Another obstacle

Two weeks ago, things were progressing nicely; Flo was glowing and her bump was growing. We took a picture at twenty-nine weeks and as you can see Flo's bump is coming along nicely now. The picture was taken just after my return from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, during which time Flo had been keeping herself active with gentle Yoga and some swimming; she's keen to maintain a degree of fitness during the pregnancy to increase the chances of a smooth pregnancy and to help her recover quicker afterwards.

Shortly after the photo was taken, Flo started suffering from flu like symptoms; nausea and vomiting, weak, tired and a bit of a temperature. Her tummy was also sore and cramping a little. After a couple of days, we were both a bit concerned and Flo called the hospital. Unusually, a midwife came 'round the house to have a look and suspected it was just a bug of some sort. The advice was to rest and if it got worse to give the hospital a call.

So Flo took it easy for a few days and the symptoms got better, but never really went away. It only took a relatively small amount of activity though and Flo would become extremely tired and her tummy would ache and cramp. We had an appointment scheduled to meet the midwife at the hospital for a check-up on Tuesday, so we despite showing symptoms, we decided to wait until then before returning to the hospital. Tuesday came and the midwife was concerned as soon as she saw Flo, since she saw that Flo looked in pain. She called the gynaecology ward and told them we were on the way. In the ward, they hooked us up to a machine to monitor the baby's heart rate and activity and to measure contractions. The good news is that the baby appears to be strong and healthy. They took a urine sample to determine if Flo had any urinary infections, but the test came back negative. An internal and external ultrasound was performed to verify that everything was fine with the baby... which it did.


Bottom line is that they didn't know what was causing the symptoms, so they sent us home, told Flo to take it easy and to call them if the symptoms got any worse.

The next day, things were no better and we were anxious. The symptoms are not normal and we were concerned as to what was causing them. So Flo managed to visit our doctor that afternoon, who shared our concerns and sent Flo straight back to the hospital after consulting with a gynaecologist there. So that was Wednesday and Flo's been there since under observation, periodically being plugged back up to the machine. It seems that the stomach aches and cramps may be mini contractions.

A swab was taken to determine whether she had any bacterial infections, but this also came back negative. The bed rest appears to have helped calm things down, but as soon as Flo starts to move around then the cramps start again.

I'm hoping that Flo will be back home tomorrow, but there's a chance that she may be bed ridden for the remainder of the pregnancy. So it's a good job I'm off work next month... I can use the time to look after her!