So last week I had my appt. with the nurses.........just to backtrack: In the US I used to go to my monthly appt. and they would weigh me, take my blood pressure, check my urine, then I would go into the doc to be measured and hear the heartbeat.
Here, of course, it's a different story! My doctor's office does not have a nursing staff like the docs in the US. Instead, I make my monthly appointments with the nurses in the health care building, and a few days later, I go to my monthly appointment with my doc who reviews my weight, bp, urine, etc. Also, my doc here doesn't have a working doppler machine to HEAR the heartbeat, so instead she does a quick ultrasound each month and we SEE the heartbeat! (in the US I was lucky with each pregnancy if I got more than ONE ultrasound the entire pregnancy!!! )
So..........back to the story at hand.... This past week, I went in to the appt. with the nurses. I try to sit in the waiting room for a good 10 minutes and breathe calmly before I go in to get my blood pressure (BP) taken. It's my own little ritual. My bp all along has been borderline, one time even high enough that I had to come back a few days later to get it retested. LAST WEEK, the nurse who took my bp was not pleased. He (yes, male nurse) took it twice, then had me sit and rest for 10 minutes before taking it again. Still high. Then he sent me across the hall to where I got to sit and rest in a nice comfy lazyboy chair with my feet up, and monitor on my belly listening to the baby's heartbeat. BP taken again after 20 minutes, still high, taken again 10 minutes later, STILL high. So they sent me for an ultrasound (told you, they LOVE those here), then sent me in to talk to the doctor on call.
Hubby arrived just about the time I went in to speak with the doctor. Bottom line, doctor wanted us to go to the hospital to get fully checked including a blood test which they couldn't do at now 7pm at night in the Health Center. We arranged for the kids to stay at the friend's house who had come to my rescue and picked them up earlier. We stopped at the house, picked up their stuff, brought it to them, had some dinner at their house, then made our way to the hospital.
At the hospital, they hooked me up to the heartbeat monitor, put an IV in my arm and gave me a big bag of fluids, and eventually (after again sitting in the comfy lazyboy), took my bp again. The bp was down, but not great. And, well....given my history (had the high bp at the end of the pregnancies with the boys too)..........they've told me not to work anymore!
So, I'm on house arrest! haha At the moment, it's just for this week, but I forsee the doc telling me that I need to continue this path. At least I HOPE THAT'S WHAT SHE SAYS.....
So now the agenda for today has been.........relax, drink some water, nap on the couch,pee, read some email, do some laundry, pee again, sew a button, drink more water, sit again on the couch, blog, drink some more water......
Keeping fingers crossed that I can keep this whole thing under control.........at least I might be blogging more since now there's lots more time to fill! :)
