The last couple of days have been tough for me. I'm feeling pretty down, emotional, my body hurts from laying around so much--my back is on fire, I'm irritable, and still battling a lot of let down.
I don't really feel like talking about all of those wonderful feelings at the moment, so I'm going to bypass all that. But I do want to mention some perspective I've gained.
I was doing some reading last night online and came across a forum with tons of women who were answering a questionnaire about their preemies. Each women was sharing at what gestational age their baby was delivered, what complications they dealt with in the NICU, including how long their NICU stay was, and what long term issues their baby battled after being released.
On this particular forum all of the women had babies that were delivered in their 28th week. Every single baby stayed in the NICU for 3 -7 months and all faced long term issues, with some of the minimal issues being asthma and being very prone to catching illnesses. Some of the more severe long term issues were cerebral palsy, deafness, blindness, requiring multiple surgeries, autism, and severe learning disabilities.
So, yes, 28 weekers can totally survive, but at what cost. How will their quality of life be. Is this what I want for our baby? Not at all. A really difficult 8 weeks of being on bed rest is nothing compared to having to watch your baby struggle to breath and fight for life for months, only for them to still have long term issues that will affect not only them but you and your husband for the rest of your lives thereafter. This is not what I want for our baby or for me and Kevin. So I am consciously choosing to do whatever I have to do in an effort to avoid this future.
I may not get to see the fruits of my labor just yet, but in a few weeks time I will. I am showing a mother's sacrifice for our baby by pushing through this crappy time. I know all the sadness and misery will be washed away the moment I lay eyes on our baby. I have to remember every second of the day that it is not natural for our baby to be held captive in some NICU incubator, I need to continue to be that incubator.
I've suffered through a lot emotionally and physically to get to the point to have this 27 week old baby growing inside of me. Why would I give up now. I'm at the finish line. It may feel like I'm running a long, drawn- out paced run that may never end, but I'm really in the final sprint, and need to muster some energy and strength and push through to make it across the finish line.
But it still makes me crazy. Mind over matter!
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Baby Items are Coming In...
Here is the first gift for baby! The stroller/infant seat we wanted! What a sweet gift from my mother in law. We are so thankful and excited to have it!
A Chicco Cortina Key Fit 30 in Midori. You cannot beat the safety ratings of this system and I love its timeless color scheme and the fact that it's gender neutral, albeit a little more "boyish". But it will definitely work both ways with ease. I'm not into the super girly-girl thing anyway. Why must we force arbitrary gender roles on our kids from the get-go by insisting that girls be covered in head-to-toe pink?!
27 Week Tummy
So here is the latest tummy picture, taken at 27 weeks.
27 weeks
December 29, 2011
122#'s today. This is a two pound weight loss, which the doc is not concerned about and says is from losing muscle mass from the bed rest. I am eating normally, if not more on bed rest, and the baby is growing and measuring right on schedule. But it still worries me. And I don't look any bigger than two weeks ago. ( Sigh)
The baby weighed an estimated 2 pounds and 4 ounces today on sonogram, a little ahead on growth schedule, and in the 56th percentile.
This bed rest thing SUCKS!
December 29, 2011
122#'s today. This is a two pound weight loss, which the doc is not concerned about and says is from losing muscle mass from the bed rest. I am eating normally, if not more on bed rest, and the baby is growing and measuring right on schedule. But it still worries me. And I don't look any bigger than two weeks ago. ( Sigh)
The baby weighed an estimated 2 pounds and 4 ounces today on sonogram, a little ahead on growth schedule, and in the 56th percentile.
This bed rest thing SUCKS!
Drum Roll, Please..26.6 weeks Recheck
Today was our first follow-up with our OB after our hospital stint. I was, of course, very eager to see how my cervix was holding up after almost 2 weeks of bed rest. I was very excited to report that my contractions are much improved to the doc.
Our cervical measurement average today was 2.75cm. Now remember the variance between how our sono tech measures and how the Peri measures cervical length, so essentially this is either unchanged or a smidge shorter than it was the day we were released from the hospital. I wasn't super excited to think that my cervix may have actually gotten shorter with all the hard work I've done to stay in the supine position, but all that mattered today was that my OB was happy with what she saw and said things look stable for now. To be perfectly honest, I was a little disappointed that my cervix had not"lengthened" given the lack of contractions and bed rest.
We get to keep doing what we're doing until we see her again next week. This looks like strict bed rest, no outings other than to head to the doctor, she denied us any privileges to go maternity clothes shopping, to register for our baby shower, or to have my maternity pictures at this point. Everything will have to be done by Kevin alone or online, or be reassessed at a later date. Oh, and no sex, and she is also adding on a fun new at-home surprise. She is having a company bring out at-home pressure cuffs for me to wear on my legs to help prevent blood clots that I have to wear EIGHTEEN HOURS A DAY!!!!
The next 5 weeks is going to be brutal. She will give me more freedom when I hit 32 weeks. I also weighed in at 122# today, a two pound weight loss from my last visit. Hmm....doc said she is not concerned as the baby is getting what it needs and is measuring a little ahead at today's visit--measuring at 27weeks and 3 days in the 56th percentile. The doc said that the weight loss is likely from muscle atrophy--already!--from my two weeks of bed rest. I'm not loving this. I asked her if there was anything that I can do to prevent muscle loss, to which she replied a solid, " no". Awesome. She said I would just have to make it all back up after the baby is here, which will be difficult as I will have less endurance and strength from all the muscle loss and bed rest. This gets better and better, huh. I was also again shedding sugar in my urine....geez...
She also told me that even though she can't predict the future and doesn't exactly know what will happen with my cervix, preterm labor, and how early I will deliver, she does suspect that with all subsequent pregnancies I will run into similar issues. Another great positive.
We did get to see the baby on the big screen again today. Our baby is so precious. We got to see a beautiful profile with perfect lips and a precious nose. Today the baby was head down, again resting right on my cervix, whereas both sonograms in the hospital revealed the baby was breech, with its head at my belly button. This little one is a mover, I tell ya. The Bean's heart rate was 140 today and weighs approximately 2 pounds and 4 ounces. I'm not so sure about this, as about 2 weeks ago we were told the baby weighed approx. 1 pound and 11 ounces. Seems like a fast weight gain if it's accurate--but that's great!
I am super happy my cervix is stable enough that there was no talk about going back into the hospital, but I am feeling bummed that there is no light at the end of the tunnel for at least 5 weeks and I'm losing muscle mass and weight and have to wear those dang pressure cuffs on my legs for 18 hours a day!
Again, I'm struggling with unmet expectations of what my pregnancy would look like and how I would get to experience it. I knew the getting pregnant part was a huge drag, but it just doesn't seem fair that the pregnancy has to be also.
Our cervical measurement average today was 2.75cm. Now remember the variance between how our sono tech measures and how the Peri measures cervical length, so essentially this is either unchanged or a smidge shorter than it was the day we were released from the hospital. I wasn't super excited to think that my cervix may have actually gotten shorter with all the hard work I've done to stay in the supine position, but all that mattered today was that my OB was happy with what she saw and said things look stable for now. To be perfectly honest, I was a little disappointed that my cervix had not"lengthened" given the lack of contractions and bed rest.
