Pregnancy Week 35 - Monday January 19th, 2009

Dear Nakasone-Chan,

After another sleepless night in the hospital, my doctor showed up bright and early in the morning to check our progress. She reviewed our overnight monitoring and saw that your heart rate fluctuated once or twice during the night when I had a few minor contractions. Since my condition wasn’t improving and you were far enough along, she felt that you should be delivered ASAP. Now I know that moms to be are never prepared for their big day, but I couldn’t describe how overwhelmed I felt at that moment.

We discuss both cesarean section versus a vaginal birth and our doctor was willing to try for a natural birth. However, at any sign of complication we would revert to a c-section. I was really hoping for a natural delivery, so I was happy. Before we began the inducement process, our doctor wanted to make sure you could handle the heavy contractions and the birthing process, so they wanted to give us what they call a non stress test. During this test they would provide me with medication to give several contractions to see how you would respond. If you passed the test we would proceed with a natural birth. If not, we would opt for a c-section.

After they hooked my IV up with the Pitocin used to give me minor contractions, the test only lasted 1 hour. Thankfully, you passed the test with flying colors. Around 11am, the decision was made to move forward with an induced natural birth.

The next the step was to get my cervix ready for deliver. Since my body wasn’t “ready” to deliver you, they had to give me a medication called Cervidil to soften my cervix. I won’t get into too much detail but the medication is applied to the cervix through an application very much like a tampon. It was a painless process.

Since the Cervidil takes up to 8 hours to soften my cervix we had a lot of down time. In the meantime, they decided to move me to a permanent room for delivery. The nurses allowed Daddy to choose a room for us since they had two available. He picked a nice room that had a decent view of the mountains. Here we are transferring to our new room:









In the early evening, the nurses checked my cervix and decided that we needed another round of Cervidil before they began inducing. Your Aunt Val came down from San Francisco to keep us company, take care of your canine brother Iki and to pick up some much needed coffee from Starbuck for your dad.

Around 10pm, our doctor felt that my cervix was soft enough to begin inducing. They hooked my IV up to Pitocin and began the process. My doctor estimated that you would be delivered sometime in the late evening the next day. We were hoping that you would be born today since your dad and I both have birthdays on the 19th (mine in February and your dad’s in May), but in a way I was relived to have some extra time to prepare.

Love,
Mommy

Pregnancy Week 35 - Sunday January 18th, 2009

Dear Nakasone-Chan,

I had a feeling this was not going to be a good day. First off the Eagles lost to the Cardinals in the NFC championship plus day one of my bed rest was already starting to drive me crazy. How can you sit in bed all day? I didn’t think it was going to be hard considering my two favorite things are sleeping and watching TV. Maybe it’s the nesting instinct in me, but all I wanted to do was get up and clean the house. I didn’t realize how tiring it is to be stuck in bed all day. How ironic.

Around 5pm, we made our way over to the hospital for our first fetal monitoring appointment. I told your dad to come along since I figured it would only take about an hour.

At the hospital, we made our way over to Labor and Delivery where they placed us in a temporary room and hooked us up to a fetal monitor. From there the nurse checked my blood pressure (still high) and my reflexes (another sign of pre-eclampsia is jerky reflexes). Thankfully there was a TV in the room where we passed the time watching the Steelers/Ravens game. Literally about 3 hours later a nurse came into the room and told us that they would be admitting me into the hospital for the night. UGH, now what? Apparently, you were not reacting well to some of the mild contractions I was having. While the nurse said this could be a fluke (many babies don’t handle contractions well), my doctor wanted to admit me into the hospital over night to continue monitoring just to be safe.

10 minutes later my nurse comes in with an IV. My doctor wanted me hooked up to an IV to prevent dehydration. I instantly feel sick. Needles in the hand petrify me. Stick me a 100xs any other place, but not in my hand. I start shaking as the nurse starts to prep the IV. She sticks me 1x on the left hand and of course gets nothing. I think I made her nervous considering I was shaking, so she called in another nurse to try and insert the IV. Nurse #2 sticks me 2 times and again comes up with nothing. They call in nurse #3 who thankfully does the deed and manages to hit a vein. Looking back, this was probably one of the worst parts of the entire experience. Here I am with my battle wounds:













The nurse explains that they will continue to monitor you through the night and based on the results will determine a plan in the morning.

