Dr. Appointment

Today Jon and I got to meet Dr. P. She's very nice...a little awkward, but still informative and patient. She answered all our questions and took her time, which was good.

The appointment started out with the regular checks, so here they are:
Weight: Gained 0 lbs. Staying steady with a total of 26lbs!
Uterus: 33cms
Blood pressure: 137/93
Caleb's heart rate: 133bpm

Were you paying attention? Have you been learning from my oh-so-informative baby blog? If so, you would have noticed that once again, my blood pressure is high. Once again, I was left to lay on my side for 20 minutes or so, but this time, it didn't have the same effect. My blood pressure did go down, but only to 120/90. 120 is fine, but 90 is not. And since this is the second week in a row, the doctor has officially put me on bedrest.

First, we had another sonogram to make sure Caleb was doing okay. The sonographer had to look for heart rate, breathing, a certain number of body movements, and amniotic fluid. All of those were fine, though Caleb wasn't too cooperative with moving. I promised her he'd had the hiccups and had been rolling around just before the appointment (and is as I write this, as a matter of fact), but she had to witness it. We finally caught his foot twitch a little, his hand move, and we could see his lips moving as if he were sucking on a paci. It was pretty cute, if I do say so myself.

So Caleb passed, and we went back to the room to wait. I'd like to mention here that I was not wearing pants at this point, but the thin blue sheet they give me at the beginning of each appointment. So yes, I was waltzing down the hallway wrapped in a sheet. I think OBGYNs live to humiliate women, but that's just my opinion. :)

Back in the room, Dr. P discussed the sonogram and said it looked good and Caleb seemed to be doing fine. She said the sonographer did have some concern about the formation of Caleb's palate, that it might have a bit of a cleft to it, but from the images, it looked like his nose was just jabberwocky because it was smooshed against the placenta. However, to make sure, we're getting another sonogram next time, and probably in 4D! The dr. was really not concerned, so we won't be either. But good grief, isn't it amazing the random things that come up!

Dr. P talked about the high blood pressure a little more. Basically, the only "cure" for it is to have the baby, but our baby is clearly still not ready to come out (that's right, still no dilation or effacement). Because of that, any medical induction methods we could try would not work. So that's why we have to do our best to keep the blood pressure low to wait for Caleb to get ready to come. If the BP gets a lot higher with still no signs of progression from Caleb, I'll have to have a C-section. However, this doctor, like Dr. K, said that anything could happen, so we'll just wait and see.

I have to go in on Thursday for my blood pressure check and sonogram, and I think I'll be going in twice a week for BP checks until Caleb comes. Dr P felt the same as Dr. K, that we probably wouldn't be seeing this baby until the week of Thanksgiving.

So bed rest for me! I'm going to do enough work tomorrow to pass off the things I've been working on, and then I'm done! As you know, work has been quite stressful lately, so while I'm not happy that it's apparently affected my pregnancy, I will be glad to say goodbye to it a little earlier than expected, and get a chance to be rested and relaxed before Caleb comes.