So, we had another appointment today. I've been feeling pretty poorly this week, with my ankles swelling to marshmallow-like proportions, and seeing spangly lights when I turn my head, and feeling dizzy. I almost went in on Wednesday, but I knew I had the appointment today so decided to hold off.

Well, the midwife checked my blood pressure and it was ridiculously high. Think 150ish over 80ish. Yeah, not bueno. The midwife said, "Oh, they'll probably induce you today with a reading like that." Alright then! Matt and I started making plans for how he'd get a day bus pass, leave me at the hospital, go home and clean, etc.

So they sent me over to the assessment unit for a blood pressure check (where they do 3 or 4 readings ten minutes apart). I sat in their waiting room for about 30 minutes, then they ushered me into a room where a student midwife attended to me.

Now, one might think that since I myself am a student I would be more forgiving of other students. In fact, kind of the opposite is true. I *know* how incompetent we students are. This midwife put a blood pressure cuff on me that was WAY too loose. Like, I could easily put 4 fingers between it and my skin and it kept sliding off my arm. The first time it took a reading, it said my pulse was 42. It also said my pressure was 120/67. Um, what? I let her come in and check on me once, but the second time I basically had to say, "Look. Just put a smaller cuff on me. This is not giving accurate readings." She put the smaller cuff on and was amazed to see my blood pressure rise to 141/72. Sigh. This is why, when I have the baby, I am more than willing to let students watch, but only a trained professional will be doing important things on me.

Anyway, my BP stayed at about 140ish over 70ish for the rest of the time we were there. When I walked back over to see the doctor, she was basically unimpressed with my BP and suggested I come back in next Friday for a recheck. I explained to her that my BP was now 35-40/15-20 over my normal status, but she seemed to be of the camp of people to whom absolute numbers mean more than, you know, patients. She actually suggested that my symptoms (pitting edema, headache, seeing lights, etc.) were both "not that bad" and could not possibly be caused by my pressure since it was still in an okay range.

While I had a quiet panic attack, Matt stepped in and said "What we're trying to say is that she's at 39 weeks. Why aren't you just inducing her?" The doctor got a bit flustered at this, and said something that sounded a bit like "Well, if we induced her we'd have to start inducing every woman at 39 weeks with high blood pressure." We both leaned a bit on her at this point (i.e., "If I was in the States they'd have induced me last week", which is almost certainly true), so she went to speak with the head consultant about "a care plan" for me. This probably meant she walked over to him to commiserate about the hysterical American woman over in room 11c. Miraculously, she came back in and said that, even though they never do this, they'd schedule an induction for the day after my due date instead of for 12 days after, when they normally schedule it. Also, I go back into day assessment on Monday for another BP panel.

Basically, I'll have a child a week from Tuesday pretty much no matter what. I'm still hoping that he gets here, well, tonight. Or earlier. But since I'm still only having contractions about once an hour or so, I'm not holding out too much hope.

Happy Anniversary to us!

1,095 days of learning, laughing, crying, hugging, sharing, cooking, studying, whining, praying, and growing in our relationship with each other and the Lord.

Here's to another 27,375 more.

What's your favourite tip (given or recieved) for naturally inducing labour? I have seen so many kooky things, as well as hearing about it from well-meaning friends (and strangers!). An old woman in line in front of me at Tesco today turned around and said, loudly, "Well you know you're going to need to make love with your husband to get labour jumpstarted." We live in Edinburgh, people. It's difficult to get the cashier to acknowledge your purchase of toilet paper or deodorant, much less to have old women announce your sexual needs to the store. I might have been embarrassed if I wasn't laughing so hard as I assured her that we were doing everything we could to hasten the arrival of our child.

How about y'all? Anything outrageous suggested to you?

Bianca asked,

"What on earth DO you put on an (or eleven) I'm-having-a-baby CD(s)?"

Since I have nothing better to do than sit around making lists, here is a sampling of the artists on those CDs.

Cake- Almost all of them, except "Nugget" and "Satan is my Motor". It's just not the right sentiment, you know?

Bebo "Beat Box" Norman

Jennifer Knapp

Beatles

Jars of Clay

David Crowder

They Might be Giants

Plain White Tees

The "Once" Soundtrack

Keola Girls Mix

A little Police and Sting

Eric Clapton

Jeff Buckley


And a handful of others. Mostly just a mix of faster and slower songs that I know don't annoy me or Matt.

I am a third year student! I passed Animal Husbandry! Wooooooohoooooooooo!!!!!!!

Hey guys, I just posted an FAQ section on the "student info" part of the site. Do any vet students want to wander over there, then let me know what crucial information I got wrong or missed entirely?

Man, sometimes I really miss Reading Rainbow and all the other PBS shows.

Anyway, at our clinic appointment last Friday they told me my blood pressure was a little high. It was lower than the critical level for diagnosing pre-eclampsia, but still 30 points higher than when my BP was tested at my first pregnancy appointment back in January, which raises some red flags for them. Also, there was protein in my urine, which can be a clinical sign of pre-eclampsia.

Now, when they told me back in June that I had haemophilia (which I don't; it was a false alarm) I did what any self-respecting e student would do. I went to the internet to find out what the stats, causes, treatments, etc. were. And it soothed me to do that, because I found out some important things, like "this has no impact on your life unless you have major surgery or a difficult labour" and "most people with this don't even know they have it." These things made me feel better. Clearly, I wasn't suddenly going to drop dead.

But with pre-eclampsia, the internet is not the place to go. Google brought back links to "Reducing mortality in PE patients" and other such fun topics. More concerning to me is that the only cure for PE (inducing labour to get the danged baby out) is NOT the standard treatment in the UK. Here, they prescribe bedrest, which has (in some preliminary studies) been shown to *increase* morbidity in PE patients. I don't know about you, but it is not soothing at all for me to hear that the treatment you're most likely to get is one with no benefits and some well-defined risks.