We get to keep doing what we're doing until we see her again next week. This looks like strict bed rest, no outings other than to head to the doctor, she denied us any privileges to go maternity clothes shopping, to register for our baby shower, or to have my maternity pictures at this point. Everything will have to be done by Kevin alone or online, or be reassessed at a later date. Oh, and no sex, and she is also adding on a fun new at-home surprise. She is having a company bring out at-home pressure cuffs for me to wear on my legs to help prevent blood clots that I have to wear EIGHTEEN HOURS A DAY!!!!
The next 5 weeks is going to be brutal. She will give me more freedom when I hit 32 weeks. I also weighed in at 122# today, a two pound weight loss from my last visit. Hmm....doc said she is not concerned as the baby is getting what it needs and is measuring a little ahead at today's visit--measuring at 27weeks and 3 days in the 56th percentile. The doc said that the weight loss is likely from muscle atrophy--already!--from my two weeks of bed rest. I'm not loving this. I asked her if there was anything that I can do to prevent muscle loss, to which she replied a solid, " no". Awesome. She said I would just have to make it all back up after the baby is here, which will be difficult as I will have less endurance and strength from all the muscle loss and bed rest. This gets better and better, huh. I was also again shedding sugar in my urine....geez...
She also told me that even though she can't predict the future and doesn't exactly know what will happen with my cervix, preterm labor, and how early I will deliver, she does suspect that with all subsequent pregnancies I will run into similar issues. Another great positive.
We did get to see the baby on the big screen again today. Our baby is so precious. We got to see a beautiful profile with perfect lips and a precious nose. Today the baby was head down, again resting right on my cervix, whereas both sonograms in the hospital revealed the baby was breech, with its head at my belly button. This little one is a mover, I tell ya. The Bean's heart rate was 140 today and weighs approximately 2 pounds and 4 ounces. I'm not so sure about this, as about 2 weeks ago we were told the baby weighed approx. 1 pound and 11 ounces. Seems like a fast weight gain if it's accurate--but that's great!
I am super happy my cervix is stable enough that there was no talk about going back into the hospital, but I am feeling bummed that there is no light at the end of the tunnel for at least 5 weeks and I'm losing muscle mass and weight and have to wear those dang pressure cuffs on my legs for 18 hours a day!
Again, I'm struggling with unmet expectations of what my pregnancy would look like and how I would get to experience it. I knew the getting pregnant part was a huge drag, but it just doesn't seem fair that the pregnancy has to be also.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Insane
I think I can officially be labeled as insane...I know, I know, this may be a label I've already been wearing for some time now, but I think it's a true reality now if it wasn't in the past. My brain in full of thoughts-- things I want or need to do, I feel completely overwhelmed with anxiety that we can't plan anything in the next few months, everything is up in the air and can change at any moment, I can't get up to finish the nursery, my husband is a bed rest nazi, I'm not sure how I'm going to manage when Kevin goes back to work, there are some major concerns with Kevin's job that he will have to try to resolve after the first of the year that totally has me on edge, I'm worried about my next OB visit in two days--is my cervix stable, will my OB try to put me back into the hospital?? And the list goes on and on...
And I have nothing but time to sit here and think about all the things I can't do, all the things I'm missing out on getting to do while pregnant---all the things I have longed to do and dreamed I would do when pregnant. It's no surprise I'm a planner, so this new chain of events is severely cramping my Type A personality style. And I need to find a way to adapt---quickly. I don't handle change well. It always puts me in a whirlwind, I get down and negative for a bit, then I figure out a way to process it, accept it, and move forward. I'm not there yet, but I can tell I'm working on it.
It may seem pretty simple to those looking in. Just lay around, grow your baby and let everyone do everything for you. Well, I'm the queen of living in fairly tale land when it comes to having expectations. I always have high and very specific expectations for every event and every person in my life. This almost always leaves me disappointed and let down. This has been a work in progress in my life for some time, but, to-date, I still haven't figured out a way to not do this. So with this new event I'm still stuck in my old ways of thinking and I'm having a hard time working through it. But let me assure you, going through this is not just as simple as, " Just lay around, grow your baby and let everyone do everything for you." What I'm working through is laced with multiple layers of needs, desires, expectations, disappointments, and lots of change that angers my personality type.
But I have no choice to find a way to work through it. Hopefully some resolution comes sooner rather than later. I serve an awesome God and having hope, which I have, is having confident expectation in God.
And I have nothing but time to sit here and think about all the things I can't do, all the things I'm missing out on getting to do while pregnant---all the things I have longed to do and dreamed I would do when pregnant. It's no surprise I'm a planner, so this new chain of events is severely cramping my Type A personality style. And I need to find a way to adapt---quickly. I don't handle change well. It always puts me in a whirlwind, I get down and negative for a bit, then I figure out a way to process it, accept it, and move forward. I'm not there yet, but I can tell I'm working on it.
It may seem pretty simple to those looking in. Just lay around, grow your baby and let everyone do everything for you. Well, I'm the queen of living in fairly tale land when it comes to having expectations. I always have high and very specific expectations for every event and every person in my life. This almost always leaves me disappointed and let down. This has been a work in progress in my life for some time, but, to-date, I still haven't figured out a way to not do this. So with this new event I'm still stuck in my old ways of thinking and I'm having a hard time working through it. But let me assure you, going through this is not just as simple as, " Just lay around, grow your baby and let everyone do everything for you." What I'm working through is laced with multiple layers of needs, desires, expectations, disappointments, and lots of change that angers my personality type.
But I have no choice to find a way to work through it. Hopefully some resolution comes sooner rather than later. I serve an awesome God and having hope, which I have, is having confident expectation in God.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Christmas Day
Being on bed rest over Christmas is not exactly exciting, but I do think it's helping my contractions. Some hours I will have 4 or so an hour, typically when there is a lot of stimulation, but then other times I may have only a few a day. My doc told me that she was good with 4 or less an hour. I've always been conscious about my water intake, but I'm super aware of it now. Staying really hydrated is supposed to help with contractions. I don't think I'm necessarily drinking more water than I was before, I'm still drinking anywhere from 90-120 ounces a day, but I do feel super thirsty all the time. Maybe it's the Procardia.
As I sit here blogging while I'm sprawled out on the couch I can see my belly moving all over the place from the vigorous kicking and punching from our Bean which makes missing the holiday worth it, although I admit it's DIFFICULT to stay laying down. There are sooo many things I want and need to do! It's driving me insane. But Kevin is open to doing most of them for me, and no to-do task is worth the health of our baby.
So Christmas was a little sad. Kevin and I slept in until 10:00am! Kevin and I weren't planning on exchanging gifts, so we didn't have anything to do between us this morning as far as a formal Christmas. We originally had plans with family today, but, of course, those plans went out the window with the latest events. Super bummed to be missing out on all of those activities and I'm really missing family. BUT, again, I have an awesome hubby that I got to spend the day with and everything we're going through is all for a a greater, sweeter purpose.
