Breathe in.
One, two, three, four.
Hold-two-three-four
Out-two-three-four
Hold-two-three-four—
My breath catches as the door to the exam room behind me rattles open. It’s my ob-gyb — or one of the four who rotate through this clinic. I’m supposed to get to know all of them because you never know who will be on call the day of the birth.
“Hi Amelia, good to see you. How are you feeling?” my doc asks, while glancing over my chart and adjusting her mask.
“Good,” I mumble. “But, um… so, my blood pressure?”
“Yep, looks like that was a little high this time,” she says.
Panic claws at me
High blood pressure can’t happen. It can’t happen, because if that happens, they’re gonna make me pee in a bottle for 24 hours, and then when I bring it in, they’re going to tell me I have preeclampsia again and I have to be induced. Just like last time. I can’t have that. Not again.
“Let’s take it again,” my doc suggests. “Did the nurse have you remove your sweater?”
“No,” I admit.
“And you’ve been lying here waiting for me?”
I nod. “Yeah, trying to just rest and breathe.”
“Let’s see if that helped.”
I wait with bated breath as she straps the cuff on again
“Good!” she chirps. “Not just in the normal range but ideal!”
Relief comes whooshing out of me with my breath. I’ve dodged the preeclampsia bullet, at least for this ob-gyn visit.
When I tell my birth story, people are quick to brush me off. “OK, you had preeclampsia, but your baby was born at almost 7 pounds. So it was a little early, big deal,” they say.
This is infuriating to me, because actually, yeah, it was a big deal
I was not ready for the baby to come. We didn’t have the crib put together. I was also not envisioning a birth plan where I was stuck on the bed for three days with a magnesium drip. I was not allowed to eat or drink anything except water for the entire time until the baby was born and the day after, because the anti-preeclampsia medication could give me a seizure. There was a Murphy bed in the birthing suite, but I sure as hell never slept in it.
There was a whirlpool tub for labor. Never used it. I was trapped in the uncomfortable birthing bed the entire time, throwing up bile, having not slept or eaten for three days. Then came the induction and the birth.
Can you blame me for not wanting a repeat of that terrible experience?
The irony is, of course, that every time I go to the ob-gyn for my checkup and they take my blood pressure, I freak out. And because I’m riddled with anxiety, wouldn’t you know it, my BP has been creeping up each time.
The last time I went in and the nurse took my blood pressure, it was on the verge of qualifying me to have to do the 24-hour pee test.
“Listen,” I told her, “I just drove white-knuckle through the snow to get here. That has to be the reason why.”
“Oh, OK! Why don’t you lie down and wait a bit, and we’ll have the doctor take it when she comes in.”
I layed down and practiced my breathing pattern. When the doctor came in, my BP was normal. But this keeps happening, over and over again. I’m really struggling with how much I should be worried about this, considering it’s affecting me in a way that might make it more likely I develop preeclampsia.
The other thing I’ve been obsessing over is swelling
With the last pregnancy, I was so incredibly swollen I couldn’t make a fist with my hands. My handwriting from the time period looks like a little kid’s. Some swelling is normal, though, but this time around I’m freaking out every time a part of my body seems to be swelling. If I take off my socks and see a line, I automatically assume I’m headed down the same road as my first birth.
I suppose what it comes down to is a fear based on a lack of control. I have no control over developing preeclampsia again. In fact, I have a higher chance of developing it considering my previous pregnancy. It’s all at the whim of my body. My body doesn’t know I’m trying to perfectly time a maternity leave or that I don’t have childcare lined up until a certain date. All I can do is, as the Queen says, try to keep calm and carry on.
