But otherwise, it was good.

While I had some scary possible diagnoses for my unborn child, the pregnancy was good. Mostly.

I never had acne as a teen. But this time, I developed acne on my right cheek early in and it stayed until after she was born. Almost three weeks later, it’s not all gone yet. I also had very intense nausea, starting before lunch and lasting until I was asleep at night. It lasted until probably 16-18 weeks. For my son, it was periodic, not predictable, and it lasted until about 13 weeks.  And the exhaustion was very real. I had the joy of doing this with a toddler around. I feel guilty over not being able to be the mom he deserved, but I was supposed to rest, was on pelvic rest, and felt miserable. My old friend sciatic pain returned. I’ve only ever had it while pregnant and it goes away as soon as I deliver.

Those scary possible diagnoses were awful. One by one we eliminated the possible problems. I got the all-clear from the second round of genetic testing. The cardiologist saw no real issues. And while smaller, the baby grew steadily. It was just a matter of making it as long as I could. With each passing week, I wanted to relax. We crossed the point of viability successfully and then hit the glucose test. I took the one-hour and failed. The same thing happened last time, so I wasn’t concerned. I took the three-hour test and didn’t fail, but I didn’t pass. One of the blood draws came back high but the others were all within range. So while I didn’t have gestational diabetes, she called me glucose intolerant. I had to cut out sugar. I could have a little each day (a diet I saw online said 130 g a day).

When I got my initial blood work done, my thyroid cane back under active. I’d suspected that for a while, because it had been low years ago. But then I lost a lot of weight and we discovered it kicked into overactive. She reduced my meds and it was still too much, so she took me off the meds. She started me on meds again, and rechecked it around the time of the first glucose test. It wasn’t where she wanted it to be, so she increased my dosage. For about a month, I gained no weight. My belly was growing appropriately and the growth scans were fine, but between increasing my thyroid meds and cutting out almost all sugar from my diet, I plateaued. Which, honestly, is fine by me haha. When I did start gaining again, it was very slow. Technically I gained less than 20 pounds the whole pregnancy, but due to the thyroid and the glucose intolerance, that is skewed a little.

At 31 weeks, my MFM suggested that I start the non stress tests. Previously, I started at 34 weeks. I was concerned about why she wanted them early, but it was just precaution due to my hypertension and the cord and placenta issues. So twice a week, that’s what I did.

At 37 weeks, my doctor went on vacation. I was terrified. I would be early term, but she would be gone. She has a private practice and is the only doctor. Two other OB/GYNs are in her same strip, and apparently they rotate being on call. One of those would have delivered if anything had happened. But I’d never seen them before. And I love my doctor. I didn’t want anyone else in the room doing what she does.

In addition, there was a chance of a tropical storm coming. And Mark had jury duty that week. Plus, it was Labor Day week, and people were already making jokes.

But I made it! I counted down the days until she was back in town. I knew she would be back by Sunday because she’s a Saints season ticket holder. And she would be in the office on Monday. If I could last until then, everything would be perfect.

And I did.

That Sunday night, we were about to leave my parents’ house when my aunt called to tell my parents that my dad’s aunt, my grandmother’s sister, died. Her funeral was set for Thursday.

I saw the MFM the Tuesday of week 37. Her recommendation was to deliver at 39 weeks. Last time, she said that to prevent him from getting too big because they overestimated his size via ultrasound. This time, it was about getting the baby away from the cord and placenta. In addition, my OB/GYN has already mentioned that new study where they said inducing at 39 was better anyway, so I was sure she’d want to do that. I also had to go to the MFM office for an NST, and everything was fine. But once again, baby wasn’t cooperating and kept coming off the monitor, so it took a while.

On Monday of Week 38, my doctor decided that we would set the date for induction at my next appointment, which was Thursday. I caught the bad cold my son brought home from school (he started pre-k 2!) and couldn’t take anything. I can’t take Sudafed because of my blood pressure and I can’t take couldn’t take most other things because I was pregnant. I was allowed Robitussin and could take Tylenol PM to get sleep.

School had not been able to find a sub for me and I convinced my friend to apply. I was planning to work until I couldn’t. With my aunt dying, I was going to have to swap out days. I would take off Thursday and go to work Monday.

On the way to the funeral, we got in an accident. I felt fine. I had my seat belt under my belly and the airbags didn’t deploy. The front end of my car on the passenger side got a lot of damage. Since I felt fine and felt the baby move and wasn’t bleeding or anything, I went to the funeral. We went to my aubt’s house after and then I rode with my mom to pick up my son. She was driving me to my NST appointment. If I hadn’t had the appointment, I would have called her after the accident. But since the appointment was only a few hours away, I just waited. When I showed up to my appointment, she sent me to the hospital to Labor and Delivery. They sent me to be cleared by the ER. I had Mom take my son home and was there all alone. I was seated by a nice family. A little too conservative and religious for my tastes, but they basically adopted me for the duration of my wait. But they were very genuine and it was nice to have company. After a few hours, I was able to go up to L&D again. They put me on the monitor and told me I had to stay until 12 hours after the incident. That meant I was there until 11 p.m. Mark was at work and Alicia came to keep me company. They wouldn’t let me have water because if anything was amiss, I would need an emergency c-section. Baby had two decelerations at first but the NST was beautiful the whole rest of the way. They discharged me around 11  we picked my son up from my parents’ house.

While I was in the ER, I found out my friend accepted the position of subbing for me. I needed to take it easy on Friday, so school got a different sub to take my class.

I’d been hard and tight with no signs of dilation on Monday. And the baby was “sitting in your throat,” according to my doctor. While I was in L&D, I had dilated to 2-3 cm but it was still hard and baby was still way up high. I had a lot of Braxton-Hicks contractions, some powerful, but they determined I could go home.