For the majority of the day I sat in bed getting caught up on things that I could do from my lap. I wrote a thank you note, went through a pile of paperwork that has been needing some attention, went over our baby shower address list, and handled some other miscellaneous admin items. It felt good to be productive even if it was from my bed while in my pj's. Kevin took care of all the things I couldn't do such as vacuuming, cleaning up the bathroom a bit, doing laundry, organizing the baby's room some and putting away all of our new baby items---all while bringing me whatever I needed to do my admin work and making sure I had plenty of water, food, and all my meds were given on time. :)
Kevin's Dad and Step-Mom came over to see us tonight. It sure was a nice visit! I don't think I realized how bored we must have been, as I was really excited to have people over. We are very thankful they rearranged some of their day to make the very out of the way drive to see us. We chatted for a couple of hours in the living room while I stayed firmly planted on the couch. I was really glad that we did not go through the entire day of Christmas and not get to see some family and connect.
This holiday season will definitely be a year to remember. There has been a lot of change and a lot to contemplate in a very short period of time, so I think I still may be sitting in the 'I'm really overwhelmed' stage, but it is my sincerest prayer that we are doing everything we are doing to ensure that next Christmas we are carrying our precious baby on the hip to Christmas celebrations.
Today is a very special day to us. How fitting that we are going through this in the midst of Christmas. Christ embodies endurance, sacrifice, love, and thankfulness and it is with this spirit that we spent our Christmas today. I know God has a divine plan for Kevin and I and our baby. We are told that we may not know His plan, but to trust that it is good. I know that we may have to plow some more difficult pastures, but we will find an abundance of fruit in the end. Our God is honorable and there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, although the pathway to finding it is not always pretty. You don't have to fake it, just faith it. He will pull you through----and bigger and better than before.
As I sit here blogging while I'm sprawled out on the couch I can see my belly moving all over the place from the vigorous kicking and punching from our Bean which makes missing the holiday worth it, although I admit it's DIFFICULT to stay laying down. There are sooo many things I want and need to do! It's driving me insane. But Kevin is open to doing most of them for me, and no to-do task is worth the health of our baby.
So Christmas was a little sad. Kevin and I slept in until 10:00am! Kevin and I weren't planning on exchanging gifts, so we didn't have anything to do between us this morning as far as a formal Christmas. We originally had plans with family today, but, of course, those plans went out the window with the latest events. Super bummed to be missing out on all of those activities and I'm really missing family. BUT, again, I have an awesome hubby that I got to spend the day with and everything we're going through is all for a a greater, sweeter purpose.
For the majority of the day I sat in bed getting caught up on things that I could do from my lap. I wrote a thank you note, went through a pile of paperwork that has been needing some attention, went over our baby shower address list, and handled some other miscellaneous admin items. It felt good to be productive even if it was from my bed while in my pj's. Kevin took care of all the things I couldn't do such as vacuuming, cleaning up the bathroom a bit, doing laundry, organizing the baby's room some and putting away all of our new baby items---all while bringing me whatever I needed to do my admin work and making sure I had plenty of water, food, and all my meds were given on time. :)
Kevin's Dad and Step-Mom came over to see us tonight. It sure was a nice visit! I don't think I realized how bored we must have been, as I was really excited to have people over. We are very thankful they rearranged some of their day to make the very out of the way drive to see us. We chatted for a couple of hours in the living room while I stayed firmly planted on the couch. I was really glad that we did not go through the entire day of Christmas and not get to see some family and connect.
This holiday season will definitely be a year to remember. There has been a lot of change and a lot to contemplate in a very short period of time, so I think I still may be sitting in the 'I'm really overwhelmed' stage, but it is my sincerest prayer that we are doing everything we are doing to ensure that next Christmas we are carrying our precious baby on the hip to Christmas celebrations.
Today is a very special day to us. How fitting that we are going through this in the midst of Christmas. Christ embodies endurance, sacrifice, love, and thankfulness and it is with this spirit that we spent our Christmas today. I know God has a divine plan for Kevin and I and our baby. We are told that we may not know His plan, but to trust that it is good. I know that we may have to plow some more difficult pastures, but we will find an abundance of fruit in the end. Our God is honorable and there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, although the pathway to finding it is not always pretty. You don't have to fake it, just faith it. He will pull you through----and bigger and better than before.
Acid Reflux in Full Swing
Somewhere in the last few weeks I've noticed a lot more indigestion and acid reflux. I was hoping it was just a few isolated incidences, but no such luck. Now that I've had to lay down so much with all this bed rest, I can safely say that it's surely pregnancy acid reflux in full swing. Just for the record, eating in any form of a reclined position does not do the body good. It totally promotes indigestion as one would assume. And it's no bueno. No one wants to feel the food they just ate sit in their throat. I have never had acid reflux before, so this is not a welcome change.
I've also noticed that I'm feeling uncomfortable when laying down, breathing, sleeping in certain positions, having middle back aches, and this is all certainly true after I eat. After I eat my belly feels so stretched out and big, it just makes me feel miserable. It literally feels like there is not enough skin on my belly. It's a gross feeling. I assume this is all a part of things rearranging inside my small frame in combination with lovely hormones. I have started sleeping with a body pillow now to help with my sleeping discomfort. I can't help but wonder how many more changes are headed my way. Oh, I've also noticed that my belly--just the pregnant sticking our part--stays blotchy and red. Is this normal? I asked one of the nurses about it when I was in the hospital and I was told , " Sure, it's normal. Anything is normal in pregnancy. "
I also can't forget to mention my new very hairy belly. It's not dark hair, it's all soft blonde hair, but it's all over! Eww! My nose has also been constantly stuffy---like really stuffy. Surging estrogen? I've also found broken capillaries on my nose area...really?! This is def from high estrogen. This also means my spider veins will probably be in full swing and getting worse any day now. But this is one that I totally expected. But it's all worth it. Our Bean is a mover and a goer. I loooove feeling our Bean move. My belly seems to be constantly rockin and a rollin. I was told in the hospital that for how far along I was that our baby has excellent movement and activity.
This home bed rest is still sucking, but my hubby rocks. He is amazing. He does everything imaginable for me and he doesn't complain. He's actually a really great care taker. He takes keeping me down pretty serious which can be annoying, but I know he does it all for the baby and so I do not have to go back into the hospital. I'm sooo lucky to have such an engaged, hands-on, caring, and loving husband.
