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.

Listen up all you people who spend each warm weekend hitting US 178.  You need to be a little bit more careful this year because law enforcement is cracking down on wreckless motorcycle riders.  Hubby called me to tell me he bought a newspaper this morning, and I knew there had to be something related to motorcycles in it if he bought it.  Front page of the Greenville News confirms what we’ve all been hearing for awhile.  There are far too many complaints and too many motorcyclists acting stupid.

Personally I chose to stop riding 178 last year because there was a lot of wreckless activity going on, and I was tired of it.  It’s hard to enjoy the ride when you’re worrying about what some idiot is doing passing in a blind curve and stuff like that.  There have been numerous deaths on 178 in the past few years, and most of them have been caused by people just not riding right.

If you want to push the limits of yourself and your bike, go for it, but do it at a trackday where you’re on a closed course.  Remember when you’re out there opening up the throttle and pushing yourself to the limits on a mountain road, you’ve got other innocent drivers and bikers all around you.  Think smart, and think safe.

One thing that irks me about the article is there is definitely a stereotyping going on.

Emily said he has seen some examples of reckless driving during the group’s frequent outings along State 11. “You’ll see some young people” driving recklessly, he said. “But we’re not into that.” Story here

Well guess what? We’re not exactly into that either, and we’re some of those young people. Heck I could take you to 178 on any given Sunday morning and show you a very large group of riders in their 40s and 50s who are up there pushing it harder than any of the “young people” out there. As a note to you journalists out there, stop stereotyping already. Choose your quotes carefully, and don’t make it sound like you’re lumping us all into one group because I promise we’re not all these hooligans you try to make us out to be.

First I want to say a big THANK YOU to my friend Anna. Since our bike isn’t out of the shop yet, but the gas shortage is causing problems for everyone, Anna offered to let Hubby use her bike until ours is complete.  Anna’s bike is the 1996 Honda CBR600f (F3i) that I was thinking about buying earlier this year before she decided to keep it.

The gas shortage is totally killing us. Hubby fills up the Blazer 3-4 times a week just to get to work since he commutes 70 miles out of state everyday. The recent price hike has been burning a hole in the funds we use for everything else like um…bills!

Now with this gas shortage Hubby’s having a hard enough time just getting to work. Just about all the stations in our area are out of gas and diesel. There are a couple stations who do still have premium left, but they are few and far between. Most of those stations only have premium left, so at least it works out for the bike.   Walmart has received 3 gas deliveries since Friday, and they’ve sold out by the end of each delivery day.

I want to be asking the gas people what they’re smoking. Seriously how is it that the southeast is having this huge gas crisis while the rest of the country is fine. Heck most everyone I know in the North is telling me how much their gas prices have dropped, yet we’re paying out the ass for what little bit of gas we can get. It’s been like this for two weeks now, and all the local news stations are reporting it could be 2-3 weeks before we have steady gas again. Are the gas guys inhaling a few too many of their own gas fumes? Maybe they’re just all rich drunks who are sipping on Patron while they throw darts at a map pinpointing who they’re going to screw this week.

Speaking of drunks, I’d really like to know who the guy was that pulled out in front of us today on a bike. It was still daylight out, but this guy was already pretty tanked. He pulled out from the one little “town saloon” hole in the wall place down the road from our house, and didn’t even look to see if anything was coming. We were in the Blazer pulling a trailer and about creamed him. Thank god we didn’t have anything loaded on the trailer or we would have.

Ya know if guys like him would spend half the money and effort each week for alcohol rehab as they do getting sloshed there would be a lot less drunk driving accidents. I seriously don’t see how anyone can drive a car drunk, much less a bike, but I see it happen all too many times. Thank god this guy only went about a mile down the road and pulled into a driveway. I did call the cops on him, though, and I reported his tag number. I’m sorry but he’s endangering more than just him self out riding like that, and he deserves to get carted off to a drug treatment center for rehab before he ends up killing someone.

New Jersey confirms there have been more bike accidents and fatalities this year, but car accidents are down by 20%. Why? Those gas prices, of course! Bike sales are up, and the dmv is handing out more motorcycle licenses.