After switching from being followed by a private gynecologist to being followed by an obstetrician at the birthing center I felt better about my pregnancy. It was a relief to not have to go in about twice a month and have to wait over an hour to see the doctor. I could call the obstetrician when I needed and our appointments were based only on what was necessary.
As the months progressed and my belly grew I had to make the proper arrangements for when baby was due. We signed up for a prenatal course. I looked around at the prenatal courses offered at various hospitals and the course offered through the public health care system and in the end we opted for the one at the birthing center, not because I was being followed there, but because it was for couples and involved the father.
By April/May I felt like my belly was quite big (even though I was really quite small) and it was taking me always a little bit longer to walk to work and eventually I ended up taking the bus. I didn't like taking the bus because people should technically offer their seat to you but they never did. Once I was sitting in the "special" seats for the elderly, handicapped, and pregnant women and an elderly lady came and pointed to the sign and gestured for me to move, and I responded by saying, "oh I'm pregnant, but there's an open seat down there I can go sit there" and it ended in a very awkward "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't see, no, no, no stay where you are" and eventually another person offered their seat to the elderly woman.
We started the prenatal course in May. These courses in the end seem to really be a way to meet other moms to be and have a networking system on whatsapp to share with each other everything from doubts to joys. Thankfully we met a nice group of couples.
Come June and I was feeling pretty tired of being pregnant. Summer was approaching with warm weather making everything a little more difficult. I noticed that my feet were swollen and my Mom told me to be cautious because it's one of the signs of preeclampisa. Talking to the obstetrician she said it's nothing to worry about and was probably just the heat, but to be safe, measure my blood pressure. I started going to the pharmacy quite often to have my blood pressure measured and it was higher than usual, but not too high to be concerned.
One night after the prenatal course, which was taught by my obstetrician, she measured my blood pressure and it was through the roof. We waited a bit to see if it would go down before going to the emergency room. Eventually it did but she said I should also do a urine test to see if there was protein in it which is a sure sign of preeclampisa. The first urine test I took I was in the safe range, the following week the second test showed me above the limit by quite a bit so after debating if we should go the ER or not we decided to go just to be safe and shake off any doubts.
We got to the hospital and they said most likely I would be induced within two days. They immediately took another urine test and blood tests and were measuring my blood pressure every 5 minutes. My pressure was really high and my tests came back even higher than before and so it was decided that I needed to be induced the following morning.
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