I've also noticed that I'm feeling uncomfortable when laying down, breathing, sleeping in certain positions, having middle back aches, and this is all certainly true after I eat. After I eat my belly feels so stretched out and big, it just makes me feel miserable. It literally feels like there is not enough skin on my belly. It's a gross feeling. I assume this is all a part of things rearranging inside my small frame in combination with lovely hormones. I have started sleeping with a body pillow now to help with my sleeping discomfort. I can't help but wonder how many more changes are headed my way. Oh, I've also noticed that my belly--just the pregnant sticking our part--stays blotchy and red. Is this normal? I asked one of the nurses about it when I was in the hospital and I was told , " Sure, it's normal. Anything is normal in pregnancy. "
I also can't forget to mention my new very hairy belly. It's not dark hair, it's all soft blonde hair, but it's all over! Eww! My nose has also been constantly stuffy---like really stuffy. Surging estrogen? I've also found broken capillaries on my nose area...really?! This is def from high estrogen. This also means my spider veins will probably be in full swing and getting worse any day now. But this is one that I totally expected. But it's all worth it. Our Bean is a mover and a goer. I loooove feeling our Bean move. My belly seems to be constantly rockin and a rollin. I was told in the hospital that for how far along I was that our baby has excellent movement and activity.
This home bed rest is still sucking, but my hubby rocks. He is amazing. He does everything imaginable for me and he doesn't complain. He's actually a really great care taker. He takes keeping me down pretty serious which can be annoying, but I know he does it all for the baby and so I do not have to go back into the hospital. I'm sooo lucky to have such an engaged, hands-on, caring, and loving husband.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Christmas Eve
My parents made their way into town and were making their rounds seeing all of us kids for Christmas this year. Given my current situation, this year's plan of not having to do any traveling and having my parents come to us really worked out well. It was on the books that my parents would come do Christmas with Kevin and I at our house on Christmas Even afternoon/evening.
We had a really great time. We visited, I laid on the couch, since I couldn't cook as planned or even get to the grocery store to pick up dinner items, we picked up fajitas for dinner, we played cards, my Mom and Kevin danced together in the living room and sang Christmas carols, and we celebrated Christmas together. It was soo much fun!
My parents really blessed us. We were really excited to get some baby items for the Bean in advance, and we got two awesome baby gifts! My parents got us the Pack N Play we had chosen and the coveted bouncer we wanted for the baby. How exciting!! Everyone wanted to see the items all set up, so Kevin and my step-dad put them both together. I love them! It definitely makes things even more real to have these things set up along side our car seat and stroller in the baby room.
My mom also surprised me with a sewing machine. I had just recently mentioned to Kevin that I would like to have a sewing machine, as there are some things I want to learn to sew. This was a great surprise! Can't wait to learn to use it and get going!
We had a really great time and it was really nice to be able to spend Christmas Eve with family. I will see my Mom again in a couple of weeks when she comes back up here to stay with us for awhile to help Kevin take care of me. I think it's going to be scrap booking central! I think our semi-goal is to have her here until I reach 30 weeks, which is one of the milestones that we would really like to make it to.
I'm feeling sad that we are having to miss this Christmas with so many. It really is bitter sweet. But it's all with the hope that we are setting ourselves up to be carrying around our happy, healthy baby next Christmas.
We had a really great time. We visited, I laid on the couch, since I couldn't cook as planned or even get to the grocery store to pick up dinner items, we picked up fajitas for dinner, we played cards, my Mom and Kevin danced together in the living room and sang Christmas carols, and we celebrated Christmas together. It was soo much fun!
My parents really blessed us. We were really excited to get some baby items for the Bean in advance, and we got two awesome baby gifts! My parents got us the Pack N Play we had chosen and the coveted bouncer we wanted for the baby. How exciting!! Everyone wanted to see the items all set up, so Kevin and my step-dad put them both together. I love them! It definitely makes things even more real to have these things set up along side our car seat and stroller in the baby room.
My mom also surprised me with a sewing machine. I had just recently mentioned to Kevin that I would like to have a sewing machine, as there are some things I want to learn to sew. This was a great surprise! Can't wait to learn to use it and get going!
We had a really great time and it was really nice to be able to spend Christmas Eve with family. I will see my Mom again in a couple of weeks when she comes back up here to stay with us for awhile to help Kevin take care of me. I think it's going to be scrap booking central! I think our semi-goal is to have her here until I reach 30 weeks, which is one of the milestones that we would really like to make it to.
I'm feeling sad that we are having to miss this Christmas with so many. It really is bitter sweet. But it's all with the hope that we are setting ourselves up to be carrying around our happy, healthy baby next Christmas.
Freedom is So Sweet ...right?
I was released on Friday, at the end of the week, as we were hoping, from the hospital. We woke up bright and early to get ready for my sonogram to check my cervical length. This was not just any cervical length measurement, this was the one that would determine my fate. The previous night I took a full dose of Ambien and it was amazing. I finally slept, albeit with triple vision and monsters moving all about my hospital room. (This drug is hardcore!) Yea for taking the edge off and getting loopy!
So I was super nervous for my sonogram, after all, it would determine our fate. I saw the same Peri who performed my last sonogram in the hospital--Dr. Payne. He seemed much more relateable this time. So as I laid down on the bed I asked the doc if he felt anointed because he certainly was filled with divine powers with as much he had been prayed over. He chuckled and cracked a witty joke of some sort. Although I do remember somewhere in there him telling me that he probably would feel a little weird about praying over a cervix. I quickly told him that I didn't!
When he put the lovely wand in he immediately saw that the lower part of my uterus was contracting..again, as it was last time on sonogram. You can't take a cervical length when this happens, as it will give a skewed reading. So we had to wait...with the sono wand left in place...while this contraction went away. Nice. The doc kept moving the wand around looking at things and I carefully watched his facial expressions. He sighed and bit his lip and generally seemed a little disappointed. This was not helping my nerves, or my ability to relax my hoo haa as I had a big ol' wand crammed in there indefinitely. Lord, what was he seeing??! Tell me something!!
While we waited we all three tried to make light conversation and took this time to build a report with the doc, as we might be seeing him regularly from here on out. The doc found it appropriate during this time as we waited not- so patiently to tell us about his last pheasant hunting trip. So we indulged him and oohhed and ahhhed over his trophy of 130 dead pheasants. For anyone who knows me well, you know this is a Wow. But you do what ya gotta do. :)
As we were waiting he took some more measurements of the baby, checked the amniotic fluid level again, and visualized the baby's sweet face. When he had a good shot of the baby's face he said, " Aww, look what yall made. " He then gave Kevin and I fist bumps. HAHAHA! I then asked if he would check the baby's heart, as there is a lot of missing biological history in my family, including in my immediate family. He then told me that if I was adopted that someone sure missed out on me. ..Hmm...not sure what to think about this comment. But moving on.. He checked the baby's heart and said it looked like a perfectly normal heart to him. Awesome!
Finally my uterus simmered down and he got on with the measurement. It measured 2.49 cm--so basically the same from the last measurement. THANK GOD!! He then goes on to say that he thinks I'm stable for the moment and that I can go home!!
So we wait for my OB to come by, which she finally does, which feels like an eternity, and she gives us the green light to be discharged with a follow up appointment after Christmas. From the time we had our sono to discharge we waited about 3 hours, which felt like an eternity. But Kevin got my room all packed up, got me situated in the car, and we made our way to the pharmacy to pick up my prescriptions and then headed home. We were home by 1pm. So thankful. I seriously felt like I had just been released from prison. Everything smelled better, everything was prettier than I remembered it, I was so thankful and was sitting on a cautiously-optimistic cloud nine.
