Update and GIVEAWAY winner.

And the winner is (drumroll, please)....

Mrs. Spit. YAY! Bees. I love doing bees. But then, I got kind of, you know, bummed by the whole one winner thing, so I decided to pick another winner (drumroll)

YAY, Erika P! Hooray for both of you. Email me your snail mail addresses and I will start felting. And you never know which needle felted items may end up at your home, so stay tuned. I almost just went with making all fourteen of them, because apparently I am crazy. But you never know, if my nervous energy gets the best of me, I might just email you for your address.

As for the first meeting with the new doctor, all in all, it was fine. My midwife emailed her with all the details of me and my case. I have no idea if it was one of those emails with a huge red exclamation mark next to it, or just a normal newsy one, but she was kind and responsive. Turns out she also lives in my little town as well. That was a nice surprise, and also she looked vaguely familiar, so that was comforting.

Yesterday, I woke up unable to calm myself. My heart was beating wildly, so I knew it would be a shitty blood pressure day. I meditated. I painted. I sat and watched some crappy television at my sister's house while the kids played in a far away room. I drank chamomile tea. I even headed downtown two hours earlier, got myself an incredible lunch salad at one of those chichi places that charges too much for meatloaf and the servers wear t-shirts and jeans. (IT IS MEATLOAF, people.) I finished my book, and drank more calming herbal tea in the bitter cold.

130/90. 

High for me, but not too high. Not pre-eclampsia high. But again this nurse will not put me in the bigger cuff. She argued with me. "You are just not that big, honey." Perhaps she is right, it is her job to measure these things after all, but I come from a long line of people with low blood pressure and big arms. When the doctor came in, she sat with me and talked. It was nice. We went through my recent records. She thought the protein was too low to affect me in a concrete way, so she said, "We are kind of ignoring that because it is on the cut-off." She called  me a gestational hypertensive, since pre-eclampsia in later pregnancies where there was never pre-eclampsia is incredibly rare. I did not want to remind her of Michele Duggar's 19th baby, but that was sort of there in the back of my mind. I have to monitor my blood pressure every day at home, eat low sodium (my vice is salt, I admit. OH, and coffee) and kick count. All of that is just fine with me, to be honest. No more Amy's Lentil Soup for lunch, but that is fine. All the joy has left my eating habits a while ago.

She kept asking me about my schedule and who can watch Bea. She told me I need lots of rest, yet I should still workout. But she didn't say bed rest. With no guidelines or specific parameters, I really don't know what that means. I stay home painting with my daughter most days. We take a nap. It isn't like we are constructing a large gnome village in the backyard most days. She is a toddler and it is winter. Our time involves lots of alphabet projects, crafts and reading. Still, rest. Check. One (or two) more baths a day falls under the umbrella of rest, right? All in all, it was fine. I have to go back Wednesday for another BP check. She did say that if I show any signs of pre-eclampsia, meaning my blood pressure goes up, protein shows up in the urine dip at the office, the baby is out. Scary, but  hopefully, as unlikely as she says. No glucose results, which is weird as that was a week ago. So, that is that.

I was comforted by not having to go to the hospital. Thor's heartbeat was fine. That is all I can hope for these days. Maybe next time my blood pressure will be lower. She thought that I might have a very real case of white coat hypertension. So, I am sort of interested in having my blood pressure tested at home everyday.

Thank you, all, for your love and support this week. Sometimes they just hit you upside the head, as my grandmother would say, and you holler for days. XO

And JUST because this picture makes me indescribably happy, I am posting a recent stand off picture of my almost three year old and me. Beatrice refusing to get dressed in 20 degree weather. Enjoy.