When can I go home?

There is honestly no weirder feeling than being an in patient in a high risk hospital ward and feeling absolutely fine.

In some ways it could be seen as a bit of a luxury. I mean there wasn’t a spa I could pop down too or someone to give me a much needed pedicure. But I was told to just relax and rest, read a book, watch the tv. Nice eh!? 

Nope!

I’m a hard worker, I strive to be really good at what I do and just switching off from my everyday life of work and home was really difficult. I had meetings planned, I wasn’t due to finish work for another month and my handover wasn’t finished. I was in the middle of email conversations with contacts that I felt I should be replying too, so to literally shut down was a massive challenge.

It has to be said my work were absolutely brilliant, and for every message I sent with something that I remembered needed doing, a message was sent back telling me to stop thinking about work.

I was given a sick note for a month, my first sick note ever, and after a while I started to accept I wasn’t at work and my laptop was collected.

Quite a few days went by, I still felt totally fine and was waiting to be told I could go home. I was tired but remember thinking, the less you do, the more tired you become. 

I genuinely thought every day when they did the hospital rounds was the day they’d say get yourself home. 

I got in to a little routine of making my breakfast in the morning, being hooked on to a machine to monitor the baby for an hour or so, and then just lying there waiting for my observations to be done. Sometimes I’d go for a little walk if I was allowed and then visitors came in the afternoon and evening. As fine as that sounds, it was hard and I wanted to go home.

The staff were great, and I got on really well with the majority of them. 

One of them was going on holiday, so I was wishing her a good time and in conversation said that hopefully I’d be home when she was back, and perhaps I’d see her in the New Year when I came in to have the baby. 

That was when I found out I was in for the long haul when she told me I wasn’t going anywhere until I’d had the baby. 

But this is November and she’s not due until the end of January?

I’ve got to stay in over Christmas!? 

I had it confirmed from another midwife, and she pretty much said once you’re in with preeclampsia you don’t go home. 

Why did no one tell me that? 

Why did I not realise that? Admitted in to hospital, baby being monitored every day, my checks being done every few hours because my blood pressure was through the roof. Bloods being taken all the time. 

Even though I felt fine, I clearly wasn’t, so why on earth would they send me home!? 

And then it dawned on me. When I was first admitted and the Nurse said it would be monitored daily, it wasn’t to send me home. It was to decide about delivering the baby. She could come any day!