal in going to our doctor’s appointment last night was to get the doctor to take pity on me and schedule an induction for this weekend (due date isn’t til Thursday so I assumed they wouldn’t schedule anything before then) if she doesn’t come on her own. I was disappointed but not surprised to learn I’m still only 1 centimeter dilated even though I had my membranes stripped last week. I was surprised to hear my blood pressure had spiked. I’ve shocked myself by having a mostly perfectly healthy pregnancy, I’ve even lost weight and my blood pressure has gone to a more normal level than it was pre-pregnancy, as a matter of fact.

My doctor was concerned enough by the blood pressure increase to tell us to go to the hospital to get monitored and get labwork done, so we came home, grabbed our bags (I had a feeling we were jinxing ourselves by getting the bags!) and headed there. They took blood/urine samples and hooked me up to the monitors, and the first blood pressure read was actually normal. Then the urine labwork came back showing protein in my urine, which the nurse explained was cause for concern of preeclampsia combined with high blood pressure (either one by itself is ok), but since the first blood pressure they took was normal, she was pretty confident I was fine and they’d send me home. A few minutes later the machine checked my BP again, and it had jumped, so we were back to thinking we might be admitted/induced. The next 3 BP checks went down and the last one was pretty close to normal, so the doctor on call felt comfortable sending me home as long as I get checked out again within 48 hours. Not going to lie…while I don’t want my perfectly healthy pregnancy to take a turn for the worst in the home stretch, I was relieved knowing I might finally get some relief from the back pain by being induced and just getting her out of me!

Where we’re at now: I’m home, alternating sitting on the couch with a heating pad and bouncing/stretching on the exercise ball and (thank God) David got sent home from work to help around the house and with the dogs and be here in case a miracle happens and Reagan decides she’s ready to come out on her own. We’ll go to my doctor for another check-up tomorrow morning, and again I hope if my blood pressure is back to the normal range that she’ll just have mercy on me and schedule an induction for this weekend (or earlier). Considering how concerned she was by the increase in blood pressure last night, I have a feeling if my blood pressure is still on the higher-end of normal, she’ll order an induction sooner than this weekend.

In the meantime I’m going to *slowly* start getting some Christmas decorations up to keep me moving and to not have to worry about anything other than a tree once Reagan IS here. We’re also still holding onto hope that she’ll be here quickly enough so I’m not still in full-on recovery mode for Thanksgiving, when my dad and stepmom will be here from Tennessee and David’s daughter, mom, dad and sister will be here from Fresno. Please say a prayer that Reagan comes, ideally on her own, in the next couple of days!!!

Also side note – being in the triage area for labor and delivery was extremely unsettling. I did NOT enjoy hearing the sounds of other women in labor! I also felt slightly bad we were just sitting there watching the Holiday Baking Championship on TV while the girls around me were clearly in a lot of pain lol.

I’ll post another update after our appointment tomorrow, unless we’re in the hospital having a baby 🙂