How We Came to the Decision Not to Worry

Yesterday's appointment did not go as planned. Although, do they ever? Evie's NST and ultrasound were fine, but then I met with the doctor. I gave her my glucose readings for the week and they were still pretty high. At that point she started talking about the induction and how she didn't want to do the amnio next week, but closer to 37 weeks. At this point I'm thinking "WTF? You wouldn't stop labor at this point, why are you being a crazy woman?" She said babies with moms with GD don't reach lung maturity as soon as other babies. So we scheduled the amnio for Tuesday the 21, 5 days later than intended. This scared the crap out of me because my nephrologist had said that two weeks wouldn't make a difference, but a month could, and here we were with an induction at 36+6. I cried the entire way home. I want this baby out. I do... this is my place to write how I'm feeling and that, currently, is how I'm feeling. And it's not because I don't care about her health, but because I'm her momma and I KNOW she'll be fine. At that point I had no idea if my kidneys would make it or if they'd gotten worse in the 4 days since we tested them. But I just knew E would be ok. So of course they made me feel like a terrible mother saying "I'm not comfortable delivering this baby due to a little bump in creatinine without more time".

Now... I'm not a nephrologist, but I'm freaking intelligent, and incredibly knowledgeable. 1.1 - 1.6 is NOT a "little bump" in creatinine. It drops my GFR (glomerular filtration rate) into Stage 3 range. There are only 4 stages of kidney disease. And, thanks for making me feel like I don't care about my own kid, asshole. Of course I do. But I also know in my heart she's fine. I want her out, sure, but I want her out SAFELY. I love this kid and I won't let anything happen to her. I also want her to have a mother. And with my kidneys in rapid decline.. it's freaking terrifying. I don't want to leave her and my husband alone. So I got pretty mad. My husband and my mom felt the same way. And the kicker was she said "If you had pre-e or HELLP" we'd deliver you. Uhm.. hello? The problem with those is organ failure, which mine are doing just fine with all by themselves.

So I cried all the way home. I know I keep saying this, but this creatinine thing is SCARY. It is, and I feel bad every time I worry about it because I know E's health is dependent on me but I just... I know she's alright. Yes, I know I've said that like 4 times.

So we talked last night and sent something to my nephrologist to get his take. And I went to sleep, feeling like I was getting a cold. Despite sleeping in the recliner partly sitting up, I woke up at 4am and I couldn't breathe. I knew I was getting oxygen if I took shallow breaths, but there was so much stuff in the way and I freaked out. This has happened to me when I got sick before, and I started yelling for Andy in this half voice filled with all kinds of crap. I woke him up and he shot up and came over and tried to calm me down, but it didn't help, so we went to the ER. Again. They took me back and.. basically annoyed the shit out of me. My O2 was fine, and I knew it would be because I could technically breathe, but I felt like I couldn't. The oxygen they gave me helped because I could get enough air with shallow breaths and didn't have to breathe deeply. The nurses said it might have been a reaction to the Keflex I got on Friday, and the doctor basically tried to say I was full of shit. The nurse said it was clear I was having trouble because she could hear me breathing. They gave me prednisone to open my lungs up and it helped some. They also gave me a new antibiotic and sent me to L&D to monitor E. She was fine. Then they got my urine culture back and said I still had an infection and the Keflex wasn't helping, so they were putting me on Macrobid. Fine. So I have some sort of infection the antibiotics weren't helping (which the OB at this hospital said were not preferred for pregnant women anyway), I have either a virus or a reaction to that medicine, and I'm out of work. Again.

It hasn't been a good week. But, I did do one thing right. Our nurse at this hospital (not the one I usually go to. That one's actually further away) was really nice, and they'd taken blood earlier, so I told her I figured they'd done a comprehensive metabolic panel, and could she check my creatinine. They had, and she did. 1.3. That's down quite a bit from Friday! It's a different lab, but I like to think they wouldn't be THAT far off. So in all of this, that was a piece of great news. And my nephrologist seemed to be OK with waiting when we heard. So now we're all OK with baby girl getting a few extra days. She'll be soooo close to full term, and that's good news. As much as this week has sucked, and as much as it hurts to breathe right now, I still only have two weeks until my baby comes, and with any luck, I won't see the inside of a hospital until then!