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Hello from the Coombe Maternity Hospital in Dublin!
No, I haven't had the baby yet, I've been admitted to the hospital for a blood sugar series. Basically, they take a vial of blood once before and after each meal for 24. I also have to do a finger prick to test my blood sugar eat time as well and keep track in a glucose diary. This will help the endocrinologist decide if I need insulin and if so, how much. I'm assuming I'll have to have insulin as the diabetic chief midwife lady, Ethna, has already handed me loads of information on insulin... and these people generally know before the doctors do!
So far, I've been stuck 6 times in a vein in my left arm. Two of those sticks didn't work, but just added to the track marks being left. Apparently, my veins are superficial... which is fine by me as long as the rest of me is not!
I've decided, as an homage to my stay here, that I'm going to wild release a Christopher Moore book, 'Bloodsucking Fiends' somewhere in the hospital sometime tomorrow. A kind of good humored nod to my stay here. Hmm, maybe it's poetic that I chose to bring with me the Twilight series number three book 'Eclipse' to read while here?? I still have one more vial of blood to go tonight, and then two in the morning!
But, all's not THAT bad. I ended up with a PRIVATE room (loving my health insurance right now). I've heard the public ward can be a bit difficult to deal with and that it's hard to get any sleep. So I'm quite chuffed to have a room all to myself where I don't have to worry about leaving my purse unattended while I go to the bathroom. Also, I got to hear baby's heartbeat today. They strapped me to the baby heartbeat monitoring machine, so I got a nice 20 minutes of locomotive sounding beats to lull me into a trance. Midwife Rosanne said it looked good.
My blood pressure was up, though, but I am attributing this to being in hospital, a bit weary and nervous for what they'll say tomorrow. It probably didn't help that I was listening to baby's heartbeat, which is much faster. My second BP was lower, and my last one was MUCH better, 128/86...though I don't like the 86, that's still higher than usual for me.
Rob came for a visit and I send him off about 45 minutes ago to go home and get some food. I'm hoping to be out by about noon tomorrow, but I'm now not holding my breath. From what I understand, they want to also do a scan to check baby's weight, and then if Dr. Endocrinologist decides I need insulin, I may have to stay another night to make sure I react fine to it.
So that's the story at the moment! At least I have nice new comfy clothes from Motherhood to wear (thanks to Tara's mum for bringing them to me!).
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Public ward?? Sounds so 1950's, the pics of beds lined up in a tonsil ward. Ick. Never heard of them doing a hospital stay for that sort of workup here, things sure are different overseas. I was watching some cable show the other day that the standard for pain control during childbirth in many European countries is Nitrous Oxide gas, odd. Glad to hear though that you are able to stay comfy cozy. Take care Momma Jen :)
ReplyDeleteYea, they have public wards here. Probably because you don't need to have health insurance in this country. Once you become pregnant, your health care is free until baby is born. But for that, you stay in a public ward. Maybe 4-6 beds per room. Not horrible... luckily I've got private insurance though.
ReplyDeleteAs for drugs, yes, they do use nitrous oxide here as one of the alternatives to pain releif. They also have TENS units, epidurals and pethadin.