Anna Skamarakas

Today was the last of 3 doctor appointments in a week! It’s exhausting! On Monday, I went in for my second non-stress test. These tests cause me considerable stress for a variety of reasons, and having failed the one last week, I was not anxious to go again. Fortunately, this time, I ended up passing, but not without what seemed like an eternity in the chair, and some doubt from the technician about whether or not the doctor would accept it, since the baby had fallen off of the monitor a few times. From there, I went on to my appointment with Dr. Mackey. So far, everyone at this new office is very nice, and she is no exception. She said that my blood pressure was high when they took it at the beginning of my appointment, and combined with the results of my 24 hour urine from the week before, she was inclined to think I was becoming pre-eclamptic. That is the condition I developed during my pregnancy with Brighid that caused her to be born so early. The doctor decided to redo my blood pressure when I mentioned how stressful the non-stress test was, and found my BP to be 122/70 thank goodness! She had spoken of hospital admission, and I was so relieved to be back in the normal range on the blood pressure scale.

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We took Eilis today for the sibling class at the hospital where we will have the baby. She had a good time, and she was so well behaved! The class started off with each of the kids getting a coloring book, and that was followed by watching a movie called “Silly Siblings”. Eilis enjoyed the movie, and really seemed to be paying attention to it. We then got to go on a “baby hunt”. The teacher told them we would be taking a secret tunnel underground over to the hospital, where we would hunt for new babies. Eilis loved the fact that she was going in a secret tunnel, but then by the time we got into the maternity ward, she forgot what we were there to hunt!

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The dreaded non-stress tests began today, and I failed the first one. Again, everyone I encountered today was so wonderful, but it is a devastating blow to fail these tests. The test basically has you lay on a table or in a chair with a monitor attached to you. They want to make sure that in 20 minutes, the baby moves enough times and each time, the heart rate responds appropriately to the movement, like it increases sufficiently but does not stay elevated.

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I had my first appointment today with the new ob/gyn office. They are very warm and very friendly, and everyone spent a good deal of time with me going over things. This seems like a very nice office, and they are pretty organized. I can?t imagine I?ll ever have to wait too long to see anyone here. Everything is organized into pods, and you are sent to the pod you need to be in to wait. There is a pod for lab work, one for ultrasounds, one for NSTs, etc.

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