Guest of the NHS (again)

So yesterday's work day got cut drastically short, as about midday my mobile rang and Liz's blood pressure was sky high again (despite the fact that she's on medication). 

So once again it was drop everything and make a rush into the hospital.  There much initial talk of inducing on a labour yesterday, and for a while we were quite excited.  Now, however, it seems that we'll be going back to the waiting game, as they have decided that inducing poses too much of a risk to both mother and baby.  Meanwhile I'm left just going a little bit mad trying to juggle work, hospital visits, dropping Dan off at school (and getting him ready for school) etc, etc.. Boy is this the wrong time to be off the booze.

Home.. Home Again

Well she's back, thankfully.. good to have her home.
There are still worries though, although the drugs are controlling the blood pressure, we now have worries about Pre-eclampsia as Uric Acid levels are high. So it's al a bit scary and we're not out of the woods yet..

Discharge..

No I'm not going to be discussing seepage or puss, not even weeping sores, so the squeamish amongst you need not turn and run away from your monitor...

It does appear, however, that Liz will be allowed out of hospital today (for two weeks at least) as the blood pressure tablets seem to be doing their job -at last!  So I can finally breathe a sigh of relief..  Funny thing is, we'll be back at the hospital on Wednesday anyway to see the consultant.

I guess Wednesday's visit will let me know whether I can risk a jaunt to Cardiff at the weekend.  Although it's not an overnight stay in Wales' capital city, it will be a long day and some considerable miles between me and home.  So do I take the risk?  It's a dilemma and a half, I can tell you.. I mean it's the FA Cup final ffs!

What to do.. what to do..

Under Pressure..

"Pressure pushing down on me
Pressing down on you no man ask for"
..as sung by David Bowie and Queen.

But it's blood pressure that is at the forefront of my mind at the moment, not "people on streets Dee da dee da dee da dee da", as it continues to be the thing keeping Liz in hospital.

(but did you see what I did there?)

Fortunately they started giving her medication this morning to try and stabilise the readings they were getting. Apparently its the variance of the figures that is concerning them.. (one minute it's a wee bit high and then the next it's blahdy-hell!). If they can stabilise the BP then there's a chance (key word here: chance) that she may be allowed home tomorrow.

Bloody hope so.. it's too quiet here. The novelty of having the remote control to myself has now worn off and instead I'm just left in this horribly empty feeling house.

Even the cats have abandoned me. They keep looking at me suspiciously, like I've committed murder and buried the body in a field somewhere, and no matter how many times that I explain Liz is actually in hospital, they still have this "yeah right" look about them. Bastard turncoat felines. Where's the trust?

The doctors have also said they don't want this baby delivered in the next two weeks (hell, I've got F.A. Cup final tickets, I don't want it coming quite yet!), so they're going to do everything to keep the B.P. low. However it is unlikely Liz will go full term.. so expect some developments on this front in the third week in May?

Til then, maybe Freddy Mercury said it best when he said:
"Um boom ba bay
Um boom ba bay
Um Um boom ba bay bay"

False alarm.. Or false start!?

I don't care who you are, I don't care how brave you think you might be.. There's just something about waking up in the early morning, opening your eyes and having the first words you hear be: "I think I've been having contractions for the past two and a half hours" that makes the World fall out of your arse for a second.

Even more so when that phrase is heard four and a half weeks early.

So I clenched and I gazed across at Liz.

I thought: "She's not winding me up here. Arse."

I knew from our one and only antenatal class (so far) that the fact that she could actually tell me quite calmly that she thought she was having contractions (as opposed to screaming it whilst simultaneously pulling my scrotum over my head) meant we had a bit of time. So I suggested calling the hospital whilst I had a shower, as no matter whether we were headed to the hospital or I was heading to work, there was no way I was going anywhere without a shower.

Whilst in the shower I'd convinced myself that these were at worst the very early stages of labour (which could mean hours before we got near a delivery suite anyway) or, and most likely, practice contractions.. and I began looking forward to the yummy breakfast I had ordered at work..

Imagine my surprise when I got out of the shower, and I found out that the hospital had told us to go in.

I'm not ready for this, thought I, this is at least a month too early.

It turns out that it's a good job we did.. Liz's blood pressure was sky high when we got there (for sky high read dangerously high). Over the day it has fallen, but some anomalies in her blood tests have meant she's been kept in.

So we are not quite at DEFCON 5 yet.

But, fuck me, we were close