Deep Breaths

I'm just coming down from another internet withdrawal....ugh. Those are terrible. This time we are blaming the router (last time it was the satellite). I can't complain too much since I've been sponging off my neighbor's internet since I moved back to bemore, but I can say that I'm looking forward to our moving truck on July 6 which will unload our internet gear and make it possible for us to get some good ol' non-satellite internet. There was a ton I wanted to update on this week, and I was hoping to do it tapas style with a variety of small tasty treats as opposed to the gorge that this will be.

The photo above is today's special appetizer. Amy was in town this past week (from Africa) for some amazingly important and impressive meetings in DC and despite being super swamped, exhausted, and a little sick, she made time to have dinner with me. I owe many of the thanks to her parents and sister who drove in one big triangle from Hagerstown to DC to pick her up, then to Baltimore to have dinner with me, then back to DC to drop her off, and finally back home in Hagerstown. The fact that they were willing share their QT with Amy in addition to driving all over creation was much appreciated! We commemorated the event with a photo. Of course, since we're both wearing black, my 30-week belly blends into her dress, but if you look close enough, you can still see the outline of my size. Don't look too close at the boob area though or it will be obvious that I am wearing a nude bra and not a black one...a huge fashion faux pas that I would have avoided had I thought about it.

Now for the main course: I spent the afternoon before that (Tuesday) in the hospital. (I'm starting the paragraph this way because I like the drama, but for those of you who are easily worried, rest assure that nothing is wrong.) My breathing has grown steadily worse since setting foot on Baltimore soil (or lack thereof). I noticed it worsening as the humidity increased...and then it never went back to normal. The past week or so has been bad enough to make me call me call my family doctor. When I have to spend 90% of my time focusing on trying to breath deeply, there's an issue. Unfortunately, my family doctor does not treat pregnant people--apparently that's typical of non-OBGYN docs to be afraid to treat a pregnant person--so she told me to call the midwife. Well, my midwife obviously doesn't deal with asthma so she suggested I go into the hospital and check in through labor and delivery....I asked if she couldn't just recommend a doctor for me to make an appointment with, but she wanted me to have more immediate assistance.

So I got a little dress rehearsal for what's going to go down when I go into labor. After taking the elevator to the 16th floor, I will check in through the computer system (hopefully all my information is saved so I don't have to go through it all again), then they'll take me to the triage rooms and hook me up to a monitor for 20 minutes to make sure the baby's heart rate, etc. is normal. They'll check my blood pressure and all that good stuff too. Then on to the delivery room I presume!

Of course, I didn't make it to the delivery room this time; I just sat in triage for 2 hours...After explaining why I was there to 3 different nurses, the midwife on duty, and a doctor, I was left alone long enough to pass out completely. I woke up about 45 minutes later feeling well rested, hungry, in need of a potty break, and concerned that I'd been forgotten so I unhooked the monitors, put on my clothes, made a pit stop, then headed to the nurse station to ask if I could go home. That made them get a move on. They were waiting on the pharmacy to send up an albuterol inhaler...Their plan was for me to blow into the flow meter thingy, take 2 puffs of albuterol, wait 20 minutes, then reblow. The goal was for my second blow to be much higher thus proving the benefit of the inhaler. In the meantime the head OBGYN doctor came in and with good humor (though a bit patronizing) explained the importance of me taking my medicine (I had expressed concern over these things crossing into the placenta and harming the baby). You know how docs are--medicine solves all problems! They don't take kindly to people who don't subscribe to that same belief.

So I did their little albuterol test and blew a 400 both before and after the albuterol....hmmmm...Despite seeing no improvement in my blow after the medicine, they seemed pleased and wrote me a prescription for a higher dose of Advair (my daily medication), signed my discharge papers, and sent me home. I walked out of the hospital into an insane thunderstorm and immediately found myself struggling to breathe again. Other than the nap, this was a colossal waste of my afternoon. I didn't fill the prescription, but I did call my mom's asthma doctor in Hagerstown and took the soonest appointment I could get which is on June 24 at 9:30 a.m. Yes, I'm driving all the way to Hagerstown on a Wednesday to see a doctor despite living within close proximity to a zillion hospitals and doctors in Baltimore.

In baby news, I'm 30 weeks now which is 3/4 of the way!! Only 10 more weeks to go. Hannah is about 3 pounds and is 10 3/4 inches from top to bottom (butt bottom, not feet bottom). According to the book, her toenails just might be visible, and it's likely that she's got a good of hair. The average mama weight gain is 25 to 35 pounds...I'm guessing I haven't gained 6 pounds in the last 2 weeks, but who knows. The scale that's been stashed under my bath tub doesn't seem to work so we'll have to wait until my next midwife appointment (also June 24) to figure that out.

I'm feeling pretty good aside from the breathing. My only other complaint is the aches and pains that have started developing in pelvic/netherlands area...Libby summed it up well when I asked if it was normal. She said something along the lines of, 'yeah, I used to think my whole body was falling apart starting with my vagina.' That's pretty much how I feel. It's a strange feeling...for a while I thought it was because I was going to spinning classes again and the bike seat maybe was bruising me, but it hasn't gone away, so it must be that I'm falling apart...

Alright! Time to head back down to Hon Fest for some more yummy festival food.