Yes I totally disappeared, and yes it’s because I did end up as a long term (9 day) resident at the hospital when I told you I was going to the ER to be monitored for a few hours.  Thursday I checked in to be monitored around 7pm.  It didn’t take long for the nurses to realize I was going to be there awhile.  The doctor arrived around 10pm and let me know I”d be staying until Saturday morning so they could run a 24 hour urine test on me. 

The next day things started looking even worse.  After being on bed rest all night and morning my bp was only getting worse.  I was started on magnesium sulfate to keep me from convulsing and/or going into a coma, and I was being given labatelol by iv every so often, but it wasn’t helping.  My bp was dangerously high, so I was sent for an ultrasound at 10am to make sure the baby seemed to be developed enough for delivery.  Within a couple hours the doctor was in my room explaining why he had to induce me immediately, and at 6pm they started the pitocin.  Anyone who knows me knows my birth plan said absolutely no pitocin unless absolutely necessary, and in this case it was.  It came down to delivering her or seriously harming both of us.  Honestly everything was so far off of my birth plan that it never came out of my bag.

I labored all night, and by noon the next day I still hadn’t dilated beyond 3 1/2cm, so the decision was made that I needed an emergency c-section.  I would have refused if the situation had been normal, but my bp was well beyond 200/115 at that point.

At 12:11pm Elliana was born.  She gave 2 little cries before quietly surveying what was going on around her.  They held up this teeny tiny little thing in front of my face, and I cried at how small she was.  She weighed in at 4lbs 5oz and measured 17 1/2 inches long.  She showed up 5 weeks early, but other than being small she is 100% perfectly healthy!  She was given the normal amount of oxygen the hospital gives to any baby delivered by c-section, but she didn’t need any “extra”.  Her apgar score at birth was an 8, and at 5 minutes was a 9!  She does have a sacral dimple, but it’s being checked.

Unfortunately her delivery didn’t solve all our problems.  Even though she was perfectly healthy I wasn’t.  My bp didn’t return to normal after delivery like it normally does with preeclampsia.  Instead I ended up in the hospital until October 31st while the team of doctors tried to control my bp.  I also ended up losing a lot of blood, so I was given a transfusion and pumped full of potassium.  I was finally released after my bp came down enough that I was out of the danger zone for seizures, but I’m still hypertensive. 

Needless to say it’s definitely be wild around here lately, and I’m just really happy to be home.  But hey…now I have a beautiful baby girl, and I can once again ride!

Things aren’t looking so good around here.  I’ve been having major issues over the last couple of days with my blood pressure, and my doctor has me checking it throughout the day to make sure I”m not developing preeclampsia.  It’s not looking good, though. 

My blood pressure has been so high that when I called the doctor earlier she told me to go ahead to the emergency room when Hubby gets home from work.  She wants them to monitor me for a few hours to make sure we don’t need to put me on strict bed rest for the next month until it’s time for the baby to arrive.  If that doesn’t work my only other option is to be induced since that’s how you treat preeclampsia, but that’s not something we’re looking forward to this early in the game.  This means I may or may not be around much depending on what action she takes, so we’ll just have to see how things go.

One thing that has always driven me crazy is stereotyping.  Considering we ride sport bikes I’ve been subjected to plenty of it, and I hate the fact that in this day and age people still judge and stereotype people. 

For instance there are lots of people who will judge someone by what they drive or how they look.  Just because a guy may be wearing a leather jacket, riding a Harley, and has a long pony tail doesn’t mean he’s a “bad guy”, but do you know how many people are going to turn their nose up at him just because of the stereotype?

Just like that guy there are tons of people out there who are judged everyday based on how they look, especially in the professional world.  Gillette recently commissioned a survey of over 500 HR professionals, and the results showed that 84% of those professionals believed “well-groomed” employees will advance in their corporate positions faster than those who aren’t as groomed.  It just goes to show that no matter how much we want to think our society doesn’t judge on appearance, it definitely still happens on a daily basis.

Gillette knows this, and they’ve setup the Gillette Career Advantage website to help professionals advance in their careers by providing advice from experts like GQ style correspondent Brett Fahlgren.  If you’re looking for a job and want to make a great first impression this website can really give you an advantage.  You can take the Gillette Resource Center to give you the extra edge the competition may not have.  Take the

A couple weeks ago I mentioned we were preparing to winterize the bike even though there’s still plenty of decent riding weather left…minus all these rainy days we’ve been having.  It took us a lot longer than we were thinking to get around to it, but as of today our bike is stashed in the garage and resting until next season. 

It sucks we have to do it, but we both know there’s no way Hubby’s going to have time to get any use out of it before things turn cold.  He’s got too much to do before Elliana arrives to make sure this house is in perfect order for her, and we all know there’s no way I’m going to be riding it.  I can’t exactly pop out a baby and expect to go riding the next day!

So if you see me drifting off the bike topic it’s to be expected.  This blog has been heading that way for awhile anyway, and I’m actually happy to have a reason to move away from trying to keep this blog as a niche blog.  Sometimes it’s just too hard to do that, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about changing for awhile.