I send Jon home to get a good nights sleep (lucky him) because there wasn’t any beds in my “temporary” room. My night however was spent being woken up every couple of hours to check my vitals and the beeping of my obnoxious IV (the IV is ultra sensitive and will beep if I move a certain way… only a nurse can turn the beeping off).

At this point, I still remember feeling fairly confident that things would turn out OK. The nurses assured me that you were still fine inside of me and that they would respond immediately at the first sign of any trouble. I was still nervous, but had this gut feeling that every thing would work out in the end. I just didn’t realize how fast things would move in the morning.

Love,
Mommy

Pregnancy Week 35 - Saturday January 17th, 2009

Dear Nakasone-Chan,

24 hours in the hospital is not fun. Constant monitoring all day and night tied with peeing in a bucket was pretty miserable. However, I will say that the food wasn’t really that bad although they skimped on the portion size. Come on, I'm pregnant... bring on the food! Today was pretty much spent watching television, updating my family and browsing the internet.

The 24 hour screening ended at 2pm followed by a series of blood work. Based on the results of the urine test and my blood work would determine whether you would be born today.

A couple hours later my doctor informed me that there was 2.5 grams of protein in my urine. Yay we passed! However, they did notice high levels of toxins in my kidney (another symptom of pre-eclampsia). Based on the results she felt it was ok to send me home on bed rest. Since I was still at a high risk, I would have to continue to come into the hospital every other day for fetal monitoring to make sure you’re still ok. In addition, I would still have to collect my urine at home and bring it in with me to make sure the protein level was still consistent.

I was so relieved to hear that we were both ok to go home. We were released from the hospital around 6pm.

Love,
Mommy

Pregnancy Week 35 - Friday January 16th, 2009

Dear Nakasone-Chan,

Today we went in for our 35 week check up. It started off as a normal visit but turned into a series of life changing events for both of us.

The appointment started off pretty typical. Check in, pee in a cup, weigh in (190lbs, son!) and have Lois the office midwife check our vitals. Lois took note that my blood pressure was on the high side, but attributed it to the sometimes faulty machine. She also made a comment that your weight measured by the ultra sound the night before was on the low side (they estimated you were 4lbs 11oz). Other than that everything checked out. As the appointment was ending, my OB Dr. Parekhji bursts through the door and told me to get undressed. She told Lois that they found a high amount of protein in my urine and she needed to check me out immediately. Lois filled her in on my high blood pressure and your low weight. I’ll never forget how frantic she looked as she checked my cervix and uterus.

After she gave me a full inspection she told me that I have pre-eclampsia and asked me the location of my local drug store. I had no idea what pre-eclampsia was, but figured that the prescriptions she was writing would solve the problem. I asked her what the prescriptions where for and she told me pain medication in case I have the baby today. WHAT!?! I seriously think my heart stopped. She went on and told me that pre-eclampsia was a serious complication of pregnancy that can affect both you and me. If left untreated it can lead to severe seizures for me and lack of nutrients for you (that explained your low weight). She went on to inform me that the only cure for pre-eclampsia is delivery and that I would need to go to the hospital to check into Labor and Delivery immediately.

At the hospital, they immediately checked into a room and hooked up a monitor to observe your heart rate. Of course I forgot my cell phone that day, so I couldn’t call your dad until I was settled into my room. Once I got a hold of him and he recovered from the shock of the news, he came over immediately to the hospital. I think he probably suffered from a mild anxiety attack.

My doctor decided that she wanted to screen my urine for a 24 hour period to determine the severity of the pre-eclampsia. Since I was only 35 weeks she preferred to wait a week to deliver rather than induce immediately. If the protein level in my urine was high (above 3 grams) they would deliver. If it was under 3 grams they would put me on bed rest and wait a week or so to deliver. I didn’t have any other major symptoms of pre-eclampsia at that point except for a slightly higher blood pressure, so I felt pretty confident that we wouldn’t have to deliver.

At this point the only thing we could do was wait.

Love,
Mommy