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Posts Tagged ‘high risk’

Last week had the potential to be a really shitty week. A really shitty Christmas week.

Julie’s 24hr urine test showed a “higher than the doctor expected” amount of protein (526mg) in her urine and after a few more higher than normal blood pressure readings at our respective doctor’s offices our High Risk OB group was a ginger’s pubic hair away from admitting Julie into the hospital with preeclampsia. She would stay in the hospital until our family increases from 3 to 5.

We’ve gone through tears and crying about the thought of her actually missing Christmas morning with our son.

We’ve run over the logistics of having a wife in the hospital 50 minutes away where our son isn’t welcome because of the bullshit swine flu. Also factoring in that he’s doing really really well in his new bed.

We’ve realized that there is nothing more painful than not being able to see your kid.

We understand the need for hospitalization,  but we also understand that 32 weeks isn’t our perfect scenario to meet our children for the first time.

We wanted to avoid it until it was absolutely necessary.

So we took some precautions with Dr. Losure’s help at High Risk OB at Delnor Hospital.

Julie has been taking her blood pressure readings at home with a recommended wrist cuff (we got it at walgreens for about 40 bucks). She has been given the list of symptoms of preeclampsia to watch out for and has taken it down from about a 5 on scale of 1-10, to about a 2.

Meaning I allow her to wipe her own ass and feed herself.

On Christmas Eve we met with our other doctor group and our doctor there was happy with the bp readings Julie has been having, as well as the lack of any significant protein in her urine using the chincy little dipsticks they use.

He understood the strain a Christmas in the hospital would put on Julie if it wasn’t completely needed, so he scheduled another 24hr urine collection/blood test, and tomorrow we will find out the results of those tests.

We’re hoping we can add a few more weeks to our little baby farm up in Julie’s magic vag of enlightenment.

We will find out tomorrow. Until then…

Last Thursday we had a pair of doctor appointments, one at the OB group and one at High Risk OB @ Delnor Hospital.

Because of our previous visit to the OB group and their complete lack of being prepared, having read Julie’s file, and not knowing their own practice’s practices – we were prepping for a battle of words and belly bumps. Unfortunately for Julie, all of that worrying got her blood pressure up over her normal range and the MA informing her of it increased it even more.

Throughout this entire pregnancy Julie’s blood pressure has been hovering right around 120/80. Every visit was within a few points of the previous visit’s and even though we’ve had a few scares, those have always occurred after the bp reading was taken.

So when Julie was told she was 140/92 or around there for three different readings, two on the exam table and one sitting up straight in a visitor’s chair, the doctor wanted us to keep an eye on it mainly because it had never been an issue before and since we’re high risk, having twins and it’s getting towards crunch time.

What are we keeping an eye on exactly? Two things. If we were looking up a mountain we would first see Hypertension and then Preeclampsia. Thankfully Julie is showing no signs of having either besides the one episode of the high blood pressure. She doesn’t have puffy hands of feet, or “the look” of having anything similar to preeclampsia, says the High Risk doctor, but to be on the safe side he ordered her to collect her urine for 24 hours and then when she drops of her lovely pee, she gets to have some blood drawn.

Julie’s mom, Patti, is an MA herself so over the weekend she took Julies blood pressure a few more times to be sure she wasn’t actually consistent at 140/90 or anything close to that. Every reading had Julie down to where she normally is, if not lower. But regardless of our own findings, we trusted that we should follow through on the pissfest.

So our pissfest started yesterday morning. They gave her a jug of about 3/4 gallon and a handy dandy collection funnel, which is just the most seasonal and festive piss cup/pouring device I’ve ever seen. AND I’VE SEEN ALOT OF PISS COLLECTORS IN MY DAY, OH BOY.

She was instructed to toss out her first morning wee and then collect from there on out until the first morning wee of the next day, which was this morning.

Of course, in our lives, nothing comes without humor.
Keeping the funnel/hat away from our inquisitive son wasn’t the funniest part.
Storing the piss jug next to the orange juice in the fridge wasn’t the funniest part.
Watching Julie retrieve her piss jug every few minutes and the look on her face as she walked past us towards the bathroom (or as the label I put on the door says: SPECIMEN COLLECTION) wasn’t the funniest part.

No, no, no: the funniest part of the whole piss collection story is that Julie ran out of room.

Yes, Julie has a huge orange piss jug full of piss and two tiny tupperware containers full of preggopiss.

Today when she picks me up for our doctor appointment and her blood test, I’m going to make the piss jugs sit shotgun while I sit in back plugging my nose.

I love my wife, but I love laughing at her too. Every time I fall on my ass on the ice, or hit my head on a cabinet or crib, or slip on her panties lying all over the place, she laughs until she cries – well I will carry on the humor of this piss-sperience until she hits me really really hard, or the babies are born. I’m just that kind of guy.

As you can probably tell, I am not worried in the slightest that there is any noticeable protein build up in her tinkle. I believe our doctors are just being as cautious as they should be in a situation such as ours. I have a serious case of the positive thinkings going on and it wouldn’t be beneficial to Julie or the twins if I was to be a worry-wart and hounding over her pee like a koi-pond enthusiast hovering over his koi-pond, if his koi-pond were in fact nearly a gallon of bright yellow piss, in a jug, in my fridge, right next to the oj, right above my assortment of yogurts, cheap cheeses and fruit du jour.

If I know my wife’s piss, and I think I do, that jug has approximately 8 hours left before the acids in her wee wee tinkles eat through that plastic like hydrochloric acid on a cheap pair of rubber gloves.

I better get home and fortify the piss jug.

toodles.

