Be prepared for a VERY long story about my stay in the Hospital

So it all started a few days ago.... I was sitting up on the couch, about to get up and go to the bathroom, when all the sudden baby Catcher gave a very HUGE kick in my back, which i could tell hit the kidney stone. It was SOOO extremely painful, i actually fell OFF the couch!! I recovered quickly but then noticed that suddenly my bladder was spasming. For the next day i could continually feel my bladder squeazing and contracting. and before you ask, NO these were not uterine contractions, it was VERY obviously just my bladder spasming. It became quite painful and rather unbearable because every time it squeazes i feel like i have to pee, even if i just went! (soo annoying!) It doesn't help that baby Catchers kick was also a turn and now he is head up with his feet down on my bladder. So often times in between it's own squeazing, the bladder gets a squeaze from a baby foot. Basically CONSTANT pain and discomfort.

Finally when i couldn't stand it anymore i decided to call and make an appointment to be seen, to see if there was anything they could do about this. The only appointment available was with the Nurse Midwife, now i knew she couldn't really do anything for me, after all, she can't write a prescription, however she was right down the hall from the other dr's so i knew she could find SOMEBODY to help me...lol. So yesterday (thursday) afternoon i went in to see her. Well of course just walking from the lobby to the back where they took my blood pressure made it INSANELY high. I am used to this, it happens at every appointment. BP this time though was 155/107, the highest it has ever been during this pregnancy. So anyway, the nurse puts me in a room to wait for the Nurse Midwife, and wait, and wait.....and WAIT. I don't think i've ever waited so long! Well she pops her head in for like a second to tell me that she took one look at the BP and the +1 Urine Protein and went straight to the perinatologist who happened to be there that day. She was waiting to hear from him.

So, wait a minute, i came in here to get my bladder problem fixed and now you're not even going to adress it??? Nope.

Now the Perinatologist is Dr Graham, we happened to have already seen him a few weeks ago, it felt like such a random appointment, all he did was take my history and send me on my way. However that meant that now when the Nurse Midwife came to him worried about my BP, he already had my history in his computer, so it turned out to have been a good thing. Well so then he decides i should be admitted to the hosptial and checked out. He agrees that these preeclampsia signs are very risky so early in pregnancy. (i was 26 weeks that day)

I get sent to Dameron Hospital in Stockton because we have Kaiser. And because with preeclampsia there's always a chance of early delivery, i needed to be at a hospital with a high level NICU, and while Doctor's Medical Center in Modesto, has a great high level NICU, it is not a Kaiser affiliated hospital. The nearest Kaiser affiliated hospital with a high level NICU is Dameron in Stockton.

I check in and they get me set up in a room, the whole drill of pee in a cup, strip down and put on a gown...i swear, there is no decency left when you're in the hospital, especially when you're pregnant!

The protein in my urine is up from the +1 at the dr's office to now a +2, probably because i had to be up the whole day from appointment to car ride to the hospital, to getting set up in the room, a lot of up time means a lot of high blood pressure, a lot of high blood pressure means poor kidney function, which in turn means more protein in the urine.

They took my BP and again it was too high, so they lay be down and try to get Catcher's heart beat on the monitor. I try to tell them that this is the MOST uncooperative baby when it comes to catching his heart rate EVER! at every appointment they spend quite a while just trying to find it with a doppler, which is a little wand that is more sensative than the pad they use for monitoring. They try and try and try and the little guy just won't hold still, they'll get his heart rate for a second and he'll turn over or literally KICK the monitor and it will shift on my stomach off of him. He's a strong little guy! At only 26 weeks, i am amazed at his strength. I think he thinks they are playing a game with him, because they push with the monitor and he pushes back, till he pushes it off! So they got out the doppler to find the best place for his heart beat and be able to know where to put the monitor. So they try and they try and they try some more, they could find it but only for a moment before he would kick them away, or if they found it, they couldn't get a reading on it for some reason. The dr was getting annoyed at nurse after nurse trying to get a read and he decided to take a try. He used the doppler but just couldn't get a consistent reading so he brings in an ultrasound... That's when the real drama began.

On the ultrasound the dr could find the heart beat but discovered that the reason even the doppler couldn't pick it up very well was because it was having arrhythmia. Now a doppler machine and even the fetal heart monitor uses every three beats and the time in between to give an average beats per minute. When Catcher is having arryhthmia (which means irregular heart beat) his heart takes a long pause after every two beats. The machine needs three consecutive beats to form an average. His heart is beating, and he's certainly not having any lack of energy because he was also moving all OVER the place! The kid has a swimming pool in there, i have a lot of amniotic fluid and he certainly makes good use of it! lol. This isn't a dangerous amount of fluid, just extra, that's why he has sooo much room to move away from the doppler, and his arrhthmia is why the doppler and other monitors can't get an accurate reading. You could clearly see where his heart actually would stop after every second beat, then start again. Now while he's in utero (in my belly) it's not a huge issue, because he's getting blood through the placenta that is pumping through his body with my heart doing the work. However, they then began to try to figure out what was causing these irregular heart beats. We watched as it continued, the dr waited a while, hoping it would just go back to normal, and it didn't. This began a whole new set of tests and questions left to be answered. So here they are telling me to relax and take it easy to keep my blood pressure down and they're telling me my baby's heart isn't working right....it's a little difficult to be calm about it.

Now i don't know why this is the first time we're seeing this, because we've had at least 4 or 5 ultrasounds already before this one in the hospital. And this is not the reason i came to the hospital at all, however, it all ends up being a good thing i was there because who knows if we would have caught this otherwise. Now we still don't know what is causing his arrhythmia, whether it's a deformation in his heart, or some other systemic problem, but we now will be meeting with a pediatric cardiologist who will be with us until delivery and be able to already be in the loop on the possible complications with little Catcher. If we hadn't caught this now, and the baby is born early without anyone knowing about this problem, the result could have been disastrous. And while the end result is still unknown, knowing that a pediatric cardiologist (kid's heart dr) will be there when he's born, already aware of what problems there may be, and be prepared to deal with them, that makes us all feel a little bit better.

On top of everything, they kept me overnight continually checking my BP and the baby's heart to see if it was any different, and never did they actually discuss my stupid bladder smasms....lol. I was in discomfort from them the whole time, but they wouldn't let me sit up, (which helps a little) and they had me on the hardest bed on the planet!! My right hip is arthritic and trying to sleep was near impossible. They finally let me go today (friday, January 8th) because they saw that while i was down the bp is pretty normal. I'm now on very strict bed rest, literally ONLY allowed up to go potty and THAT'S IT!! So if you come to my door and i don't answer, peek in my front window so i can see who you are and i'll tell ya to come in...i live on the couch, the most comfortable place on earth.

There's hope that with continued bed rest we may be able to hold Catcher in there until 32 weeks....and with a miracle, maybe even beyond. But it's all up to my body and how long before this preeclampsia decides to get worse...we won't know till it happens.

My husband and his father and brother in law gave me a blessing, we're praying Catcher's heart problem is not major and won't require surgery, but mostly we're praying for comfort that Heavenly Father will help us to feel comfort in the decisions we make on his and my behalf in the upcoming weeks. We pray for the doctors involved to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and able to make the best dianosis and choices for his eventual healthy outcome.

Thank you to everyone who is supporting us spiritually and physically and emotionally through this time, it means more than you know!!