Prenatal 2 – Isabelle and Other Worries
We had our second official prenatal appointment today. At Kaiser they have a system for these things and today’s appointment is a sort of class/lab day. You see videos about eating right and the nature of testing for various birth defects. They do a urine and blood test and you fill out a bunch of paperwork that gets inputted into their computers. They also give you a general calendar of the steps you are going to go through with the various appointments throughout the pregnancy. A lot of it was not particularly new information, but some of it was and it was generally useful.
Also, I’m a sucker for efficient systems so I have to hand it Kaiser for figuring out a way to cover a lot of ground with a bunch of people at once in a one-size-fits-all format. Probably the most useful part of the program was put on by the guest speaker, Isabelle.
Isabelle was the 2 year old daughter of one of the participants of the class. It was kind of interesting having this little girl in there as it made it all seem more tangible. It was the reminder that this is more than a blood test and a video, but that if this goes right you’re going to have a tiny person that you will be responsible for. It probably helped that she was very, very cute. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we’re all hoping for cute.
On the other hand, she was 2 and it seems that 2-year-olds have their own ideas about things. The desire to be entertained seemed pretty important to her and tended to run in opposition to what the rest of us were trying to accomplish. I think it was the second time that her Sesame Street doll started singing its happy Sesame Street song and her mother got a little mortified that I realized that this job is probably harder than they’re letting on in these classes.
Anyway, she was the highlight of the class/appointment until about an hour ago when Amy called me to let me know they had called her with the test results. Everything was fine except that the protein level in her urine test was quite a lot higher than it should have been. Although the lab tech that gave her the results was not helpful in terms of explaining this, after a bit of research it’s not hard to see the possible connection to some pretty serious conditions.
If this were the 20th week and the elevated protein levels were accompanied by elevated blood pressure, chest pain, headache, swelling, rapid weight gain, brisk reflexes and/or visual disturbances then you’d have pre-eclampsia. This is what no one wants to find out and would mean that a best-case scenario is a very risky pregnancy (to both Amy and the twins) and months and months of bed rest. Worst case scenario would be a pregnancy that might not remain viable.
Anyway, this is scary to find out and gives us both plenty to worry about, but the likelihood is that we’re going to be asked to do the urinalysis again before they even start going down this road. It could easily be some kind of urinary tract infection, or kidney infection, too, and not necessarily anything to worry about – though of course we will.
I am sorry about the elevated protein. I had pre-eclampsia with both of my pregnancies. I had to stay in bed most of the babies gestation and had to deliver the baby as soon as the doctor thought they would be viable. But! I had two fantastic results, Will and Max. All of us are very healthy today.