The long and winding road.

My apologies my previous post left out all the lovely details of my winding road to incarceration, I shall catch you all up now.



As I may have mentioned, my pregnancy was a result of a "contraception malfunction"



I was on the pill. And yes I took it correctly, and at the same time every day, and no I was not on oral antibiotics. It just happened.



But anyway, there I was April Fools day barfing up my Caribou coffee..and I knew it to be true (though I required no less than SIX tests...each pink line getting progressively darker...literally up to the day I went to the doctor to confirm) I was pregnant.

Never mind that I am past that magic number of 35, past which the chances of things going wrong greatly increases...
Nor mind the fact that whilst I adore Mr Dreadful, and he me. ..we are not married....yet.


Lets focus in the real reason Penny should not be pregnant...Penny only has one full sized functioning kidney..
I've got two. Only the other one is quite small. (I'll spare you the long winded explanation for now) suffice it to say a birth defect and childhood illness resulted in a portion of my kidney being damaged, and my body just absorbed the damaged portion...leaving a mini kidney in its wake.



My first pregnancy was uneventful until the 32nd week when I developed PIH (pregnancy induced hypertension) and was promptly hospitalized (and I mean promptly...like straight to the hospital from the OB visit) I was induced two weeks later, had a lovely little preemie weighing in at 4 lbs 7 oz...who after spending one month and two days in the NICU grew into the wee V, who at 11 is now my equal in height.
I recovered well from that and never really comtemplated how lucky I was to survive the experience. Partly because I was young, and mostly because nobody bothered to emphasize how lucky I was.

Well fast forward 10 years...and viola here I am again..only this pregnancy was much much different.
From the very beginning I have been battered with tests, apparently these doctors were taking this seriously...so seriously in fact that before my first trimester ended I had been referred to a perinatologist for high risk pregnancies.
Where at my very first visit the doctor expressed his concern over my pregnancy, and referred me to a Nephrologist to also manage me during the pregnancy.

Where with V I blithely sashayed through the pregnancy week after week. With Owen,
Every day was a victory, I was absolutely terrified something would go wrong.
(Not to mention an earlier test raised the possibility for Downs Syndrome, but we still chose not to have an amniocentesis)
The stress was phenomenal...every appt both anticipated and dreaded.
I loved that because of the pratice I got to see the spud at every visit (sono in the office...niiice)
But scared shitless that I would start showing signs of pre-eclampsia.
I was put on the Beta Blocker Nifedipine for my blood pressure early and carried the worry of any side effects that would have on our child (I was unable to take other med's because of my reduced kidney fuction)
My blood pressure was almost always high, but not sky high, until September 19, I was 27 weeks and 5 days.
And I had finally run out of luck, my pressure was up, and I had finally started to show increased protein in my urine. The doctor wanted to admit me immediately but I refused (and purst into tears) and asked to postpone making any decision until friday, and the opportunity to see my nephrologist the next day.
The doctor agreed telling me that I needed to come into the hospital antenatal testing center to chart what the baby's progress was, but he cautioned me to bring a bag, because if my pressure was still up, I was being admitted for observation.

Friday I packed a bag in tears, I did not want to leave my home and my family (mention here, I did not want to leave my son) I held small hope that maybe I would get to come home, I prayed, I bargained...but to no avail.
I was admitted, with more than a few tears.
And in the hospital I stayed for eight weeks and five days.
Slowly losing my mind.
Every Monday and Thursday I had blood draws at 6am to see if the magic bad happened and it "was time" which meant that I fasted from midnight before until I got the results...sometimes shortly after my breakfast arrived to taunt me..sometimes hours later when it had reached room temp.
The entire time I remained symptom free (preeclampsia symptoms that is)
Nausea, blurred vision, spots before my eyes, upper GI pain...urinating fine, blah blah blah.
Until finally someone murmered the magic words..delivery in early November...

Well shite...I just realized today (January 31) that I never published this..well I'll finish it later..heres up to now