Peace - jaylor story (peace book 1)

complication

** 30 weeks pregnant ** 

-taylors pov- 

Today I'm going back to the doctors, and I have a bad feeling. I had to go in on Monday because I started to get really bad headaches, pain in the upper part of my stomach and I'm really nauseous. She took my blood pressure, and it was elevated so I had to come in on Friday to see if it is still high. Apparently since I haven't had high blood pressure earlier in my pregnancy, or in my life at all, she said it can be a one-off thing but it's important to cheek. 

We pull up to the office and wait in the car for Dr Rileys nurse to come and get me. I look over at joe nervously "i'm scared joe. What if something is wrong. I want our baby to be healthy" I say, and he takes my shaky hand in his. "My love, let's wait and see and cross that bridge if we get to it. If the pressure is still high, we know that there are treatments available." 

The nurse comes out the backdoor and I go to meet her with my mask on. Due to the pandemic joe still can't come in with me which is nerve-wracking. I'm led to the doctor's office where she is waiting for me. "hi Taylor, how are you" she says when I sit down. 

"i'm nervous" I tell her honestly "let's just cheek the pressure then, and we will go from there" she suggests, and I take off my cardigan to give her better access to my arm. I'm wearing a summer dress with a light cardigan over to cover my shoulders. 

She wraps the cuff around my arm and blow it up before it deflates again. She unwraps it before turning to me "so Taylor... its high..." she says and my face drops into worry "Taylor, I know this is hard, but you need to stay calm. Stress will only make it worse. We will figure out how to help you with this. Just know that one in every 12 pregnant person gets gestational hypertension so this is something we see almost every single day" 

Her words get tangled in my head and I close my eyes for a moment to take deep breaths to prevent a panic attack. "Taylor, how about we call joe so I can talk to both of you at the same time. There are things we need to discuss now" she say's and I nod and pull out my phone and call joe. 

Thankfully he picks up immediately and I put him on speakerphone "hey joe, I'm here with the doctor. She wanted to talk to both of us" I say and put my phone down on the edge of her desk so it's between both of us. 

"hi joe. I'm diagnosing Taylor with gestational hypertension like we talked about when we spoke on the phone the other day" she says. After I was here on Monday she and joe spoke for a long time on the phone after we got home because he needed to be informed too since I wasn't really able to tell him much because I was so lost in my head. "Okay. So, what do we do now to keep them safe?" he says in a calm tone. 

"Well, you need to get a blood pressure cuff and take her pressure at home every day and track it. If it gets any higher you need to call, and she needs to come in once a week for urine sample and blood tests to see if it's developing into preeclampsia. In most cases the high blood pressure doesn't hurt mom or baby, but it can happen so we need to keep an eye on both of them so I will do an ultrasound today." she says but mostly to joe because I can't take it in, this is probably my fault. I'm already failing as a mother and she isn't even born yet, I'm useless. 

"Is there anything we can do at home to manage it and prevent preeclampsia" joe asks, and I want to cry. "yes, I'm prescribing medication for the high blood pressure to manage it. And I will send you a mail with the symptoms to look for, and if two see any of those you need to go to the emergency room immediately if its late and the office is closed, if we are open you need to come here immediately" she tells him and I get really scared, what if I need to go to the emergency room! What if I hurt the baby with my stupid blood pressure.