My parents had just made their way into town and went ahead and came over as planned to have a Christmas wrapping party at our house. My Mom had been shipping many of her purchased Christmas gifts to our house, so they were all piled in the nursery waiting on this visit. So they came over, we ordered take-out, I laid on the couch, and Kevin and my Mom made it through wrapping like a bazillion presents. It was really great to see them and be at home, even though I couldn't take part in any of the fun.
On the downside, I did notice that even though I was literally laying down and doing the exact same thing I was doing in the hospital, I was getting a lot of contractions. It must be from just being stimulated by being at home, the dogs being so excited to see me, and having visitors. Hoping this does not continue. It really freaks Kevin out and makes him go into Nazi -mode even more. This is going to be a long bed rest stint I can already tell.
So I was super nervous for my sonogram, after all, it would determine our fate. I saw the same Peri who performed my last sonogram in the hospital--Dr. Payne. He seemed much more relateable this time. So as I laid down on the bed I asked the doc if he felt anointed because he certainly was filled with divine powers with as much he had been prayed over. He chuckled and cracked a witty joke of some sort. Although I do remember somewhere in there him telling me that he probably would feel a little weird about praying over a cervix. I quickly told him that I didn't!
When he put the lovely wand in he immediately saw that the lower part of my uterus was contracting..again, as it was last time on sonogram. You can't take a cervical length when this happens, as it will give a skewed reading. So we had to wait...with the sono wand left in place...while this contraction went away. Nice. The doc kept moving the wand around looking at things and I carefully watched his facial expressions. He sighed and bit his lip and generally seemed a little disappointed. This was not helping my nerves, or my ability to relax my hoo haa as I had a big ol' wand crammed in there indefinitely. Lord, what was he seeing??! Tell me something!!
While we waited we all three tried to make light conversation and took this time to build a report with the doc, as we might be seeing him regularly from here on out. The doc found it appropriate during this time as we waited not- so patiently to tell us about his last pheasant hunting trip. So we indulged him and oohhed and ahhhed over his trophy of 130 dead pheasants. For anyone who knows me well, you know this is a Wow. But you do what ya gotta do. :)
As we were waiting he took some more measurements of the baby, checked the amniotic fluid level again, and visualized the baby's sweet face. When he had a good shot of the baby's face he said, " Aww, look what yall made. " He then gave Kevin and I fist bumps. HAHAHA! I then asked if he would check the baby's heart, as there is a lot of missing biological history in my family, including in my immediate family. He then told me that if I was adopted that someone sure missed out on me. ..Hmm...not sure what to think about this comment. But moving on.. He checked the baby's heart and said it looked like a perfectly normal heart to him. Awesome!
Finally my uterus simmered down and he got on with the measurement. It measured 2.49 cm--so basically the same from the last measurement. THANK GOD!! He then goes on to say that he thinks I'm stable for the moment and that I can go home!!
So we wait for my OB to come by, which she finally does, which feels like an eternity, and she gives us the green light to be discharged with a follow up appointment after Christmas. From the time we had our sono to discharge we waited about 3 hours, which felt like an eternity. But Kevin got my room all packed up, got me situated in the car, and we made our way to the pharmacy to pick up my prescriptions and then headed home. We were home by 1pm. So thankful. I seriously felt like I had just been released from prison. Everything smelled better, everything was prettier than I remembered it, I was so thankful and was sitting on a cautiously-optimistic cloud nine.
My parents had just made their way into town and went ahead and came over as planned to have a Christmas wrapping party at our house. My Mom had been shipping many of her purchased Christmas gifts to our house, so they were all piled in the nursery waiting on this visit. So they came over, we ordered take-out, I laid on the couch, and Kevin and my Mom made it through wrapping like a bazillion presents. It was really great to see them and be at home, even though I couldn't take part in any of the fun.
On the downside, I did notice that even though I was literally laying down and doing the exact same thing I was doing in the hospital, I was getting a lot of contractions. It must be from just being stimulated by being at home, the dogs being so excited to see me, and having visitors. Hoping this does not continue. It really freaks Kevin out and makes him go into Nazi -mode even more. This is going to be a long bed rest stint I can already tell.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Random Information
I have also learned two things that I find interesting:
1. Babies conceived via IVF are at a higher risk of being born preterm. I spoke to my doc and the perinatalologist about this and they both said that IVF babies do have double the risk of birth defects, about 4-5%, and preterm delivery. There is no formal research to-date that identifies why this is, but the consensus is that it is not due to the actual IVF process but rather due to underlying issue with the fertility problem that the mother has that has prevented her from getting pregnant to begin with, some of which aren't even identifiable by doctors.
2. There is a lot of debate and research on gene alteration of IVF embryos. Apparently, every IVF center can use whatever kind of growth medium they prefer and this does not have to be reported along with their stats. Some mediums are better than others. There are many who believe that the current research and information we have truly leans towards gene alteration occurring to the embryo while they are growing in such an unnatural environment. It is also hypothesized based on multiple studies done on IVF animal species that this does occur in rabbits and mice. Changes take place within the genes creating a different baby than one would have if it was a natural conception. Scientists believe this may have far reaching affects regarding long-term health and susceptibility to diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, learning difficulties, emotional disturbances, etc.
In one study, mice IVF off- spring were compared to naturally conceived mice off -spring. Those that were conceived via IVF were likely to forget what they had just learned and showed less fear and awareness when placed in a scary situation. They seem unable to see the immediate danger in their environment. Granted, were talking mice here, but definitely good food for thought. Another thing to consider, the oldest person every conceived via IVF is currently 32 years old, which means we have no real longitudinal study to show if IVF babies really do grow and interact with their environmental differently than those conceived naturally as they age all the way through their lifespan.
Interesting...Hmm..
1. Babies conceived via IVF are at a higher risk of being born preterm. I spoke to my doc and the perinatalologist about this and they both said that IVF babies do have double the risk of birth defects, about 4-5%, and preterm delivery. There is no formal research to-date that identifies why this is, but the consensus is that it is not due to the actual IVF process but rather due to underlying issue with the fertility problem that the mother has that has prevented her from getting pregnant to begin with, some of which aren't even identifiable by doctors.
2. There is a lot of debate and research on gene alteration of IVF embryos. Apparently, every IVF center can use whatever kind of growth medium they prefer and this does not have to be reported along with their stats. Some mediums are better than others. There are many who believe that the current research and information we have truly leans towards gene alteration occurring to the embryo while they are growing in such an unnatural environment. It is also hypothesized based on multiple studies done on IVF animal species that this does occur in rabbits and mice. Changes take place within the genes creating a different baby than one would have if it was a natural conception. Scientists believe this may have far reaching affects regarding long-term health and susceptibility to diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, learning difficulties, emotional disturbances, etc.