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I’ve started to kick Julie out of the house. There is no way a woman can expect a miracle to be performed on a room full of instruments, computers and a 1974 Wurlitzer Funmaker during nap times and weeknights alone. Two out of the five weeknights I teach guitar lessons out of our house, and it seems every weekend is packed full of weddings, shopping trips and more and more fucking trips to Babies R’ Rippin’ Us Off than I care to admit.

So rather than dealing with the time crunch and having an excuse to not get my son’s new room done, I kicked the wifey out on Sunday so I could get my entire old office evacuated in preparation of paint and a race car bed. I did pretty well. The room is completely empty. But at about 8pm on Sunday through about 7am Monday morning, I was wondering if my request might end up hurting my wife and unborn twins.

Ya’ see, Julie accompanied her mother and sister and her kids, along with my son to St. Charles, Illinois’s Annual Scarecrow Festival. Fun was had by all, including a delicious cup of luke warm hot chocolate. Julie had a cup, her sister had a cup, mmmmm yummy.

As soon as Julie started heading back home to Yorkville, she started feeling queasy. She got home, cooked dinner, ate dinner and then headed up to bed around 7:30pm. Around 8pm I heard “Joel?” So I went upstairs to investigate. 11 hours later Julie was still ralphing her guts out in the bathroom while I laid awake hoping to comfort her if she returned to bed.

She came back to bed a few times, and I fetched her some crushed ice and some saltines, yet every few minutes I was jarred awake by the sounds of her spleen wanting to make contact with our toilet water and a rabid WREEEEETCH was heard throughout the entire neighborhood.

By 6:30am, as I got into the shower delirious and drunk on no sleep, Julie had just barely fallen asleep, and by the time I finished my traditional sinus rinse, she was back in the bathroom puking again. 11 hours, dozens of ralph wiggums, no fun. She wasn’t going to work today.

I headed in to work, knowing I would be called to take her to the doctor at some point, and about an hour into my day I took a call from her where she told me the OB group wanted her to get to the hospital to take in some fluids. I raced home, scooped her in my arms, threw her into the back of my pickup and raced north to Delnor’s Labor & Delivery Center.

We checked in and they immediatley tried to get her an IV running, but of course, that would’ve been what should’ve happened. Instead, my usually veiny wife was poked 4 times before the fourth nurse found a fitting vein. The not-so-successful pokers before that last nurse all called my wife ‘valvular.’ I didn’t know whether to be turned on or offended so I shut my mouth.

Two bags of Lactated Ringer’s in and we received a personal visit from our High Risk OB doctor, Dr. Losure, who came with a fresh set of wheels ready to wisk my wife away to get her cervix checked. Her cervix looks great and we got the chance to see our twins faces again, and a few print outs for the refrigerator too. Dr. Losure wheeled us back and instructed the nurse to give Julie one more bag, since she still hadn’t peed since we had first arrived at the hospital.

A few hours, and horrible soap operas later one of the doctors from the Focus on Women PB group that we se came by and cleared Julie to head home to take it easy. She’s been eating oatmeal in bird nibbles and drinking water in wussy sips ever since.

On the way home she called her sister, who, oddly enough was up all night and had taken off work that day just to pee out of her butt!

What did they ingest in common? A TEPID CUP OF HOT FUCKING CHOCOLATE. Yes, you can get food poisoning from a drink. I told my wife that she was drinking CARNY WATER and that was what made her puke puke all night.

Lesson of the day? If your hot chocolate is cool enough for you to drink it when you first get it, throw it the fuck away.

Love,

Dad.

photo credit: NickStenning

*NOT OUR DOCTOR’S PARKING SPOT – A MERE REPRESENTATION*

Well on July 8th we saw our general practitioner for the first time for this pregnancy.
The “prenatal visit” they tell me.

I don’t really remember all that poking, prodding and depressing conversation when we were there for our first child.
It seemed besides the initial excitement felt on our end and our continuing worry about managing a house with twins and an older brother, we have a truckload of bigger things to worry about.

Most importantly is the first 12 weeks. If the twins survive to 12 weeks inside the womb, their chances of survival make a huuuuge jump. If you were talking with your hands, you go from “weeeee chances” before 12 weeks to “yay chances” after 12 weeks.
So rather than convincing Julie to take a complete bedrest and avoid work altogether, our doctor put it out there that regular life and activities can continue but to put EATING, DRINKING FLUIDS and REST at the top of the list of things to do today, and tomorrow and for the next 4 weeks.

What I also thought was a pretty cool thing to say, our doctor made the comment that the prenatal vitamin CAUSES NASEUA, so in this case, since Julie has already been to the ER for dehydration and a nice little “HEY YOU’RE HAVING TWINS” moment, fluids and foods outweigh the necessity for the prenatal horsepills. So if you have to choose between pukey pukey and yummy yummy slurp slurp, go for the yummy slurps and foresake the pukey.

In addition to some simple counseling about the safety of our unborn twins and encouraging Julie to take the Zofran in case of emergency, we were also informed that we would no longer be seeing our general practice doctor for the remainder of the pregnancy. “I do singletons.” The doctor told us.

In a bizarre and morbidly blunt tone he said: “If you happen to lose one, then you’ll come back and see me.”

Coming from a family where the law of attraction and the belief that positive thinking is quite powerful, I don’t care to harbor such negative ideas, but I appreciate the sentiment.

The doctor continued to tell us that he WILL be in the delivery room, but not as quaterback as he was during our son’s birth.

So we learned a few things:

• Our due date is now February 16th, 2009
• We will be seeing a team of OBs (three to be exact) so on the day of delivery we will have an OB that knows all about Julie’s vajayjay and the state of our twins’ health
• This pregnancy is considered High Risk, so we will be going back to see our High Risk doctor from Julie’s last pregnancy on a regular basis

p.s. I always wanted to use vajayjay as a post tag! HAHAHAH!