Thursday, June 15, 2006

Blood Pressure follow-up

Erik and I went to see the midwife today to recheck my blood pressure. It was again slightly elevated at 120/80. The midwife had me lay on my left side on the table and relax for a few minutes and then she took it again while I was laying down and it dropped to 90/58. So clearly, while resting I'm doing great. She said it's probably the size of the baby and where it's putting pressure on my body while I'm upright that is just making my heart work a little harder at this point in the pregnancy. It's possible I might develop Pregnancy-Induced Hypertension if it continues to rise and just because rising blood pressure is a big component of pre-eclampsia, she had me go to the lab for a blood draw for a pre-eclampsia baseline reading in case I develop any other symptoms so they can then know where I was at in comparison down the road. And I did a urine test for protein spillage. She was obviously being a bit overly cautious and did not really seem too worried about it but she did go over all the other symptoms to watch out for and told me not to hesitate to call them should anything else come up. She did want me to continue the 2 hour rests in the morning and evening- especially since it was clear my blood pressure was much happier when doing so. The baby is fine- she was feeling my stomach for the position and said "boy, there's just baby everywhere in there". The baby is still head down with it's back along my right side and its feet on the left. The heartbeat sounds great and was in the 140s. She wanted me back to see them on Monday, but since Erik and I have to be there Tuesday night for an orientation meeting for birth at the center and walk through of the hospital facilities (in case we end up there) we got her to say Tuesday was fine since we live so far away. But it sounds to me like they might want to see me more like twice a week from now on.

4 comments:

Daddy said...

58 == w00t, is all I have to say.

Anonymous said...

Wow... you poor thing you must be so sick of getting stuck with needles. But peanut will be here soon...you're in the home stretch and I'm sure everything will be fine!!!!

Sarah G said...

yay for laying down! from now on, you should be lying down as often as possible. i think erik should hire you a gaggle of men to carry you around on one of those platforms with a chaise lounge on it.

Anonymous said...

Hey...enjoy that lying down now!! It really won't be happening much when baby arrives. Just watch movies and relax until then!!

Lisa & Charlotte