In one study, mice IVF off- spring were compared to naturally conceived mice off -spring. Those that were conceived via IVF were likely to forget what they had just learned and showed less fear and awareness when placed in a scary situation. They seem unable to see the immediate danger in their environment. Granted, were talking mice here, but definitely good food for thought. Another thing to consider, the oldest person every conceived via IVF is currently 32 years old, which means we have no real longitudinal study to show if IVF babies really do grow and interact with their environmental differently than those conceived naturally as they age all the way through their lifespan.
Interesting...Hmm..
Overwhelmed with Information
So Kevin and I have met with the neonatalogist and had a NICU tour all at the request of my OB. I have also had one really bad day while here and pretty much freaked out on my OB and told her that she could not keep me against my will as tears streamed down my face. I then went on to tell her that if she tries to keep me on Friday that, " I'm seriously going to freak out on you!" Luckily she's a tough lady and isn't affected my hormonal crazies. However, in my defense at this point I had about 2 hours of sleep in 48 hours, I was an emotional wreck, I was seriously overwhelmed, I was feeling desperate and incredibly sullen and lonely..and some bitterness was thrown in just for fun. You can't help it when your room is right by the waiting room where family's pile in waiting for a new baby, or to see another new mom go home two days later with her perfectly healthy, plump newborn. No fair.
So the meeting with the neonatalologist went well. The doc was super nice, really knowledgeable, and answered all of my questions...and there was a lot of them, of course. Basically, if born today, at 26 weeks, our baby has about a 90-100% chance of survival barring any brain bleeding, which is very common in micropreemies. He/she would spend about 100 days in the NICU and would have a 50/50 chance of having long term deficits. This would look like missing young milestones, learning difficulties, ADHD, etc. This is a scary prospect. We went ahead and I took the steroids, reluctantly, to start maturing our baby's lungs and brain vessels to help with brain bleeds once they are here. As this is a very serious, life-threatening concern.
We talked about a lot of things, but in a nutshell, the doc would looove for the baby to make it to 30 weeks, and would really, really prefer a baby born at 32-34 weeks, which is when they usually have no long-term deficits and do very well, although they still would have about an 8 weeks NICU stay. Given the fact that I'm in preterm labor, my OB does not believe I will make it to term, but is optimistic that we can make it to 32-34 weeks with strict bed rest and Procardia, my anticontration medication. So that puts us at 8 weeks of bed rest from this point. Of course, they won't prematurely take the baby if he/she is content to hang out in there after 32-34 weeks, but at least getting to this point is the goal. Not loving having a preemie or the bed rest. But I'll do what I have to do. But, I have to say, in my moments of self pity I want to scream, " REALLY??!! Why is this happening?? Haven't we been through enough? When does our break come? This is no fair and I'm angry!"
During our NICU tour we got to see exactly what would happen with our baby, and got to see all the machines that our baby would be hooked up to. They highly promote breastfeeding, especially in preemies, so much so that if a mom does not want to breastfeed, they like to use donor breast milk for these babies. Studies show they fair so much better with breast milk over formula. But when babies are first born they may not need to eat for a few days, and then after that all they can tolerate is about a teaspoon of milk everyday. So while you are waiting for your baby to be able to begin eating, you are pumping and freezing your colostrum and milk to later give to the baby. They said that preemies usually can't start trying to feed from the breast until around 32 weeks, as before then it is just too much work for them.
You also have to wait many weeks before you can do "kangaroo" time or time/skin-to-skin contact (actually holding your baby on your chest). They have to be really stable in order to do this, but they try to initiate this as soon as possible as there are many studies showing that skin-to-skin contact makes a world of difference on how well these babies do. They encourage Mom and Dad's to do Kangaroo time at least once a day for a minimum of an hour and a half at a time. We also learned that a baby born at our stage would not be able to be held by us for a few weeks until they are fully stabilized. We can touch the baby through the incubator, but preemies are very irritated by stroking motions, so you can only softly touch the baby without any movement. They are very hypersensitive when this young.
I am soo thankful we chose to move OB's so we can deliver at this hospital. They have a phenomenal level III NICU and can treat anything that your baby may have unless it is invasive surgery. So no transferring to a different hospital, typically. They have every kind of machine your baby could possibly need and seemed awesome. Feeling really comfortable with the NICU here.
While we were in the NICU there was a couple feeding their preemie who weighed 2.11 ounces, our baby currently weighs 1.11 ounces, so this baby was a whole pound bigger than ours. This is crazy to think about because this little girl was TINY! A baby usually weighs about 3# when they are 30 weeks, so we're trying to make this is a very conservative goal, as we think based on seeing a 3# baby it wouldn't be too shocking. But obviously the bigger the better!
I also addressed our very deep desire to have delayed cord clamping with my OB today. We do have a birth plan, but it looks like it may be pretty well shot at this point, but one thing that Kevin and I are really set on is delaying cutting the umbilical cord until it stops pulsating. We have put a lot of thought and research into learning about this and really feel it is so much better for babies, especially preemies. It does soo many great things for the baby. I totally thought given the fact that we will have a preemie, most likely, my OB would have shot me down, but she actually didn't. She said if we make it to 32-43 weeks, then she sees no reason we couldn't have this done. But if it's before then we would have to consider the age of the baby and in what condition they are born in. In this case we are content with not waiting the full time it take for the placenta to stop transferring blood to the baby, usually at least 3 minutes, but instead in this case we would be okay with waiting about a minute, as in this time the baby would get about 50% of what it would typically get from mom/cord/placenta during a 3 minute time frame. Hopefully they can still stabilize the baby while we do this for a minute.
Today was a good day in the hospital. My meds are finally building up in my system it seems, as the last two days my contractions have been very minimal. This is great news. This makes me feel like I may get to go home tomorrow, so this really lifts my spirits. I also finally gave in and took a half dose of Ambien last night to help me sleep. There is no way to sleep in the hospital, so virtually every woman here on bed rest takes Ambien to sleep. I declined it the first two nights, but I realized I was doing more harm to myself and potentially to the baby by not getting sleep, which was adding to my emotional craziness. So I went from being really conservative and "natural" to taking Procardia, a heart medication, Ambien, a sleeping pill, and taking steroids. Nice. I've also had to start taking an iron supplement as it was discovered I'm also moderately anemic, although I feel fine. Bit I did pass my Glucose Challenge Test--whoo hoo!
It's just one day at a time. You would have thought having gone through infertility I would have already learned this, but it seems I'm learning it all over again...and it's crummy. Thank goodness for the super awesome antepartum nurses in this department, my awesome hubby and the great supportive out- pouring from our friends and family. They have been amazing. Oh, and thank you for the therapy dog that came to visit me while in the hospital. It made me feel so much more at home to have black dog hair all over my bedding. Thank you for being a sweet lab girl, Miss Mya.
So we wait for tomorrow to find out if I will be home for the holidays. Please, please, please let me go home. I'm seriously concerned for my mental health if I get the news I have to stay. It seriously feels like I have just been given a prison sentence, and that will certainly take some time for adjustment.
It looks like we may be needing of one those pediatricians I have interviewed sooner rather than later.
