Our Adventure with OB Triage

Before we begin - I'm fine and so is the baby. 

So yesterday we got to discover the OB Triage unit at Scottsdale Healthcare Shea. For those unfamiliar with the modern OB dept - just like the ER has a triage to do a preliminary check up OB departments have their very own triage unit just for the prego chicks. 

What prompted this visit was the fact that I kept seeing stars. The only other time I've had that kind of visual disturbance was as a precursor to a migraine, so when I first saw them I went "awwww crap" but I was confused b/c I didn't have any of my other usual precursor symptoms and usually the visual disturbance is one of the last warnings right before the pain hits. So I go about my business and over the course of about a day I have this happen about a half dozen times and no migraine. So I decide this is weird and I remembered reading about visual disturbance being tied to pregnancy induced hypertension so I figured it was worth a call to the doctors office to settle my paranoia. 

So late yesterday afternoon I called the doc's office and left a message. They called me back (PROMPTLY) and said that yes visual disturbance is often one of the first signs of a problem but that the office is closing in like 5 minutes so go to your local pharmacy and use their blood pressure machine to check your blood pressure. If your BP is 140/90 or above call us back and go to OB Triage. So I go down to my local CVS and shove my arm in their machine. Problem #1 - their blood pressure cuff barely fits my fat arm. Problem #2 - I tried three different times and got three different wonky results. At least one number each time was over the 140/90 mark. 

So I called the dr's office back and left a message with the answering service. Then I got a call back from the dr on call. And she explained that since pre-eclampsia is famous for being very sudden onset - particularly in the 3rd trimester and I just started my third trimester - she wanted me to go get checked out at OB triage. So by then my hubby was home from work so we both jumped in the car and drove to the hospital and got all checked in and hooked up to a whole bunch of monitors.

And everything is fine. The only issue we had was apparently the baby was asleep when we first got there so his heart rate was very, very steady - which sounds good except if he's kicking and wiggling it should go up and down depending on the acrobatics of the moment so unless he's asleep that ultra steady heart rate can actually be a sign of fetal distress. So they pulled out this little grey buzzer button thing and buzzed my stomach to wake him up and sure enough he woke up and started kicking up a storm. So he's fine and my blood pressure was fine so we got to go home. 

And some would say it was a waste of time but given my symptoms I'd rather be safe than sorry. Yes I am a paranoid first time mom but it was a something that made my mother (RN), my mother in law (pediatrician) and my doctor nervous. And I think it was worth it to calm my poor husband back down cuz while he tried hard to hide it I think he got more than slightly freaked out. And honestly I was fine until the first time I sat at that blood pressure cuff and it came back wayyyy high and I went - oh frickin' crap. After that I admit to being just a smidgen on the anxious side until I was all hooked up and things were looking nice and normal. So totally worth the trip just to get some decent sleep that night.