Shaking the sting away

Greetings from my queen-sized bed!

Once again, late pregnancy has brought me to the land of oligohydramnios—the fancy-pants way to say “low amnionic fluid.” Nobody knows why my body or my babies suddenly decide to replicate The Sahara inside, but this is my fifth time battling it away. This past Tuesday, I had a routine OB appointment. They do an ultrasound at every visit to check my AFI, or Amnionic Fluid Index. Two weeks ago, it was at 13cm. On Tuesday, it was 3.8cm. This is a significant, drastic drop to a dangerous level. Had I been 36 weeks, Mr. Baby would have been delivered. But I fall short of that mark, so the doctor said she wanted to squeak out more time for him by putting me on strict, at-home bedrest.

Before she made that decision, she made sure to perform a Biophysical Profile (BPP) and do a doppler study on the bloodflow from placenta to baby. If he wasn’t looking good, I would have found myself at the hospital, either delivering or on hospital bedrest. But he looked good, aside from having practically no fluid. So I drove home and drove myself between two sheets. I was a good girl and did nothing, aside from get up for bathroom trips. Also, I easily drank over a gallon of fluid each of the past two days.

Something must have worked, because I had a follow up on Thursday morning which showed a marked improvement in my fluid level. It shot up to almost 11! The question the doctor had was if it was a normal, albeit dramatic, fluctuation or if the bedrest did the trick. Erring on the side of caution, she put me on modified bedrest for the next week. I can be up and about, but can’t do housework, driving, shopping, and have to avoid using stairs too often. But I can sit up, shower, wander around my house, and tend to the kiddos in non-physical ways. Then, if the fluid is steady at my next appointment, I can add a little more activity. If it drops too much, I’m doing too much and it’s back to full bedrest…or delivery if Mr. Baby is showing other signs of stress.

Hopefully, this go-round will be much more simple and easy to manage than it was with Teddy. I was on bedrest with him for four very long weeks. While my body seems to be prone to oligohydramnios, every baby is different.

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I am proud to announce I am now a contributing writer at A Deeper Story’s Family channel. I am humbled to be associated with so many fantastic writers and authors. Reading through their posts gives me a serious case of Lowly Worm. Am I up for the challenge? I hope so, because my first post is up today. I would love it if you’d pop over and say hello.

I wrote about Teddy’s first wasp sting:

His right hand was balled in a fist. I suspected the wasp was held inside. I grabbed his forearm and shook, telling him to open, open, open your hand! He seemed to clutch tighter. I had to pry his fingers open. A single yellow jacket flew up and away. It escaped being crushed. I examined his palm and saw a bright red marks on the fatty pad just below his thumb. It was swelling rapidly.

As you might suspect, being posted at a group blog called A Deeper Family means there is more to the story…

Beautiful things, one that stings