So the meeting with the neonatalologist went well. The doc was super nice, really knowledgeable, and answered all of my questions...and there was a lot of them, of course. Basically, if born today, at 26 weeks, our baby has about a 90-100% chance of survival barring any brain bleeding, which is very common in micropreemies. He/she would spend about 100 days in the NICU and would have a 50/50 chance of having long term deficits. This would look like missing young milestones, learning difficulties, ADHD, etc. This is a scary prospect. We went ahead and I took the steroids, reluctantly, to start maturing our baby's lungs and brain vessels to help with brain bleeds once they are here. As this is a very serious, life-threatening concern.
We talked about a lot of things, but in a nutshell, the doc would looove for the baby to make it to 30 weeks, and would really, really prefer a baby born at 32-34 weeks, which is when they usually have no long-term deficits and do very well, although they still would have about an 8 weeks NICU stay. Given the fact that I'm in preterm labor, my OB does not believe I will make it to term, but is optimistic that we can make it to 32-34 weeks with strict bed rest and Procardia, my anticontration medication. So that puts us at 8 weeks of bed rest from this point. Of course, they won't prematurely take the baby if he/she is content to hang out in there after 32-34 weeks, but at least getting to this point is the goal. Not loving having a preemie or the bed rest. But I'll do what I have to do. But, I have to say, in my moments of self pity I want to scream, " REALLY??!! Why is this happening?? Haven't we been through enough? When does our break come? This is no fair and I'm angry!"
During our NICU tour we got to see exactly what would happen with our baby, and got to see all the machines that our baby would be hooked up to. They highly promote breastfeeding, especially in preemies, so much so that if a mom does not want to breastfeed, they like to use donor breast milk for these babies. Studies show they fair so much better with breast milk over formula. But when babies are first born they may not need to eat for a few days, and then after that all they can tolerate is about a teaspoon of milk everyday. So while you are waiting for your baby to be able to begin eating, you are pumping and freezing your colostrum and milk to later give to the baby. They said that preemies usually can't start trying to feed from the breast until around 32 weeks, as before then it is just too much work for them.
You also have to wait many weeks before you can do "kangaroo" time or time/skin-to-skin contact (actually holding your baby on your chest). They have to be really stable in order to do this, but they try to initiate this as soon as possible as there are many studies showing that skin-to-skin contact makes a world of difference on how well these babies do. They encourage Mom and Dad's to do Kangaroo time at least once a day for a minimum of an hour and a half at a time. We also learned that a baby born at our stage would not be able to be held by us for a few weeks until they are fully stabilized. We can touch the baby through the incubator, but preemies are very irritated by stroking motions, so you can only softly touch the baby without any movement. They are very hypersensitive when this young.
I am soo thankful we chose to move OB's so we can deliver at this hospital. They have a phenomenal level III NICU and can treat anything that your baby may have unless it is invasive surgery. So no transferring to a different hospital, typically. They have every kind of machine your baby could possibly need and seemed awesome. Feeling really comfortable with the NICU here.
While we were in the NICU there was a couple feeding their preemie who weighed 2.11 ounces, our baby currently weighs 1.11 ounces, so this baby was a whole pound bigger than ours. This is crazy to think about because this little girl was TINY! A baby usually weighs about 3# when they are 30 weeks, so we're trying to make this is a very conservative goal, as we think based on seeing a 3# baby it wouldn't be too shocking. But obviously the bigger the better!
I also addressed our very deep desire to have delayed cord clamping with my OB today. We do have a birth plan, but it looks like it may be pretty well shot at this point, but one thing that Kevin and I are really set on is delaying cutting the umbilical cord until it stops pulsating. We have put a lot of thought and research into learning about this and really feel it is so much better for babies, especially preemies. It does soo many great things for the baby. I totally thought given the fact that we will have a preemie, most likely, my OB would have shot me down, but she actually didn't. She said if we make it to 32-43 weeks, then she sees no reason we couldn't have this done. But if it's before then we would have to consider the age of the baby and in what condition they are born in. In this case we are content with not waiting the full time it take for the placenta to stop transferring blood to the baby, usually at least 3 minutes, but instead in this case we would be okay with waiting about a minute, as in this time the baby would get about 50% of what it would typically get from mom/cord/placenta during a 3 minute time frame. Hopefully they can still stabilize the baby while we do this for a minute.
Today was a good day in the hospital. My meds are finally building up in my system it seems, as the last two days my contractions have been very minimal. This is great news. This makes me feel like I may get to go home tomorrow, so this really lifts my spirits. I also finally gave in and took a half dose of Ambien last night to help me sleep. There is no way to sleep in the hospital, so virtually every woman here on bed rest takes Ambien to sleep. I declined it the first two nights, but I realized I was doing more harm to myself and potentially to the baby by not getting sleep, which was adding to my emotional craziness. So I went from being really conservative and "natural" to taking Procardia, a heart medication, Ambien, a sleeping pill, and taking steroids. Nice. I've also had to start taking an iron supplement as it was discovered I'm also moderately anemic, although I feel fine. Bit I did pass my Glucose Challenge Test--whoo hoo!
It's just one day at a time. You would have thought having gone through infertility I would have already learned this, but it seems I'm learning it all over again...and it's crummy. Thank goodness for the super awesome antepartum nurses in this department, my awesome hubby and the great supportive out- pouring from our friends and family. They have been amazing. Oh, and thank you for the therapy dog that came to visit me while in the hospital. It made me feel so much more at home to have black dog hair all over my bedding. Thank you for being a sweet lab girl, Miss Mya.
So we wait for tomorrow to find out if I will be home for the holidays. Please, please, please let me go home. I'm seriously concerned for my mental health if I get the news I have to stay. It seriously feels like I have just been given a prison sentence, and that will certainly take some time for adjustment.
It looks like we may be needing of one those pediatricians I have interviewed sooner rather than later.
Confessions of a Crazy Pregnant Woman on Bed Rest!
I was trying sooo hard to believe that my body would do its job and give this baby a nice comfy spot to live for a full nine months. Well, that is surely in jeopardy now. As I have mentioned before, for the last 5 or 6 weeks I have been having Braxton Hicks contractions. Up until this point, they have been pretty sporadic. But this weekend I had a lot of them. They did not come at regular intervals, but I was having more than 4 an hour, which I had been told previously was the cut off number of "normal". I tried not to worry about it and just allowed my focus to be on the family Christmas' we attended. Other than having lots of non-painful contractions, I felt totally normal. Hence the reason I did not call my OB's office over the weekend.
But when Monday rolled around, yesterday, I went ahead and gave my OB's office a call just to be safe. So I left my dutifully message with my doc's nurse and waited for a call back. The call came back in a couple of hours and they wanted me to be in their office in one hour for an exam and a sonogram. For some reason I was actually pretty shocked and asked if it could wait until the appointment I already had scheduled in 4 days, the answer was 'nope'. At this point, I'm still thinking this is totally no big deal and start rushing to get freshened up--after all, someone was going to be in the hoo-ha. Ya know, you always have to make sure all is on the up and up down there before showing the goods. I also give Kevin a call who had JUST left our house to head back to work after having lunch with me at home. He immediately says he is on his way home. I protest adamantly that he come to the appointment as I was sure this was just a precautionary thing and there was really no need for him to take off from work. Nope, he was coming. So he rushed home, I got dressed, and we were out of the house within 30 minutes.
