First Ever Hospital Admission

Yesterday I went in for my routine blood pressure monitoring at the antenatal day unit. Having tested it at home before I left, I had a feeling it was going to be high.

When we got there we waited a little while, before being hooked up the the monitors. Then, the BP readings came…

152/109, 153/101, 151/92, 149/98, 144/91…

Not so great then. I also had trace protein in my urine again, so they took bloods and sent us off for a wander to wait for the bloods to come back in order to rule out pre-eclampsia.

We went for a walk, had coffee and went back to the unit. Before long we were seen by a dr, who advised us that basically at this point they would still be taking no action and they want me to come back tomorrow for more monitoring.

Unfortunately I really wasn’t happy with this. The consultant that I saw last week put a plan in place – that if the majority of my readings were over 150/95, we needed to medicate. The concerns I had were because in the last week I have woken up every day with a headache, my BP has been steadily rising and I have felt generally unwell. So, Amy and I asked the dr to check with her senior again as to whether we could follow the plan put in place by the consultant.

The senior registrar came to see us and talked us through everything. He did agree in the end that it was probably best to medicate judging on how my symptoms were and the climbs in BP over the past two weeks. Unfortunately it meant an overnight hospital stay…

Amy is an absolute superstar and manager to track down nightclothes, slippers, the all important phone charger and some snacks for me, for which I was and am ETERNALLY grateful. I have to admit there were a few years as I hated the idea of spending the night in an unfamiliar place away from my family. Necessary evil.

So, that leads me to now. It’s 8am. I’ve been awake since about 4am… I’ve never been on a hospital ward before so this is all new to me. I always thought I was a relatively heavy sleeper – three years of working a shift pattern that included nights had made that happen – buuuut no. Turns out I pretty much wake up when pins drop. Or when the lady opposite me gets a great night’s sleep and celebrates with snoring the whole night long… Meh.

Anyway, so BP readings were much MUCH better overnight, which is good. They’re a little high this morning but down from that scary 160/100 level and not even reaching 155/95. They’re sitting pretty below 140/90. Little miss Eden has been just fine and has cooperated with the Doppler every time – hooray! And no other issues at all except for an absolutely stinking headache.

Dr’s rounds are in an hour or two, so I’m hoping the dr will be able to advise on firstly whether I can go home today (keep fingers crossed please!) and secondly what the plan is from this point. The consultant’s plan was to induce between 37 and 38 weeks if BP medication was required, so I’ll be interested to see if that will still be the case.