Day 1 of 7 in Week 33: I got moved today to Antepartum. It's the unit where pregnant women who are on long term hospital bed rest hang out. I have a room with windows, which is nice, but they seem to be doing construction in the room above me. So there's loud banging which added to my constant headache. Nice to have windows but sux to have loud noise. My diagnosis is official, and my heard is normal.
I had visitors today and last night. I know that I look pretty awful, I've started to swell and my face is red. I can tell by the looks on people's faces who come in that are visiting for the first time. It was nice to see folks but took lots of energy. I also decided that it would be good to hand write out a will, just in case. Not that I expect anything to happen, but it just makes me feel better since I don't have an official will. To make sure there's no question that Vera should get custody of our baby.
Time and events are starting to run together in my head. Over the weekend we had visits from a perinatologist and neonatologist. They each gave me a spiel on what their involvement is. They monitor the baby prior to birth and after birth, respectively. It seems there are many, many doctors that are monitoring things. What's weird is that I feel outside of the whole process. When, in fact, I should be the center of this process.
Sometime over the weekend, Vera and I got a tour of the NICU. It was so surreal. I got wheeled around in a wheel chair (I'm only allowed out of bed to go to bathroom, no shower). It made things a bit less scary now that we know what the NICU looks like - but still scary none the less. It brought reality that the baby will be coming early and will probably have some medical issues as a result. Is this really happening???
We saw a baby that was about the size of ours. Based on the ultra sound their best guess is that our little girl is around 3 to 3.5 pounds. When we asked if we could see a baby around the size of ours, they asked what weight, we said 3 pounds and the NICU nurse, said "That's a big baby!". I guess from NICU standards 3 pounds is big.
I know it's time to start thinking about a name, but I just want to meet her first. We have some names in mind but thought we'd have more time to decide. I figure that since she's going to be here sooner than we expected so why not wait and meet her. That way we can give her a name that suits her.
I'm more tired than I have been, it's amazing how you start to feel crappy once you are in a hospital. Today it took almost 30 minutes for the baby do practice breathing during the ultra sound but she still got a 8 out of 8 rating. So she's still doing well. Which is a relief. I seems like this waiting is going to go on for a while. So, Vera will go back to work tomorrow.
