Bump on a Blog: Are We Ready? | Kids VT | Seven Days | Vermont's Independent Voice

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Bump on a Blog: Are We Ready? 

Published April 14, 2014 at 8:49 p.m.

click to enlarge The car seat is set up and ready to go, thanks to Gori, my favorite childhood chimpanzee. - MEGAN JAMES
  • Megan James
  • The car seat is set up and ready to go, thanks to Gori, my favorite childhood chimpanzee.
For a few hours last Friday, my husband and I considered the possibility that we were about to become parents — not three weeks from now, as we had been expecting, but, like, now.

Earlier that day, at my 36-week ultrasound appointment, my doctor found that my blood pressure was unusually high. She decided to send me to the hospital to be monitored and tested for preeclampsia.

Left untreated, the condition can develop into eclampsia, which causes seizures, and even death, in the mother. The only way to treat it is to deliver the baby. If I did have preeclampsia, my doctor told me, she'd want to induce labor right away.

Despite that scary description — and the fact that the disorder killed Lady Sybil on "Downton Abbey"  — I wasn't all that worried. Both my mom and grandmother had high blood pressure at the end of their pregnancies; they were fine. And my baby on Friday was just two days away from 37 weeks, technically full term. If she had to come out now, she'd be ready.

Still, while I sat there in the Fletcher Allen triage room in my hospital gown, listening to the galloping of her heartbeat on the fetal monitor, I wondered, Am I ready for her? 

This article was originally published in Seven Days' monthly parenting magazine, Kids VT.

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About The Author

Megan James

Megan James

Bio:
Megan James began writing for Seven Days in 2010, first as Associate Arts Editor. She later became an editor for Seven Days' monthly parenting magazine, Kids VT, and is currently a freelance contributor.

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