Parenting Archives ⋆ Page 20 of 22 ⋆ Rhiannon Giles

April 28, 2015 Rhiannon Giles

Scales tipped

It seemed like every few days something happened that made them start talking about delivery. But we would work it out with medications. Or they would be okay with whatever symptom because it was “just ____.” I was wondering how many “just” whatevers we could stack together before the pendulum swung. I had had headaches off and on that could be explained a million ways, but were making us all nervous. But they would eventually go away. I was never under any assumption that we would make it to 34 weeks. In my head I made 32 weeks my goal.

Prematurity

April 17, 2015 Rhiannon Giles

Back to Duke

I was scheduled for a follow up appointment for a nonstress test for the baby (who had been perfect on the monitors thus far) on Friday the 17th. At the end of the appointment the nurse did a BP check. High. The doctor decided to draw some labs. At first she said they would draw them there. But when I mentioned my face had been a bit puffy that morning, she quickly decided to send me over to Duke to have the labs drawn, so the results could be in within an hour.

Prematurity

April 15, 2015 Rhiannon Giles

Breaking free

At this point I was operating under the idea that if I wasn’t ruptured that I could go home the next day. But the next day they were still not convinced. Despite the fact that my underwear had been 100% dry. No blood, no fluid. So that day was just monitoring. The next morning when the doctor came in, I asked her why we were still concerned about rupture. She agreed that she really didn’t think I was ruptured. So they stopped ABX. At this point I thought maybe I would be freed! But then they went back to the initial issue of the bleeding. Because of the diagnosis of mild preeclampsia they suspected the bleeding was a partial placental abruption. So they wanted me to stay another day or two to monitor for any more bleeding. Finally on Wednesday, April 15th, I was released.

Prematurity

April 12, 2015 Rhiannon Giles

Transport to Duke

Right around midnight the EMTs arrived to transport me to Duke. I’d never been in an ambulance before! They were very nice and managed to keep me calm. We arrived at Duke, and a doctor there checked me. He said I was only the outer os was dilated, so that was good. This doctor also couldn’t tell if my water had broken. He used a giant q-tip to gather whatever fluid he could and put it on a slide. They check for something called “ferning” on the slide, to see if there was amniotic fluid. He said that there was no ferning on the slide. But yet, they still kept going with the idea that I was ruptured. So they started IV antibiotics. In the meantime my blood pressure was high, so they collected some urine to check for protein. It turned out I was spilling a bit of protein, so I was officially diagnosed with mild preeclampsia.

Prematurity

April 11, 2015 Rhiannon Giles

Call the midwife

April 11th was the day of Lorelei’s birthday party. I spent most of that day, and the day before, on my feet. But I was pregnant, not sick! Little did I know. After the party Charlotte and I went out and got dinner and had a lovely girls’ night. We got home around 8:30 pm, and I went to the bathroom.

Parenting

July 17, 2014 Rhiannon Giles

Mini me

Dear Yai Yai,

Recently we have been discussing instinct. You want to know why animals do certain things, innate actions, evolutionary requirements. Your instinct right now is to believe what I tell you, to love what I love. After all, I have lived to the age of 33, so I must know something. Right now you want to emulate that. And I can’t deny that I love it.

Parenting

July 17, 2014 Rhiannon Giles

In the in between

Dear Yai Yai,

You are always in an in between. There is what you were, and what you are going to become, and the now that is shaped by and shaping those. We all live in the in between, but at the age of four the recent past and near future are so fluid and so open that the now seems like a constant adventure. The past may seem like a solid, but because you are learning so much about the world at every turn, it reforms itself, gives new meaning to past events that you were too young to process.