Taking It Easy

Due to my high blood pressure, midwife wants me to "take it easy" until my next appointment, which is Monday with the OB who is overseeing my VBAC.

Easier than usual? To be honest, my hips and pelvis hurt so much that between fetching meals and snacks for Freyja and myself, going to the bathroom, and occasionally unloading the dishwasher or switching laundry loads, my butt stays in the recliner. Then every evening I do some of the spinningbabies.com postures to attempt to make up for the time in the recliner. From what I can tell, the baby is happily right occiput anterior, so I must be doing something correctly. Left occiput anterior is the end-all-be-all of optimal fetal presentation, but I'll take what I can get.

I'm not sure how much "easier" I can take it without becoming comatose. My blood pressure remains high, but I have zero other symptoms of pre-eclampsia. I'm still wearing my rings and I still have ankles. I am not at all puffy (erm...puffier than usual). In theory, we are still "only" talking pregnancy-induced hypertension (because my blood pressure is shockingly normal when I'm not incubating another human life).

I'm supposed to lie on my left side a lot. I have a stupid uncomfortable couch and a three year old who requires constant supervision just due to her age. She is good about playing independently, which is nice for me - but I can't just hole up in my bedroom while she has run of the rest of the house. Let me tell you that this is probably not going to happen much. Comfortably ensconced in the recliner is the best I can hope for. I might be able to swing 15 min out of an hour on my left side on the couch. Any longer and I'd fall asleep. Not a good thing.

Off to meditate before sleep and see if that helps the blood pressure any.

One calendar month til my due date.

VBAC Consult

I was very pleasantly surprised. My assigned OB is a 4th year resident. She reminds me a lot of one of the docs I used to "work" with at the clinic where I did my AmeriCorps service.

She was very up front about what exactly I can expect, answered all of my questions without waffling or "maybe" or "we'll see". She said "This will happen, this will happen, this will happen, but beyond that, it's all up to you." So, I signed the consent forms and we're now officially planning a VBAC. The hospital seems to be very progressive as far as natural birth goes. None of the residents being trained do routine episiotomies, my OB at least will catch in any position I want to be in, and I was encouraged to use things like a birth ball, the shower and the tub. Excellent!

They don't use any ripening agents for VBAC's (very good) and will only use pitocin if a pressure catheter shows that contractions just aren't doing the work they should. Those are both very good things.

The only sucky part is that my blood pressure was REALLY high while we were there. They checked it twice. She ordered some blood work and I have to keep my pee for 24 hours to check for protein spilling in it. I am going to puke soooo much, just thinking about that makes me nauseous. Better safe than sorry, though.