Hospital, day 4

I am sick of being in hospital, I don't feel so feeble and really want to be at home now.

Sadly, that isn't happening soon but as I have been better, I'm now out of my cosy private room and into a ward. Good because I am now permitted afternoon visits so I can see my boys, and also because they have things such as patient fetched coffee and a tv room. Bad because there are other people in it and they are noisy. At least these people are ante natal and don't have crying babies with them.

So. The prognosis. Due to the lack of any pre eclampsia symptoms and the bonkers blood pressure, they have decided that it is essential hypertension (that's high blood pressure) and is highlighted by pregnancy rather than caused by it. I'm not sure what implication this has on treatment, hospital stay or delivery, I have a lot of questions for the docs.

Meantime they are trying to establish a cause, blood pressure does not normally behave like this. First up they eliminate the nasty possibilities so I've got a 24 hour test to rule out the worst possibility (a type of tumour called a Pheochromocytoma) which is incredibly rare but serious so must be eliminated.

Based on that I will be here for another two nights minimum. Sigh. And assuming thats negative, I have no idea what happens next. Many questions.

Baby is still well. I am an emotional wreck.

11 weeks

And so we begin week 12...

Symptoms: today I have felt particularly nauseous, which I did hope to be easing a bit. Not so today, smells were bad and I actually thought I was going to throw up at one point. Boobs have gone mad, muchos sensitive today and the colour has changed and spread. They are covered in the little tiny bumps called Montgomery Tubercles which look like mould. Lovely stuff.

I had my midwife booking in visit today at the house. All fairly uneventful, but I did discover:

Forth Park (the maternity hospital) now do Nuchal Fold screening as standard. Which checks the fold of skin at the back of the neck; if thickened it can be indicative of Downs. They also do the blood test for Downs/Spina Bifida at the initial scan. So any risk should show up early and hey, what fun to have new worries. No. That's not the point. The point is to have more invasive but conclusive tests if a high risk is present.

This is where I get a bit twitchy about being "over 35". Only just over 35, I think my Downs risk is about 1 in 400. As my husband rightly pointed out, if I had 400 babies 1 would have Downs.

The other thing I discovered was that if I don't want a VBAC and really want another Caesarean, they will do what I want. That doesn't mean they won't heavily lean on me to change my mind but it is reassuring to have the final say.

7 sleeps now.