20 Week Ultrasound-23 Weeks 6 Days

23 weeks pregnant

From week 14 until week 20 everything stayed fairly stable. At my 14 week appointment, my doctor wanted to do a urine protein test to get my baseline so that if it started to rise later, we'd know where we started. It was a little higher than he would have liked, but it wasn't so out of range that it was worrisome at that point. He assumed my kidneys had probably taken a hit from my previous pregnancies. Because everything else had been going pretty good, I had actually forgotten about it to be quite honest.

In the meantime, I was keeping close track of my blood pressures at home and they were super stable in the 130's/80's. I was pretty happy with that. With Brooks, my blood pressures started to get out of control at 13 weeks. I was actually in the hospital with him a lot more by this point, so I thought for sure my pregnancy with Paige was going to go off without a hitch. I would take my blood pressures two to three times a day and write them on a little log that I had made. That way, if anything started to get out of whack, I could catch it quickly, call my doctor and we could start medication. Everything seemed to be going perfect.

At 20 weeks we went in for our anatomy scan. It was the day before Thanksgiving. I had been pretty nervous for this ever since our genetic screens came back weird. We wanted to include the boys, but I had this intense fear of something being wrong after everything that had happened. We almost decided not to bring them. In fact, we had decided that we were going to leave them home that day and pay to do a scan at a 3D place at 28 weeks so that we could make sure everything was okay and then it would be a good experience for everyone. At the last minute, we decided to bring them. I am so glad we did. Because it would be our last happy scan.

We went in and we were so excited. I was still nervous, but she started at the head and that measured perfectly, with no abnormalities, then she moved to the heart and so on... everything looked and measured right on track. The boys were glued to the screen with great big smiles as they watched their sweet baby sister kicking around. Jace was amazed with her little heart. Brooks loved her little face. I wanted them to check and make sure she was still a girl. She was :) They were such well behaved little gentlemen. It is one of my most happy and favorite memories.

After the scan, we were so relieved. I don't think any of us could have been smiling any bigger. We went to see my doctor right after and my blood pressure was a little elevated. No big deal... it's always elevated at the doctor. I have horrible white coat syndrome. I told him what my blood pressures had been at home and because of the high reading they got at the office, he decided to put me on a low dose of blood pressure medication. That way we could get on top of it and if we needed to adjust we had room to spare. Everything else looked great and he was pleased with the scan.

We left the office and went to straight to Fred Meyers to pick out Paige's first outfits. I had been dreaming of shopping in the girl section for my entire life, so as soon as we found out for sure she was a girl, that's the first place we headed. Each of us picked out an outfit for her. The boys were so excited that they got to pick out something for their baby sister. They both kept coming up saying, "mom look how cute this is!" I was absolutely dying.

Brooks picked out the little cat slippers, Jace picked out the little jammies that say "Beary Sweet", Mike picked out the adorable flowered sweater and I picked out the most adorable outfit with bows to match. It was seriously one of the best days of my life just watching how excited my boys were. They had wanted a baby sister for a long time and they were going to be the best big brothers.

The next week or so went great. We spent Thanksgiving with our families, I took it easy and had no issues. I felt a lot of pressure and pelvic pain if I overdid it, and I was still sicker than a dog, but other than that there wasn't much to complain about.

Thanksgiving 2018 at 20 weeks 4 days. 

At about 22 weeks I noticed that my blood pressures were starting to get higher. Around 140's/90's. I called the office the minute I found out that they were rising. They called back later that day and weren't concerned at all. They told me that they wanted to keep my medications at the same dosage. I thought that was a little strange, but 140's/90's wasn't super crazy for me so I understood. I continued to keep a close eye on them, but maybe not as close as I should have. One thing I did notice and I had mentioned it to several people was that I felt like my belly wasn't as big as I remember it being with the boys at this point. I thought maybe it was just because I had been so sick and hadn't been able to eat as much, I really wasn't super concerned. I was happy with my blood pressures and still so optimistic that this would be my best pregnancy yet.

At 23 weeks and 5 days I had gone to Mike's school Christmas party and stopped by Walmart on the way home with the boys to get a Christmas gift. When I got home, I got the boys ready for bed and we watched a movie, it was a Friday night and Mike was working. At around midnight the movie got over, the boys had fallen asleep, so I helped them into their beds. I felt a familiar pressure in my chest that I had felt in my previous pregnancies when my blood pressure would get super high. I decided to check my pressures... it was 160's/110's. I propped my arm up, laid down for a good 10 minutes and checked it again. It was still 160's/100's and wouldn't come down.

Watching movies with my boys.The night things started going wrong.

I called Mike and told him I was worried, but thought maybe I had just done too much that night. I took a sleeping pill (one approved for pregnancy) and went to bed. I don't know what it is about night time, but my blood pressures always shot way up at night, even when I was pregnant with the boys.

When I woke up the next morning my blood pressure was back in the 120's over 80's. I checked it several times and it stayed within normal range. I was relieved. I spent the day taking it easy and that afternoon we had my nephews birthday party to go to so I got up and got ready.

We went to the birthday party and everyone was asking how the pregnancy was going. Mike's dad always called her by her name and I loved it. He said, "How's Paige doing?" I was so happy to report that everything had been going really well. I told them about my weird blood pressure readings the night before, but that I wasn't concerned because they had come back down. I remember just talking about Paige and how excited our family was for a sweet baby girl. I would have never guessed things weren't okay.

After the party, we were invited to go out to Chinese so we went before Mike had to go to work. We had a nice dinner and afterwards Mike's sister had invited the boys to spend the night with their cousins. I wasn't looking forward to spending the night by myself since Mike was working, but I decided to let them go. I dropped them off and right as I was leaving my mom called and asked if I wanted to go to a movie. She knew I was going to be alone that night and wanted to keep me company. I told her I was pretty tired and had started feeling that chest and stomach pressure again, but I also didn't want to be by myself so we decided that I'd come over, we'd check my blood pressure and if it were okay, we would go to the movie.

I drove over to my parents house and sat down in their recliner next to the Christmas tree. I was feeling pretty strong chest pressure at that point. It was making me a little nervous. I relaxed for a few minutes before checking my pressure... it was 178/114. I checked it again 10 minutes later and it was even higher. I just started crying. I knew something wasn't right and I was scared, but I never would have imagined what would happen that night and over the next few days.