Milestone

Although there is little time remaining in what feels like an epic pregnancy, there turns out to be time for at least one more milestone- the first unnecessary trip to L&D.

My blood pressure over the past few weeks, while not dangerously high, has been steadily creeping up, accompanied by my extremities doing their best hot-air balloon impressions. At my last hospital-based midwife appointment, I was told that if I should experience any sudden swelling, I shouldn’t fool around, but head straight to L&D. Of course, Sunday morning, I awoke to find that both of my feet AND my hands were pufftastically large, so, after not a lot of soul searching, Mr. DD and I headed to the hospital, with everything packed in the trunk of the car, but fully expecting to be sent straight home.

Sunday afternoon was boasting some truly craptacular weather-cold rain and wind, namely, so by the time we made it inside, I was rather grumpy due to the fact that the cuffs of my jeans and socks were soaked right through. (Is anyone with me on the wet socks thing? Besides wet underwear, probably the least fun piece of clothing to endure a soaking.) After being shown to a bed in the observation room, I was reluctant to actually put my legs up on it for fear of mussing up the nice white sheets with my muddy jean cuffs and socks. Mr. DD, however, reminded me that of all the things that probably got on the sheets in the space of a week, mud was probably not going to be the worst of them.

Although Sundays are usually a quiet day on the wards, the place was packed. Maybe all the talk of a full moon’s effect on hospital admissions wasn’t as much a load of bupkis as I believed it to be, but almost every delivery room on the ward had it’s doors tightly closed, and the midwives, while very friendly, seemed to be spending a lot of time going from room to room looking for pieces of equipment that one would expect to be standard in EVERY delivery suite, like, for instance, thermometers and cotton balls. “Things must be pretty bad with the NHS if there aren’t enough thermometers to go around.” I observed.

At any rate, after being examined, poked, prodded, asked to pee in the obligatory too small cup and had waited the obligatory 3 hours during which various people poked their heads round the door, I was first told I was going to be kept in for observation and then, half an hour later, that I would be released. (My guess is, that due to the extremely full nature of L&D, the registrar didn’t want someone unnecessary cluttering up a bed.) This was actually okay by me, as I was damned if I was going to be spending the night in the hospital without my husband and my comfy bed if I WASN’T having a baby. Especially in a room as dreary as the “triage” which boasted little more entertainment other than profoundly grey walls and professional wall clock watching. My blood test obviously came back negative for pre-eclampsia, so I was released back into the soggy world with instructions to keep my feet up and come back Wednesday for more pokings and proddings.

The Prawn’s official due date is Thursday. Further updates as events warrant.