The last six weeks...

Well, so much has happened since my last post. I really don’t even know how to get caught back up. I had so many different posts I wanted to get on here before my little man arrived. I’m going to have to summarize the last few weeks of my pregnancy to get up to date. Maybe one of these days I will go back and write all the posted I had planned.


The last six weeks of my pregnancy…

October 31st I was 31 weeks pregnant (cool huh? Well, I thought so! Ha!) We were able to dress up for Halloween at work. I wasn’t going to participate because I felt huge already, and didn’t really want a costume that would probably make me feel even bigger! One of the kids came to school with an orange M&M outfit. It just went over her clothes. I thought it was so cute!! She let me borrow it for a little bit. The big pregnancy belly actually looked cute in it! I wish I had a picture!


The last 5 weeks of my pregnancy are kind of a blur to me. To say that I didn’t feel well is a complete understatement. Every single part of my body swelled up practically over night. It was so bad that I couldn’t even wear shoes. I did go to Payless with my mom one afternoon to try and find some shoes I could get on my feet. I ended up getting a couple of pairs. However, close to a week after I got them they didn’t fit anymore. I ended up going to Walmart and buying two pairs of men’s house shoes. I spent the remainder of my pregnancy in these shoes! Yes, even wearing them to work!

My doctor decided that she wanted me to start coming in weekly. I knew this wasn’t a good sign. Usually the weekly appointments don’t start until 36ish weeks. My body just wasn’t holding up the way it should. At 34 weeks Dr. Martin had me do a second urine collection to check for protein. The results were about the same as the first time. They came back normal.

I continued to work even though I was having such a hard time and felt awful. I knew every day that I didn’t go to work would be one less day I would get paid when I actually went into labor. I felt like I needed to either be working or taking care of a baby. I was pretty hard on myself.

34 weeks: Thanksgiving

Family is very important to me. Even though I wasn’t feeling good I wanted to attempt to make it to Thanksgiving dinner. My family and Eric’s family ended up having both dinners at the exact same time. One was in Arkadelphia, and the other in Hot Springs. Initially, our plan was to arrive early to my family meal and then a little late to Eric’s family. I quickly figured out that my body was not going to be able to handle an entire day of traveling and rushing. We decided that we would just skip dinner with my family and just go to Hot Springs to be with Eric’s family. I missed my family, but when we got back home that night I was very thankful we didn’t try to do both! I was worn out!!


Monday, November 29 (35 weeks pregnant)

The weekend after Thanksgiving I started feeling really awful. Sunday night I went to bed early with a headache. I woke up only a few hours later because my headache had turned into a full blown migraine. I spent the next few hours very sick at my stomach and very miserable. About 4:30 that morning I decided I wasn’t going to get any better and knew I needed to go to the emergency room. They gave me a shot and told me to go home and sleep. I woke up around noon that day and my head was still killing me. I had a doctors appointment at 3:50 that afternoon anyway, so I decided I would just try to wait until then. Eric took me to the appointment because I could barely see to drive. Turns out I was severely dehydrated. Dr. Martin sent me straight over to labor and delivery to get checked out. I ended up getting two bags of fluids and some pain medication to help my migraine. Needless to say, it was a rough day!

Later on that same week…


Thursday, December 2
I went back to work the next day after my trip to labor and delivery. I worked Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday was a whole new ballgame though.
I got up that morning and got ready for work (not feeling good- imagine that right?!). We had our monthly office meeting that day, so it wasn’t going to be a hard day at work. After our meeting we were going to go out for lunch to celebrate the December Birthdays in the office. During lunch I started feeling really bad. I just didn’t feel right. I couldn’t really explain the feeling I just knew something wasn’t right. We got back to the office and I decided to go talk to my boss. I fell apart in her office! I told her how horrible I was feeling and that I felt like I needed to go back to the hospital. I was a wreck! I ended up leaving work and heading to the hospital. Eric was still at work and couldn’t leave. My dad ended up meeting me at the hospital.

It turns out my blood pressure was high. They made me stay there for a few hours to monitor it. They called Dr. Martin and she put me on bed rest until I saw her the following Monday.

Eric was amazing! He went to the grocery store and got me tons of stuff! I was instructed to not leave the bed until Monday afternoon. I’ll be honest… days 1 and 2 of bed rest were way cooler than days 3 and 4! Ha! I got a little bored and wanted to get out of the house SO BAD!

Monday December 6 (36 weeks pregnant)

I had an appointment with Dr. Martin Monday afternoon and my wonderful husband drove me! We were scheduled to have another ultrasound to check on Collin. We were told he weighed 5 lbs 1 oz. I had hoped Collin would weigh a little more. I was afraid I wouldn’t last much longer and really hoped he would be healthy if I had to deliver early. Dr. Martin didn’t say much while she was doing the ultrasound- this was my first clue that something wasn’t right. After she finished she started asking me lots of questions. I had been monitoring my blood pressure all weekend. Normal blood pressure is 120/80. My blood pressure all weekend averaged 150/95- 160/110. Not good.

We had a heart to heart conversation with Dr. Martin. She told me that I had developed "severe preeclampsia". She wanted to admit me to labor and delivery to monitor my blood pressure and do yet another 24 hour urine analysis. We were told that worst case scenario we would have a baby the next day, and best case scenario, we could maybe hold out for one more week. Um… this is when I freaked out. I was so afraid. Collin was so little and I was afraid his lungs weren’t developed enough. Dr. Martin said that white male babies were the slowest when it comes to lung development, but that we would cross that bridge when we needed to. Her exact words were “wimpy little white boys”- I think she knew I needed some comic relief. Ha!

So… off we went. We were admitted into a room and I got hooked up to all kinds of monitors. The blood pressure cuff was set to take my pressures every 15 min!! Can you say annoying?! Ugh.

I’ll end this post with a picture of my husband. Yes, he’s spinning in the chair. He was trying to entertain me! He thought if I laughed a lot my blood pressure would go down! Isn’t he sweet!

Stay tuned for our birth story…