Perinatologist Visit!

I was discharged today from the perinatologist!!!! Let that sink in for a minute...

Suga is now 1 pound 13 ounces - growing well, and looking healthy. The brain, heart, kidneys, bladder, stomach, umbilical cord (all vessels), digits, spine - all functioning normally and looking healthy. My cervix is still over 4cm and very closed - even with some fundal pressure applied (the doctor pushes down on your abdomen relatively gently to see if any fluid is released or if the cervix changes in any way).

Our little one looked great and put on quite a show of grabbing his / her feet and putting them to his / her mouth...ok - really. I'm just going to refer to the baby in the male sense for the purposes of this post. We do NOT know the gender but it's getting a little tedious to continue making his / her references and "it" just doesn't do it for me...oh and **he didn't even cooperate during the last few ultrasounds anyhow so even if we wanted to know the gender now, we couldn't - ha!

The doctor even took a few 4D ultrasound photos for me - amazinf! We could see the facial features so well. In the middle of everything, the baby turned his head slightly giving me a profile view of an ear...DEFINITELY Daddy's ears! (so cute!)

After a full scan, I asked the doctor to review my chart to see if I could be discharged to only the care of my regular OB. The peri said he was fine with that adding that he would only want to continue to see me based on my history with pre-eclampsia. But if my regular OB was already doing in office ultrasounds to ensure proper growth of the baby (growth restriction, premature aging of the placenta and blood flow interruption or changes in the umbilical cord flow are signs of pre-e) he would discharge me and I could come back if needed in the future. He did question why I was still on B/P medication as my pressures have been quite LOW! ha! never thought you'd hear that right? I was 101/68 in the office today. Last time I was there, I was 90/50 believe it or not. I feel good though - not light headed - and the peri simply recommended I discuss things with my regular OB and think about trying to stop the medication as it's such an incredibly low dose that he thinks it's not doing much anyhow.

I'll discuss it with my regular OB as the peri requested, but I have a few reservations about stopping the medication - not the least of which is that I've tried stopping in the past only to have borderline readings start up again. I am taking 50mg of Labetalol twice per day though and have done well in the past with taking 50mg once daily instead so I'd bring up trying that first rather than weaning completely. My worry is that blood pressure naturally increases back to "normal" after about 24 weeks. I don't want to be weaning from medication at a time when my blood pressure would be rising anyhow and run into issues. So, we'll see about that...

Mary Louise and David are having a grand time playing with Mere and Pops who came in to help me for a few days as Brent had to leave for some training. I'm so very grateful to have some extra hands here! David has a few appointments concerning speech progress and re-evaluations so Mary Louise will even get some one on one time with the g'rents while David and run the roads. I'm sure Miss Sassy Pants will be more than a little pleased to have a little extra attention heaped on her!

25 weeks 1 day today!!!

xo,
Heather



I got a few