So I took Chip over to see my friend Melissa, and her daughters Annmarie(8 days younger than Chip) and Avereigh and I got to hang out for an hour and eat breakfast with Melissa before my appt. Then I went to the High Risk Clinic .. my only complaint .. you have to walk like a mile from the parking lot to get to the clinic!!! GRRR. How wrong!!! Other than that .. things seemed to be okay. BP was only 135 over 80 which is better than it has been. Baby wouldn't cooperate with doppler so I got an ultrasound. Baby wouldn't cooperate with the ultrasound either so it took like 25 minutes before the Dr. could get a count on the baby's heartbeat. It's in the range it has been in around 150. Baby seemed active and looked good .. still no telling on whether we have girl parts or boy parts. Dr. scheduled me to come back in 2 weeks for BP check and then 4 weeks from today I will come back for another Big ultrasound for growth(Melissa says they will do the 3D and she says she think's they will definitely see the sex then). The Dr. made a big deal about Chip's size at birth .. and the fact that I have a family history of Diabetes (even though I didn't have GD with Chip). So it won't be long and I will be doing the 3 hour GD test (I am known for flunking the 1 hour . .so we are skipping the 1 hour and heading straight to 3 hour this time). Oh and she took me out of work .. so I won't be going back there. So then I headed back to Melissa's .. apparently Chip did pretty good with the girls (PHEW!!!). We all hung out and ate lunch together .. we tried to get everyone to nap and relax .. but Chip the human buzzsaw was no way ready to lay down and sleep. He was scared to miss something. So we (me) decided to head home. He was asleep within 5 minutes of leaving Melissa's driveway. All in all a great day !

I am now considered High Risk

So I went in there bright and early this morning. Took my stuff from my ER visit, took my little pamphlet with my blood pressure readings for the week. First off they weighed me and I have lost 6lbs in exactly one week. That of course got them a little concerned. I now weigh 2.5lbs less than I did when I got pregnant with this baby. Then they took my blood pressure and it was 144/80 .. and I showed them my weekly list of blood pressures and we talked about the bleeding I have been having and everything. We also talked about my family history and the women on both sides of my family of having pre eclampsia and all. She decided that it would be in mine and the baby's best interest to consider me high risk and start sending me to the Duke High Risk clinic for all my future appts. So she said she would let the High Risk Drs. make the decision to take me out of work completely but she gave me a note for my work to stay out again until I have my High Risk appt. on Monday.

I have a follow up appt. Monday with my midwife

I just got off the phone with the nurse at the office and the midwife I normally see is out today. So I will be going in on Monday morning first thing to get checked out. Nurse said that I sounded like I was fine though but if for any reason I started bleeding and cramping again to go back to ER. But she said it sounded like the Dr. was pretty on with the fact my cervix is just irritated and giving it some time to recover should do the trick.

Spent last night in the ER

I went to the bathroom about 12:30 last night .. and when I wiped .. there was blood all over the place. I freaked out. I had been cramping most of the night but I had been chaulking it up to gas. Well after I started bleeding I decided not to take a chance. So I went to the ER .. was there until 5am. They couldn't get the baby's heartbeat on the doppler .. scared me to death. They did an ultrasound and the baby looked great. They were worried I might have placienta previa .. but everything looked good though. Dr. thinks my cervix is just irritated. So pelvic rest for atleast a week for me. While I was there .. my blood pressure was all over the place .. as high as 140/70 one time .. as low as 119/53 another. UGH .. fun fun fun. Keep me and little bit in your prayers.

Lots of new stuff on the pregnancy front

Okie .. so first off I finally broke down and tried to find some bras that would fit me without having to go online to order them. I found some. Only problem is I can't even fathom the size I had to get to fit in them. I about passed out. I am now wearing 48 DDD (no that's not a type D times THREE .. holy crap) bras. I did find some pretty ones amazingly enough though. I just can't seem to get over the size. It's daunting. I am D normally, with Chip my boobs didn't get huge until my milk came in .. not sure what's going on with them this pregnancy. Let's hope it means I'm going to be a milk machine when it comes to nursing this time (wouldn't that be nice???).

As for my appt yesterday .. it got off on the wrong foot. She started taking my blood pressure and she looks at me and goes "what is your normal blood pressure?" now to any one who has ever had Pregnancy induced hypertension in the past that turned into preeclampsia .. you NEVER want to hear this phrase .. EVER. I said well it's been running about 120 something over 70 something. My blood pressure yesterday when she first took it was 150/70!!!! The nurse was freaking out. I was upset. She made me lay down and rest and asked me questions about how things were going and she took my blood pressure again. It was down to 130/78 .. better .. but still not my normal BP. I am sooo hoping and praying that this was because I have been sick all week. I am trying to figure out how the heck if I get PIH so early this time how I am going to spend like 15 weeks on bedrest with a 2.5 year old!!!! So now I have to start taking my BP between appts and keeping a BP diary, and instead of waiting 4 weeks to come back .. they want me back in 3 weeks. Oh yeah and low sodium diet comes back for Stephanie. FUN FUN FUN!!!

As for the rest of the appt. My uterus is right where it's supposed to be. We finally heard the heart beat via doppler (we couldn't hear it at 15 weeks) and she really had to track him/her down to find it too. But that little swoosh swoosh sound was the best sound ever .. well next to hearing that first cry.

My husband and I voted this morning at 6:30am

We got to our precinct at about 6:10 there were 14 people already standing in front of us when we got there. By the time the polls opened at 6:30 am there was atleast 40-50 people behind us. We switched places with this guy when we realized they were letting in 5 at a time. We didn't want to split up .. so we were 16 and 17 to walk through the door. We were done and home by 6:45.

Some how today feels like one of those days that you will tell your kids about one day. I think today's election is going to have a major impact on my children's future one way or the other. No matter who wins or loses. That's just the feeling I get. I remember rubbing my belly and the baby while standing in the line. I told Charles that one day we could tell little bit that she/he was with us that day when we voted.

For Charles it was a pretty momentus thing. It was the first time he has EVER voted. He will be 32 in January so that tells you something. It probably didn't hurt that I brought home the voter registration card. Handed it to him with a pen, and then I turned it in for him. But the voting he did for himself. And he researched the races and made himself a "cheat sheet" as he called it so as to remember who he was supposed to vote for when he got there.

For me voting is a big thing. I don't care who you vote for (even though I hope my guy wins of course) but I want you (that's a general you encompassing everyone that can vote) to vote. When I think of how hard our fore-mothers had to fight to get the right to vote, it makes me realize that I can never take that right for granted. Some of the sufragettes (I know I am probably spelling that wrong) were even imprisoned, beaten and starved for their fight for this particular right. Not to mention all the Afghanistan women who went to the polls for the first time not so long ago who went there in defiance of the fact that they had been recieving death threats. Someone today mentioned something about standing in line. I mentioned what the Afghanistani women went through to vote and I told them I could handle standing in line for a few minutes.