As a result, I spent the whole weekend laying awake thinking about the 1,001 ways I or my son could just up and die. Fun times.

We went back to the clinic today for a BP and foetal monitor thing, where they strapped a monitor to my belly and a BP cuff to my arm and I got to lie around for an hour while they measured all my (and his) stats. Everything was fine. Repeat urine showed no protein, and the bloodwork from Friday showed smooth sailing. Yippee!

Just wanted to share with you guys that, once again, everything is in the clear. And also that Dr. Google is not always your ally in health care.

Alright, here are some random bullets of update:

-37 weeks. I am officially full term, which in the UK means that they wouldn't induce me for another 4.5 weeks. I'm hoping like heck he gets here before that. My ankles are back to "full-puff" mode. It'll be nice to see my old friends, the ankle bones, again someday.

-In order to urge our now almost-named son to arrive, I have been drinking raspberry leaf tea and thinking labored thoughts.

-As a result (or not), I'm having contractions every 25-35 minutes. But not really painful ones. According to the interwebs, these contractions mean I will probably have a child. Eventually. But not tonight or tomorrow.

-I made a yogurt pound cake the other day that was really tasty. It is still tasty, but my poor cake-wrapping skills mean that it's all dried out now. Boo.

-We went to Merv's casa last night for a bbq fajita night. Mmmm, guacamole.

-We also bought a chest of drawers from Ikea for the wee one. Matt assembled them and they are now full of an overwhelming amount of baby clothes.

-My hospital bag is packed. Many people have suggested that we bring music, so I burned some CDs. And by some, I mean 11. All I'm saying is, I don't know what kind of music I'll feel like, you know?

-I made some homemade baby wipe solution to test the recipe I amalgamated. I then poured it all over myself- hey, I have sensitive skin, so if I react to it, I'm not going to use it on my infant. So far, so good, though I think I'll cut back on the lavender.

-Wow, I'm boring myself with these bullets. Does anyone on the Edinburgh area want to give me some company tomorrow? Alternately, any advice on how not to die of boredom?

This is just a quick note to let y'all, and Jeni, know that I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I am aware that our baby (Fulcrum Shiggy Rabbit's-Bane Price) is coming soon, and that I am very excited about his approaching arrival!

KLee, I haven't posted a picture of me and the Nessie in awhile because, well, we aren't at our best. Gone are the days of cute bumps and glowing skin; come are the days of looking like a small whaling vessel of some variety and being covered with pimples. Strangers used to come up to me and say, "I'm so excited for you!" Now, they look at me with pity and say, "Oh, I'm sorry. It'll be over soon."

But for you, and all the other (4) people who want to keep tabs on my expansion, here's one of me last week after a rare shower:



Yup, there are two whole chins there for your viewing pleasure. Also note the hand supporting the huge child. Not pictured are the ridiculously sore hips and the bubble-gum pink stretch marks that span my entire midsection.

My Animal Husbandry resit exam is tomorrow morning. I've told our son that he can arrive any time after that. I think this weekend would be nice, don't you guys agree?

Alright, so maybe I'm going a little crazy, but can you blame me?





Also, here is what the Anti-Terrorism Chocolate Cake with the caramel and ganache wound up looking like:

Woohoo!

I didn't realise my Anti-Terrorism chocolate cake recipe would garner so much intrigue. I've been calling this cake by this name since Spokane, when someone (Mary? Miranda? I thought it was Bianca, but apparently not) said that if people could eat this cake, they would like Americans more. But Jenny F., I like your definition better! Anyway, here it is:

Anti-Terrorism Chocolate Cake
1 package devil's food cake mix (don't use the kind that has pudding in the mix)
1 package (3.9 oz) chocolate pudding mix
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup warm water (use warm, not cold. It actually makes a difference)
1/2 cup vegetable oil or melted butter
1.5 cups chocolate chips (Or equivalent in chopped semisweet, milk, dark or a mix of chocolates)

1. Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Grease a 12 cup Bundt pan and dust with unsweetened cocoa powder. This makes it so your chocolate cake doesn't have weird flour schmutz all over it.
2. Place cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, eggs, oil, and warm water into a mixing bowl. Beat by hand or with a mixer (sigh) on low for one minute and medium for 2 minutes. The batter will be pretty thick so, if mixing by hand, just beat until your hand goes numb and that should be about right..
3. Fold in chips or chopped chocolate, distributing evenly. Pour into the Bundt pan and have Matt smooth it out so it lies more or less flat in the pan. I am apparently incapable of doing this correctly.
4. Bake about 45-50 minutes until it springs back when lightly pressed with your finger and starts to pull away from the side of the pan.
5. Let cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then run a knife around the edge of the pan and invert onto a rack. If using a glaze, let cool a bit more. If not, eat warm straight from the rack as your husband asks if you'd like a plate or fork.

Since it was my birthday, I topped it with a caramel glaze. Tonight, since it's Laura's birthday (and she specifically requested this cake), I will top it with both a caramel glaze and chocolate ganache. Unless I'm too lazy. Then we'll just eat it plain.

Woke up.
Matt made porridge with allspice, vanilla, and maple syrup.
We walked to church and got a ride back afterward.
We walked over to a pretty delicious Chinese buffet. Ate a lot.
Went to Kilimanjaro for espresso (Matt) and chai (me).
Bought ingredients at Tesco.
Mixed up an Anti-Terrorism Chocolate Cake.

Still to come:
Pulling cake out of oven.
Pouring brown sugar caramel glaze over the top.
Going to meet new vet students while cake cools.
Eating cake.
Sleep.

All in all, not a bad 24th!

[Edited to add] p.s. 35 weeks!