Pressure

Pregnancy update.

My Doctor's appointment has left me conflicted. That's for sure.

Here is where we stand. I am regularly and painfully contracting. The medication doesn't even touch these anymore. Yesterday at the doctor's office my contractions were lasting 2-3 minutes each and coming 3 minutes apart. I am dilated both internally and externally to 1.5 cm. If I were any other patient, she told me that she would tell me that I was in labor and to go to the hospital.

But I am not. I am a patient with severe irritable uterus. One with a history of having a cervix of steel. One that hung at 1.5 after 6 hours of broken water with Chase. Until the epidural. One that also required an epidural to dilate after my water broke with Ellis.

And since I have not reached the magical 37 weeks she wants to see if I can make it to that point.

To add some additional PRESSURE to the mix, yesterday my blood pressure [which has been very low -- usually between 90/60 and 100/70 the whole pregnancy] was at 153/90. Apparently I am not tolerating all the pain and contracting that well. But I was not spilling protein so she does not think that we are really headed to pre-eclampsia [which I had with Chase].

All of which leads us to her recommendation. She wants me to have an amnio for lung development on Tuesday and if the baby has mature lungs, then on Wednesday she would like to see if giving me an epidural causes me to dilate fully and have the baby. She suspects that would be all it would take.

Then she says that of course we can try to ride this out an additional week. Of course, dependent on my blood pressure and urine samples being acceptable. She gave me "right now it is your choice."

I don't like the idea of the amnio. I feel guilty about the idea of giving the baby an early eviction notice. I feel guilty about the idea of not being at home on Christmas morning [although there is no guarantee that I wouldn't be in the hospital by then anyway]. I also don't like the idea of being in what feels like active labor for weeks on end, with no sleep and constant pain. I also do not like the fact that I am seeing spots and having breathing issues that the Doctor thinks are blood pressure related problems.

I am kind of hoping that my water breaks and takes the decision out of my hands.

I am just feeling to much pressure.

Now, ideally it would wait until after 4PM on Saturday. After we have had Ellis' Birthday Bash. And I get all the stocking stuffers wrapped and labeled. And there is that project that I am trying to finish up for work. And...

Did I mention that I was feeling some pressure?