Update on My Health and Other Matters

So, I may have mentioned that my pregnancy induced high blood pressure appears to be back. It was elevated, for the first time in my pregnancy, when I saw the doctor on Thursday before Caetlin got sick, and I ended up having to go back twice last week while Caetlin was in the hospital. Without rehashing details I've already written about, suffice to say my pressure has stayed elevated. No pre-eclampsia, thank goodness, but definitely high blood pressure.

I saw the doctor yesterday and had a fetal non-stress test- basically, they hooked me up to a fetal heart monitor, which also measured contractions, and gave me a Jeopardy! style handheld clicker that I was to push every time I felt Segunda move. I stayed strapped up to the machine for maybe 20 minutes or so, at which time the doctor came in and looked at the readout and pronounced the baby, "Perfect." So Segunda is in no distress at all from my condition.

My pressure wasn't high enough yesterday to make my doctor order me out of work, but he did recommend that I buy a blood pressure cuff and start charting my pressure through the day. He also said he is going to see me twice a week from now on. The point right now is to monitor me for any dangerously high spikes, and see if it is trending upward or if it appears to be higher during the work day, at which point he will certify that I need to stop working.

The doctor said the baby would be completely fine if we delivered her right now, though she would probably have to stay in the hospital an extra week or ten days. I would personally prefer that she stay in until the end of the month as she is supposed to, for her sake, for my sake (I'm not ready yet!) and for leave purposes. For a variety of boring reasons, I really want to have her as late as possible, so I can stretch out my leave for 4 months, until the beginning of July.

Anyway, today was the first day of monitoring, and so far it does seem as though my pressure is higher during the work day. I don't really want to be certified as short-term disabled, but I'd rather that than having to deliver the baby right now.

Anyway, that's all there is on that front. I go back to the doctor on Thursday.

Caetlin is doing marvelously well. You'd never know, looking at her today, that she was so sick a week ago. For example, I was standing in the laundry nook off the kitchen tonight, putting a load into the washer, and she was running around and around the circle between kitchen, dining room and living room, yelling, "I run and go fast, Mommy!" every time she made the circuit. She saw her pediatrician today, who thought she looked great, and is happy with our treatment plan. We are seeing her urologist tomorrow, to discuss having the outpatient procedure done that will more than likely fix her reflux and stop any future UTIs from infecting her kidneys. Hopefully we can have it done before Segunda comes. The procedure is a complete snap as I understand it, involving more or less a large needle and an ultrasound machine, I think, so I hope it won't be too hard to schedule.

(Adorable non-sequitur: the firm sent a lovely basket of books and toys and a balloon, and one of the things in the basket was a Mickey Mouse activity book, including Caetlin's beloved stickers. She's been asking for Mickey Mouse stickers, and I have to indulge her as much as I possibly can, since she calls him, "Wickey Mouse." Which I think is seriously the cutest thing ever and I make her say it as much as I can.)

I pulled all of Caetlin's newborn size clothing out of storage today, so it can be washed and made ready for Segunda. I cannot comprehend how those clothes ever fit Caetlin, how they were even a little big for her.

Finally, Bruce has received an offer from the firm's Tokyo office to go work for a year for one of their Japanese investment bank clients. I think the weird limbo that we've been in regarding his job status has something to do with this offer, like it's this or being laid off. The compensation isn't exactly what we would like, and Bruce has asked if anything can be done in that regard, though our hopes aren't high. Plus there is the whole Bruce-living-in-Tokyo-for-a-year thing, the whole single parenthood thing, from my perspective. It's not ideal, but if Bruce wants to continue being a lawyer, he basically needs to take it. At the current offer, we'll lose money over what we're making now, but not nearly as much as if Bruce loses his job altogether. It's unclear when they will want him to start, if he accepts it; most likely sometime in early summer.

Anyway, I can't write much more about that, in part because I don't know where my thinking is. It's just one more area of upheaval and stress. Awesome.