My Pregnancy is the Billy Mays of Bad News

“But wait, there’s more!”

I thought of this yesterday and decided to repeat it eighteen times. Cause it was clever.

Last Saturday Team Gwinn went to the gym. I tried all the modified lower body workouts the chiropractors suggested, and by the end of it all I was sore, but walked out. We grabbed lunch, drove home. By the time we pulled into the garage, I couldn’t walk (I sat in the car for five minutes? Maybe three miles?). Like, for real, couldn’t walk. I dragged myself up the stairs, let Captain Laser Pants manage mini Gwinn, and crawled (yes, crawled) into the shower. For the next four hours, if I needed to pee or eat something, I rolled off our bed and crawled to it. That following Tuesday, after over two hours of massage and adjustments, the chiropractor told me to expect to be in a much more constrictive support brace very soon, that I may need to be induced early to alleviate the pain, and, before the end of my third trimester, to be on bed rest.

I laughed. How would anyone expect a mom of a toddler to lay in bed? We don’t have help, we don’t have family in the area. Bed rest is absurd. You may as well tell me that some barn animals are going to come over twice a week just to mill around in my living room and poop on stuff.

I had my glucose test that Wednesday. Mini Gwinn charmed the nurses and staff, my OB cooed at his every uttering. On Thursday the nurse called to tell me my platelet count was 80,000. The low normal is 150,000. Below 100,000 at delivery and you can’t have an epidural. 50,000 scores you a blood transfusion. To amp your count up before delivery, they do transfusions and steroids. Inducing after 37 weeks isn’t unheard of. The nurse told me I’d need to come in for additional blood work.

I drove in to the hospital on Friday because I started spotting. My OB wanted me to get an ultrasound to check on our little guy and go ahead and have my blood taken for further testing. While I was waiting for the ultrasound, I started having debilitating kidney pain. The baby hadn’t moved much that morning, and with all the stress, I started to cry. The ultrasound office staff was SO kind, but the pain took a very long time to subside. The technician let me hear our little guy’s heartbeat and took some pictures to calm my nerves- he was ok, even if I wasn’t. Then she checked my kidneys. Both were abnormally enlarged, even for pregnancy. She urged my doctor to suggest a visit to the urologist, but there’s nothing they can do for kidney stones while pregnant, including confirming the existence of kidney stones.

So the lab took several vials of blood, leaving both my arms blue and bruised. The lab technician told me they were sending my blood to a hematologist, not to lift anything heavy (does a 35 lb. toddler count?), and to take it easy. They’d call on Monday with results.

Yesterday the nurse called to tell me that my blood was put into vials with coagulate in them, thus hindering the testing (whatever that means), and that I would need to make the 25 mile drive back to the hospital to give more blood.

The good news is that our little guy (whom we affectionately call “Graham cracker”) is big and STRONG. We have full on viewings of his acrobatics now and can watch him move my entire abdomen. He moves for HOURS at a time. I’m glad that he’s growing healthily, even if I’m internally shutting down.

Also, Atlanta is getting snow for the first time in three years. Traffic is gridlocked and the city is closing up shop.

If zombie Billy Mays pops up and tells me there’s more, I’m going to go Daryl Dixon (that’s zombie for “postal”).