Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Christmas Eve Eve

Just when I thought things were starting to improve... well they were, but more patches keep cropping up as bad and as itchy as ever. We went to the doctor AGAIN today, this time for my regular 39 week appointment. Today we saw the midwife, "S" who has grown on me since the "what's up with this weight gain" incident. She talked me into a Medrol dose pack - basically Prednisone. It's a tapered course of a steroid - 6 pills on day 1, 5 on day 2, and so on. She assured me it's not going to hurt the baby and it is something they give moms all the time for various reasons - asthma, allergies, etc. She explained that in her opinion, with the Medrol I will actually be getting LESS medicine than if I continued to use the Triamcinolon cream - since at this point I would be spreading that cream over such a large portion of my body in order to hit everything. She also said I would probably start feeling better in a day or two - which is a lot faster than I would expect the cream to work. Then by the time I'm done with the course, I should definitely be ready to have the baby anyway. So I am going to be a little selfish on this one and try to get some real relief in time to enjoy Christmas, that will be nice. As a compromise I think I am going to try going without the Vistaril tonight since I don't really think it's making that much of a difference.

She checked me again, still 1cm - so the perky ARNP was right about that. She also stripped my membranes - which in hindsight is probably what Dr. H did (or tried to do) last week. It's interesting to me how both of them undertook the procedure... it wasn't a matter of "would you like us to try and strip your membranes?" Nope, they just went for it. Not that I mind at this point - I am more than ready to get things moving for sure. I still think it's kind of weird that they didn't ask if I was okay with it. But whatever... IMO that type of thing is pretty harmless on the broad spectrum of interventions. Much preferable to Pitocin anyway.

And now I am going to go drink some Raspberry Leaf tea and eat some pineapple ;)

2 comments:

buttakwup said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
buttakwup said...

I can't believe that. My Dr. acted shocked when I asked if she would strip my membranes without asking. I agree, it's a pretty minimal and natural intervention, but it's the principal of it! I can't believe they didn't ask! Well, hopfully it'll get things going for you.