Futile obedience

This is what I'm doing today. And tomorrow. And the next couple days after that.

Those are my desperate-for-a-pedicure toes and my laptop. In bed. Which is where I'm resting. Because that's what you do when you are on bedrest.

Yep, bedrest.

Thursday, I went to the obgyn's office for a routine postpartum check-up. Except nothing obstetrical or gynecological is ever "routine" with me.

Oh, before I go any farther, did I mention that I was in the hospital (back home in Nashville) Saturday and Sunday? I didn't? Oh. I was in the hospital Saturday and Sunday. That's kind of a crucial detail to the story.

When we returned from Ohio Saturday afternoon, I felt okay. But by bedtime, I had an excruciating headache and blood pressure readings of 177/114 and 185/119. Jim insisted on calling Dr. Morgan's office, and after speaking with the obgyn on call, we were instructed to go to Labor & Delivery. Wow! Twice in one week; fun times!

So, off we trek at 10:30 Saturday night. And I'm monitored, and told to lay on my left side, and about 5:00 am, I'm admitted and moved to a antepartum room. I was given some blood pressure meds and told to wait for the doctor.

And when she came in, she was full of "pertinent" questions ("do you think you might be depressed?") and "helpful" information ("your lab work appears fine and your BP is down") and her pet peeves ("I don't appreciate it when patients take their own BP readings at home").

Sigh.

So, discouraged and exhausted, we returned home with no answers and a prescription for continued BP medication.

And because she got under my skin with the at-home-BP-readings comment, I returned our borrowed digital BP cuff to our neighbors, dutifully took my hydrocortothalazide (or whatever it is, I'm rattling that off from memory, I think), and tried to pretend that my head still didn't feel like it would explode if I kept breathing.

And Thursday, when I had my BP taken at the ob's office, and it was up, I just smiled apologetically to the doctor who was seeing me in Dr. Morgan's vacation absence. I was out of ideas; now it was time for them to start doing their jobs and figure out what was going on.

Apparently, the medicine I'd started on Sunday should have been enough to return my BP to normal. And the fact that it hadn't had the doctor concerned.

So, back to Labor & Delivery I go. Again. For more labwork, more urinalysis, more monitoring. And after a few hours, my nurse came in with discharge papers and the news that I was on the tail end of preeclampsia.

Exhale.

Pre-e. Well, that would have been nice to know, oh, say, two weeks ago.

And, yes, I say that with a hint of bitterness, but mostly sadness. Sadness, because I know that even if I'd been diagnosed with pre-e two weeks ago, we would have most likely still lost Duncan. 24 weeks is just too little to survive, especially if he'd been in fetal distress for a month.

It's just....

Well, you can imagine just what it is.

So, for the next several days, I'm off my feet and in bed and staying hydrated. The combo of rest and water should be enough to get the brain swelling (headache) to subside and to get my kidneys back to normal.

And that's that.

Bedrest isn't fun, ever. But I can tell you it's a lot less fun when there is no hope of a healthy baby boy on the other end, which is what I was working toward the last time I did this.

Hence the post title.

I don't have a death wish; I know I need to rest to get better so that I can enjoy Jim and Seth. But right now, I'm just wishing that this effort meant something for Duncan, too.