I'm going to kill my nurse.

Still hanging out at the hospital. It's been almost a month now. Needless to say, I'm sick of this place. It sucks spending so much time here. I can't sleep. I get more blood drawn than you could possibly imagine. I have tiny veins that are all becoming unusable, they normally have to attempt to draw blood from several spots in order to find any. I don't get to walk around much at all, so I feel like I'm slowly deteriorating both mentally and physically.
But I got these rad hospital socks... 

The doctors are trying to figure out the correct settings on my insulin pump. This has proven to be quite a challenge. They keep giving me too much insulin at night, which makes it necessary for my blood sugar to be checked every 30 minutes - two hours depending on the numbers. About a week ago I went back to sleep after having tested at 89 - a perfectly good number. I didn't wake up.
When I did wake up, I was hooked to multiple IVs pumping me full of glucose and I was super scared. I didn't know what was going on, I thought they may have been taking the baby because I couldn't feel my body. I started coming out of it slowly and as I started to speak, my words were slurred. I thought I had brain damage. It got better but nonetheless not the way you want to start any day...

 I have a nice view of the Southern downtown skyline...

 I'm learning how to knit. There is a volunteer who has been coming by weekly to teach those who are interested. I thought knitting was supposed to be relaxing but learning can sure be frustrating. I'm finally getting it down though. Attempting to make a scarf...

 Flowers from my mom...

 Tonight's sunset...

 A cute dress I got from Amber that I wore on Thanksgiving...

I've been able to focus more time on my Etsy shops... I'm waiting on a few supply orders but I have tons of new items that I'm posting soon. Hoping to make the most of my time here, the holidays are usually the busiest as far as sales go on Etsy.
Tomorrow I'm planning a brief escape from the hospital to go an look at an apartment in Ballard with Gerrad. I hope it's awesome, it'd be nice to find a place. Tomorrow I'm going to put up a fight for permission to leave, permanently. We'll see how that goes. It's stressful here, I'm not going to be able to pay any of my hospital bills, and stress is not good when you're pregnant.

A flight and a crash

Things were really awesome for a day, and then really not awesome since.

Last week Gerrad picked me up from work and we went to go check out a place for rent. It was in Wallingford, just a few blocks from Gasworks Park. It turned out to be pretty awesome, built in 1904 with wood paneling on the walls, a gas stove, 2 bedroom, and affordable. We told the landlord we'd take it, and left.

When we got to the car, he noticed my shoe was untied and bent over to tie it for me. He was on one knee and he pulled out an engagement ring and asked me to marry him. It was really sweet. He said he wanted to wait until we found a place. I said yes.

Fast forward a day, and at my doctor's appt. they noticed my blood pressure was elevated. I've been at the hospital since, and that was a week ago.

They diagnosed me with preeclampsia, which can be dangerous for mom and baby. My blood pressure has been under control for the most part since I've been here, but if it were to continue to raise to a dangerous level, the only cure would be an early delivery.

They gave me steroid injections to help with the baby's lung development in case of an early delivery. Right now I'm 29 weeks along, they're expecting me to deliver between 34-36 weeks but it could happen sooner if things were to get worse.

It sounds like they want to keep me here until I deliver. If they let me leave, I can't go back to work as they want me on some form of bedrest. 

We ended up not signing our lease because it's pointless to be paying rent for a place that neither of us will be living at until this whole ordeal is over with. I'm bummed, but just hoping that we can find another place closer to when I'll be leaving the hospital.

Hanging out at the hospital is not fun. I've been lucky to have friends and family visit, but when everyone goes home I'm still here with my thoughts and fears. I've been trying to stay busy. I spent a lot of time on my Coffincrafts page on Facebook, and doing various shop updates and etsy listings. I've been drawing here and there. I have a few books I've been reading and TV shows I've been catching up on too.

I miss a normal sleep schedule. Some nights they wake me every half hour to test my blood sugar because the steroids really messed with it. The last two days I've wanted to do nothing but sleep, which is difficult when you are always being monitored by nurses/doctors and are interrupted with housekeeping and engineers that make your uncomfortable bed function. I've been joking with the nurses about how much sleep I'm going to be finally getting with a newborn.

Hospital food is getting really awful. The first day or so I was excited because I had so many choices. Now I've eaten everything on their menu and it's not food that I consider healthy or optimal.

I miss my cats. One day I was jiggling around my pills in a little medicine cup and I thought of the perfect pet that could live with me in here... I ordered jumping beans online because they'll make me smile and keep me entertained without technically being an animal that will be confiscated. I intend to draw little faces on them to keep me amused. The things boredom will do to your mind, haha.

Trying to stay sane and stay pregnant...