ellaroo's birthstory part 1

i am an avid craigslist stalker. i love hitting "refresh" on my laptop and seeing the new listings available on this chaotic online marketplace. some don't know but another section of craig's list features forums of all kinds of topics. i'm what you'd call a "lurker," one who reads the posts and responses of a forum without ever participating in the discussions. when i was pregnant, i browsed through the "pregfo" (i.e. pregnancy forum) and now, the "gradfo" (which i know is for those who've recently delivered a baby or has a LO ("little one"). i have no idea why it's called "gradfo..." graduate forum?)

one of the highlights of these forums was reading the birth stories that the women (and occasional grandma and dad) would post a few days/weeks after welcoming their babes into the world. i've always wanted to write one, especially after having to recount the details a bazillion times to folks (but of course with GUSTO! what woman doesn't like sharing her story?). so here goes...

all my appointments had been "normal" up until week 37. after having my regular ob not be available for a scheduled appointment for the 3rd time, i saw a nurse practitioner. (i now realize how great nurse practitioners are in showing more empathy and spending more time with me than the ob's would, probably because of their training, the type of personality attracted to the profession, and since ob's seem always have to rush off to deliver a baby.) although i wasn't, she was concerned by the carpal tunnel syndrome that was worsening which signaled swelling of extremities above the legs, my elevated blood pressure (within the norm but high for me, when looking at my records), and high levels of protein in my urine. this bought me a "ticket" to the labor & delivery triage department, where i was hooked up to a monitor to observe my blood pressure and the babe's stats.

after a couple of hours, my blood pressure had decreased. (i really thought that the high blood pressure reading was because i was so irritated that my appt. with my ob had been cancelled yet again.) my bloodwork came back and though the doctor thought that i should be admitted to ensure i was on bedrest, the midwife was able to convince him to let me go home since i didn't have any kids at home to attend to. (guess they don't know about hubby. ha!) i was given orders of bedrest and a plastic jug to collect 24 hours worth of urine for labwork, along with a peepee pan to place under the toilet seat. yuck! and i was told that the urine needed to stay cold and since the idea of placing this pee-filled container in the fridge next to my juice grossed me out, i opted to put it on ice in a cooler bag. 

since this birthstory has taken so long to write up (i've been working on this since i first created the blog!), i've decided to split it up. stay tuned for part 2!