I've had this "tradition" since I was a little kid where I would save my favorite/most special outfit to wear on my birthday, even if I had nowhere to go and nothing to do. This of course excludes the one birthday I had- it was my fifteenth I think- when I spent the entire day in the hot Florida sun building a pool deck out of wood alongside my mom and brother. I really didn't have much of a wardrobe choice on that day. I digress... I actually did the same thing during my fertility treatments and would wear my best outfits and get all jazzed up after getting bad news. It always cheers me up to feel good on the outside if I'm not feeling so hot on the inside. So I kept with tradition today with a hospital bed rest slant: my amazing in-laws brought me some Victoria's Secret Pink pants and a shirt that I absolutely love, so I saved them to wear today. I got lots of compliments on my hot pink shirt, which coincidentally has my birth year (86! I'm a youngin!) printed on the back like jersey numbers.
But I have to say- my birthday started off SO. BADLY. I started my second 24 hour urine collection yesterday around 6am so it was finished up today at 6am. My "neighbor" yesterday was so loud and apparently had issues sleeping, so she decided to be incredibly noisy so that I couldn't sleep either. So I was up past 1am. I had difficulty sleeping in the middle of the night, which could be one of those awesome pregnancy symptoms or a side effect of this hospital stay, and had those awful recurrent dreams that make me frustrated. I woke up often and felt like I wasn't really sleeping much. And then I was woken up at 4:30am by the girl from the lab, telling me that she needed to draw blood- yes, at 4:30am!- to see if we could do my 3hr glucose test. I told her that my OB said yesterday that we weren't doing the test until next week, but she double checked the order and today was the day. So she drew from my right arm, which was only poked once last week on Wednesday. Then I had my vitals at 5:30 and the lab girl came back and gave me a bottle of glucose solution to drink so we could start the test. At least my tech stayed in the room for it- she is such a sweet lady and empathized with me, and thank goodness for that because the lab girl is a girl of few words and emotions. And to make matters worse, the glucose solution was orange flavored, which I despise. On a side note, my aversion to orange flavored anything may be a psychological thing stemming from an inside joke that started between me and my best friend in 6th grade. It was far too 'adult content' for our age and I'll spare you the details, but that could be the cause of my issues with orange candy. If she's reading this, I guarantee she's snickering :) Back on track now- after the evil orange syrup, I laid back down and barely fell asleep before the RN came in for meds. When she left, I fell back asleep for about a half hour before the lab girl came back for my first of three blood draws that began at 6:45am and were spaced an hour apart. She decided that, for the first two of those three draws, she would just go ahead and poke me in the gaping hole in my left arm where my IV line sat for three days and was removed just two days ago. It didn't tickle, I can tell you that. So for the last one, as she came to the left side of my bed, I asked her to draw from the right side and she agreed. I was so cranky at that point from being woken up every hour after a terrible night's sleep that I whined to hubby after the lab girl left and then tried to get a little more rest. I got up sometime around 9:30 I think, and hubby gave me a very sweet birthday card that made me cry a little.
So my day started off terribly. We ate breakfast and I got hooked up to the monitors... Emma was wiggly again and kept rolling off the monitor, but she did well overall and I was off in a reasonable amount of time again. The OB came to talk to me and told me that I passed my glucose test and that the protein in my urine is still in the 300's. WOOHOO! I mean the protein being in the 300's isn't good- it's still in the range of mild pre-eclampsia, but it hasn't gotten worse so I count this as a good thing.
I then had a cupcake delivered from room service and it was my favorite flavor- vanilla cake with vanilla bean frosting. You'd think that being a cupcake baker (on temporary hiatus), my favorite flavor would be something more exotic and cool but... nope. Just plain vanilla. Mmmmmm. So my lunch was a cupcake and some cheetos and I feel I deserve that. Somehow, despite all of the french fries and doing nothing, I've lost a pound and I'm the same weight I was five weeks ago. Not quite sure how that happened because I've been eating terribly.
Then my mom, brother, sister-in-law, and my three beautiful nieces came for an afternoon visit! My sister-in-law saw a picture I recently posted on facebook of my SED's, which are the things they put on your legs that squeeze them gently to help avoid blood clots. In that picture, you can clearly see that I haven't given myself a pedicure lately... so my birthday gift was all the fixin's so I could paint my toenails. Mission accomplished: my piggies look good now :)
Hubby and I also took a NICU tour this morning which was actually a little awkward. It was kind of... "ok, here's the NICU! Here's a room. We keep babies here. Have any questions?" Ok so obviously that's an exaggeration but it was short and to the point. I'm glad we did it though, because it was good to see the setup in person. It's brand new and beautiful... the decor makes it look a bit like an upscale hotel and everything is dimly lit, quiet, and soothing. It is nice to know that our baby will be in good hands if she ends up there and that we can be with her 24/7 if we want. I'm sure someone will have to physically remove me from the hospital or I may not leave as long as she's there. She's my little buddy- I feel her moving and kicking all day long and I can't imagine being away from her if she's in a little box and hooked up to wires.
Today was a little depressing though. I tried to keep my spirits up, but it's tough at times and I think that's understandable. I try to let myself feel what I feel, even if that's not so good at times. I felt really sad when hubby left- he called me to say that he thought he could see my window from where he was parked on top of the parking garage, and he was right. He was able to see me standing in the window with my pink shirt on, so he waved to me. Then my mom pulled up behind him so she could give him the crib mattress that my parents bought for us (such a big help!). He called me back to say that he was leaving and I waved to him again and watched him pull away and drive off and I got really sad. I felt like a puppy in a window. A prisoner in a sterile cell. I just want to go home, even if only for a day. I want to sleep in my own bed without being interrupted, to relax without having people in and out of my room all day, to shower in my own shower, to snuggle with my puppy and my husband. Sigh.
But I got lots of birthday wishes and encouragement today from friends and family. Even the perinatologist ARNP stopped by after her shift to wish me a happy birthday. I also got some good news about insurance as it appears that my out of pocket cost is going to be less than what I had thought, so my AFLAC coverage will really help make up for the loss of income from being on disability. But that's only for the time being and once my disability is up, I don't quite know what I'm going to do. BUT. I'm relishing every bit of good news I get. It's all I can do.
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