The Doctors and What They are Saying

I see a practice that includes 7 different doctors that deliver babies. The goal while you are pregnant is to see each of the 7 doctors so that when you deliver, you have at least met that doctor. Each day one of them is on call at Wake Med, so in our stay we have seen each of them multiple times and gotten to know a little about their personalities.

After 3 or 4 days in the hospital, we asked to talk to the doctor just to hear what"the plan" was. The most optimistic of the doctors, Dr. Wheeler, was on call, and she came to talk to us when she had a moment. Se indicated that the plan is to balance the baby's viability with my sanity. So initially we'll be very cautious, but at some point, if things continue to go well, we could liberalize a little bit, perhaps including trips to the bathroom at maybe 26 weeks, and possibly home bedrest at 28 weeks. While trying not to get my hopes up too much, these became the milestones to shoot for. Over the next few days we mentioned this to the other doctors and they seemed to agree that this was a good course of action/goals to have.

Mediction to prevent contractions and Non-Stress Tests (NSTs) on the baby continued. The NSTs are where the baby's heartbeat and my uterine activity (contractions) are monitored for 30 minute sessions. While we could see the number go up on the uterine activity, they are indications of normal activiity and not contractions. NSTs were done twice a day until Jan 3rd, at which point I was moved to once a day, since the tests have all looked good.

I had a bout of low blood pressure for a day or two, but that did not worry the doctors. Being inactive plus the medications causes this, and given that I had no dizziness (except for 2 brief episodes of like 2 seconds of dizzy) it was not anything to worry about.

I had a long bout of constipation that was pretty miserable. Again, inactivity can cause this, so after an initial voluminous bowel movement (that is now a Haywood family joke), I had 8 days of no activity. Misery. Food started to not appeal to me, and I just felt awful. They put me on Miralax and thankfully after 4 days it did it's magic and all is well now.

After 18 days in the hospital, I was cleared for bathroom priveleges on Jan 3rd. I never thought I would celebrate going to the bathroom on my own, but came just shy of posting this as my Facebook Status that day! The first time getting vertical after 18 days was interesting - got a huge headrush, and my legs were very wobbly, but it's gotten much better over the last few days. Also noticed once vertical that my belly has gotten bigger!