An Evening at the Hospital
Hello to you all.
Late yesterday Rebecca began to feel the slight twinge of a headache. This morning she awoke feeling "off" (a fact I observed throughout the day) and the headache had grown stronger. We gave Tylenol a chance to banish the headache, but after two doses, the headache grew stronger still. Both of these were signs of concern. At 6:00 PM I drove Rebecca to the hospital.
Rebecca's BP was 160/102 and stayed high the whole three hours of monitoring, never dropping below 150. All the standard labs were run. No protein in the urine and all the blood work came back negative, both good reports. The doctors found none of the signs of pre-eclampsia. The doctors feel that Rebecca had (probably) reached another level in this pregnancy which will require her BP meds to be adjusted. Apparently, this is common with pregnancies involving high BP.
Rebecca was given a heftier headache relief pill and told to double her BP meds, then return on Tuesday for a followup. Since we already have an appointment for Tuesday, this did not impact us further.
During tonight's stint in the hospital, Xavier was monitored. He was feisty and moved about a lot. His heart rate ranged from the low 130s to mid 150s. At several points he moved or kicked or punched hard enough to be felt on the surface of the belly instead of inside the body only. This is the strongest Rebecca has ever felt him move.
We are home now and Rebecca is resting. The headache is gone, only a feeling of a little pressure remains.
Always, we thank you profoundly for your prayers and support. Great is our God and He will bring us to the other side!
A Slow April Day
Hello to you all.
Today was a non-eventful day. After taking a dose and a half of Ambien, Rebecca was able to log five or so hours of sleep. While she slept, I walked the dog and quietly cleaned the kitchen and dining area. Once in the mood, I kicked in a whole-house vacuum once Rebecca got up. After completing this year's first of three furniture dustings, I spent the rest of the morning washing the windows.
In the afternoon Rebecca went in for a hair cut, then she had her car washed (inside and out). This evening she went out with two girl friends. She had been looking forward to this outing all day, and it helped her morale.
Xavier has been moving around today and he was especially active during dinner.
Thank you all for your prayers and support.
Week 28 Ultrasound Exam
Hello to you all and thank you for your prayers!
Today we had an ultrasound exam. The results were very favorable.
Our sonographer, Kathleen, had 11 years experience, proficient with the machine and she was informative. We also had a student, Penny, sit in on the exam.
Today's exam looked at mom's cervex, the placenta, and Xavier's brain, kidneys, stomach, bladder, amniotic fluid, heart, umbilical (with dopplers), femur length and humorous length. Xavier once again frustrated both sonographer and doctor from seeing his lips, now the one piece of data University Hospital still wants to get on film.
The cervex was strong and had a good thickness for this point in the pregnancy.
This is the first sonogram I remember that looked at the placenta (if it was looked at previously, I didn't know what we were looking at). By the time the doctor came in to explain the results to us, I forgot these measurements were done, so did not ask about them. The doctor did not comment.
Xavier's brain looks good. No abnormal amounts of fluid and blood flow clean and strong.
His kidneys looked fine, his bladder was nearly empty today (unlike mom's. Rebecca wanted to address that problem, but Kathleen said a full bladder would give her better images of several items). This is the first time we've seen an empty bladder. At this point, I will report his amnio fluid measurement was at 3.1 cm, a slight increase over last week, the bulk of the fluid still around his head and chest.
His heart was strong (150+ bpm) and well-formed, his femur and humorous well-formed. His stomach appeared healthy.
His dopplers were good, and back on the normal range (last week they were in the high end of normal). I asked to have a printout of one of the dopplers so I could post it, but we learned that the technicians are not allowed to print out anything that needs to be interpreted by a doctor.
We spent several minutes watching Xavier practice his suckling, his mouth and chin moving so wonderfully. At one point he was sucking on his umbilical. Because his umbilical was so near his mouth today no clean lip images could be obtained.
The waist measurement put Xavier at 1 lb and 7 oz, an increase of more than 4 ounces (140 grams) and puts Xavier in the second percentile. Xavier's growth development is at about 24 weeks, which means in two weeks since his last growth measurement he has grown two weeks worth. (last growth measurement had Xavier at 22 weeks). The doctor, though still terse, seemed more amiable today. She did underscore Xavier is still small (he is about a pound behind where he should be)
I was a little disappointed at the 2% value, but excited by everything else, especially since Xavier nearly met his goal of 200 grams!
Rebecca is doing well. She has learned when to recognize (without the use of a clock) when her blood pressure meds are needed. This has been helpful the last couple of days when we've missed the afternoon time a bit because we were otherwise occupied.
Once again, thank you for your prayers! We worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for His goodness, thanking Him for His hand on both Rebecca and Xavier.
A profile of Xavier. You can see one of his hands below his chin and a good shot of his nose.
This is another profile, a still shot of him suckling. There is a bit of his umbilical in the shot (it's not his hand this time)
This is a nice shot of Xavier's face from an angle looking from the top of the head.