The Birth Story- Part I

**This story is probably going to take a couple posts and will probably be pretty boring to most people but I wanted to make sure I wrote everything down while I still remember the details.**

I guess I kind of jinxed myself with my post from April 20th where I said that everything had been pretty much great so far and that it could have been a lot worse. At that time I was having two appointments a week, one was a non-stress test and a regular OB appt and the second was just a non-stress test. It wasn't too bad, although she always seemed to be sleeping during the stress test so I would have to stay hooked up to the monitors longer than usual until she decided to move around enough to satisfy them. I was never worried about how she was doing, she moved around plenty the rest of the time! After one especially lengthy stress test my doctor sent me over to the hospital for a biophysical profile, which is basically a more extensive ultrasound where they measure the baby's breathing, heart beat and movement. Of course right after I left my doctors office she started moving around like crazy so it was no surprise when the ultrasound tech said everything looked perfect with her. At my appointment on April 29th my blood pressure was pretty elevated and there was protein in my urine so my doctor decided that the hospital was the best place for me to be. I was pretty bummed since there was still another month before she was due but I went home and let Michael know what was going on. I packed up not sure if I would be there for just a night or until the baby came. It turned out I was only there for one night, they monitored my blood pressure and I did a 24-hour urine test, which are a blast if you've never done one. For a 24-hour period you have to collect all of your urine in a big jug, yeah, lots of fun. They let me go home the next afternoon on bed rest, I was only supposed to be out of bed to grab something to eat, shower, or use the bathroom. That was really hard to do, I didn't feel bad or anything so I really wanted to get up and tackle my to do list. Instead I was able to work from home on my laptop, read and sleep a lot, pretty boring. I did get up a few times to actually cook and once I even went to the grocery store. Which probably didn't help my blood pressure because at my appointment a week later on Monday, May 9th my doctor decided to put me in the hospital for good until the baby came. My blood pressure was still high and when he came into the room where I was hooked up for the stress test I said "What do you say we get this baby turned around and get it out", he laughed and agreed that was probably the best option. He was debating on whether or not to induce me that Thursday (just a few days later) so we decided to do an amniocentesis which would allow them to test how developed the babies lungs were. I really wasn't thrilled with the thought of a long needle going into my stomach but I also didn't want the baby to have problems with it's lungs. The next morning the ultrasound techs came in with their machine and Dr. Murphy came in to do the amnio. The ultrasound techs checked to see where the baby was and where a good place for the needle was to make sure he got plenty of fluid. He went it just below my sternum and it honestly wasn't as bad as I anticipated. The needle wasn't the most comfortable thing but it really didn't hurt besides the initial poke. I just turned my head to side and looked at the wall until it was done. Afterwards I was a little clammy and nauseous but I think that's because I psyched myself out about and I was fine after 5 minutes or so. Dr. Murphy stopped back by that afternoon with the test results. They had done two tests, the first test result level was 20-something and he said they wanted a result over 40 which meant that the babies lungs weren't anywhere near ready, which is common in gestational diabetes pregnancies. The second test they did was a result of 50 and they wanted it to be over 55, so the second test showed that the babies lungs weren't nearly as immature, maybe. He said that since the two test were pretty contradictory that he recommended I do a round of steroids to help boost lung development in the baby. They gave me my first steroid shot shortly after and the nurse was nice enough to let me know that it was going to burn like hell. I'm glad she warned me because it really did hurt. They did the second one 24 hours later and it hurt just as bad. Because of this I didn't end up being induced on Thursday, the baby was still breach at this point so he still had to attempt to turn her. Friday came and Dr. Murphy said that since my blood pressures were still doing really good that he didn't feel the need to deliver the baby, he wanted to see me go as far as possible. I wanted this too, but I was getting really tired of the hospital and I was only on day 5. So he said that he would try turning the baby on Monday or Tuesday and we would go from there.