When we walk in the office it appears to be a normal day in the OB's office, it was a sea of women with no seats available. This time we have to have our exam first as they were planning on doing an FFN test on me to see if my body is planning on going into full blown labor within the next two weeks. So we do the test, the doc does a vaginal exam and says all looks and feels good internally, and send me over for my sono to check my cervical length. Our lovely Debbie does this sono for us again.
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She was there only to check the cervix, not to look at the baby. So all we got to see of the baby was its head pressed very firmly against my cervix, which was causing a lot of pressure, but he/she was moving around a lot. My cervix was measuring a lot shorter than it had 10 days ago. At our last visit, at about 24 weeks, we were in the 3.4 cm range, yesterday our average was about 2.9cm. Now, this is not a super bad measurement, but given that there was so much change and so rapidly in conjunction with contractions, this was no good. This is why our doc told us that the contractions I had been having were "real" contractions since they were changing my cervix. This is the actual definition of preterm labor, which I am having.
So after the sono we go back to see the doc to discuss our game plan. She immediately said this was not great and she was concerned with the speed of the change in my body. She said this means that I have an incompetent cervix and it cannot hold the weight of the baby properly. She can't speculate on how it will hold up for the remainder of the pregnancy, she needs to see more of a trend, but she wants to be very cautious, so off the the hospital for hospital bed rest and meds to stop contraction we went--immediately. Like no going home to grab things, nada...straight there. Well, I still had not eaten lunch and Kevin was concerned about how long it would be before the hospital would feed me, so he insisted that we go grab a quick lunch. SShhhh! We're rebels. But I figured the baby didn't fall out over the weekend, so I'm sure an extra hour wouldn't hurt.
So here we are. In the hospital ..waiting..to find out what our fate is and to meet the neonatologist and have a NICU tour. Wow, this is so much to take in. Am I ready for this. I guess I kinda have to be. At this point we're both in shock. Really, is this happening to us for real? So no trip back home to prepare and gather belongings, nope, to the hospital pronto. UHG!
So our...geez...not everything is "our". I mean MY FFN test came back negative and it's level of certainly is about 95% when it comes back negative. So that's awesome news. That means my body is not gearing up for delivery within the next two weeks. After getting checked-in, we actually got transferred to about three different areas and beds until we landed in our final resting spot, which is a private room in antepartum in Labor and Delivery. I immediately get put in bed, told to lay down, and they started Procardia to stop contractions. It worked pretty well. It brought my contractions down to about 1-3 per hours through the night.
So what's the latest? A lot has happened today. Well we woke up bright and early and waited to meet with the perinatalogist, my OB, and the neonatalogist. First was our sonogram with the perinatologist, whom I didn't love. The baby looked great, was measuring great, and my fluid level was great. Yea. I am not dialated and my cervix was still closed as of this morning. He measured my cervix shorter than yesterday at 2.5cm. He didn't measure the cervix as Debbie has been, which is what we are currently using as my delta so I plan to ask my OB about that in the morning.
However, this means that with a lower measurement than we had the day before and last week, this is not good news according to my OB. Although a cervix that is measuring 2.5cm is short, it is typically still kinda okay. However, my OB's concern is that in 2 weeks I have lost about a 1/3 of my cervical length, a very quick drop.
So I get to stay on hospital bed rest for the week with the potential of going home on Friday if my next sono shows that my cervix has not changed at all. LORD, PLEASE!! Kevin has been a dream while I have been in here. He is doing everything for me. He hangs out in the room with me at least 8 hours a day just sitting and talking with me or curling up in my bed cuddling me, watching TV, and serving me. He then goes home with my list of anything I need, takes care of our animals, cleans the house, puts together our new stroller and car seat that we just got (whoo hooo!) scoops dog poop in the back yard, wraps Christmas presents, mails stuff for me at the post office, buys my skin tonor that I ran out of, and picks up my prescriptions.
I am totally overwhelmed but I'm sooo thankful for the amazing support we have received and my amazing husband. As I watch him spending his 7th hour in a super uncomfortable chair in my room, it makes me realize that this is what true love is made of and I'm incredibly blessed to have it in my life partner.
But when Monday rolled around, yesterday, I went ahead and gave my OB's office a call just to be safe. So I left my dutifully message with my doc's nurse and waited for a call back. The call came back in a couple of hours and they wanted me to be in their office in one hour for an exam and a sonogram. For some reason I was actually pretty shocked and asked if it could wait until the appointment I already had scheduled in 4 days, the answer was 'nope'. At this point, I'm still thinking this is totally no big deal and start rushing to get freshened up--after all, someone was going to be in the hoo-ha. Ya know, you always have to make sure all is on the up and up down there before showing the goods. I also give Kevin a call who had JUST left our house to head back to work after having lunch with me at home. He immediately says he is on his way home. I protest adamantly that he come to the appointment as I was sure this was just a precautionary thing and there was really no need for him to take off from work. Nope, he was coming. So he rushed home, I got dressed, and we were out of the house within 30 minutes.
When we walk in the office it appears to be a normal day in the OB's office, it was a sea of women with no seats available. This time we have to have our exam first as they were planning on doing an FFN test on me to see if my body is planning on going into full blown labor within the next two weeks. So we do the test, the doc does a vaginal exam and says all looks and feels good internally, and send me over for my sono to check my cervical length. Our lovely Debbie does this sono for us again.
N n
She was there only to check the cervix, not to look at the baby. So all we got to see of the baby was its head pressed very firmly against my cervix, which was causing a lot of pressure, but he/she was moving around a lot. My cervix was measuring a lot shorter than it had 10 days ago. At our last visit, at about 24 weeks, we were in the 3.4 cm range, yesterday our average was about 2.9cm. Now, this is not a super bad measurement, but given that there was so much change and so rapidly in conjunction with contractions, this was no good. This is why our doc told us that the contractions I had been having were "real" contractions since they were changing my cervix. This is the actual definition of preterm labor, which I am having.
So after the sono we go back to see the doc to discuss our game plan. She immediately said this was not great and she was concerned with the speed of the change in my body. She said this means that I have an incompetent cervix and it cannot hold the weight of the baby properly. She can't speculate on how it will hold up for the remainder of the pregnancy, she needs to see more of a trend, but she wants to be very cautious, so off the the hospital for hospital bed rest and meds to stop contraction we went--immediately. Like no going home to grab things, nada...straight there. Well, I still had not eaten lunch and Kevin was concerned about how long it would be before the hospital would feed me, so he insisted that we go grab a quick lunch. SShhhh! We're rebels. But I figured the baby didn't fall out over the weekend, so I'm sure an extra hour wouldn't hurt.
So here we are. In the hospital ..waiting..to find out what our fate is and to meet the neonatologist and have a NICU tour. Wow, this is so much to take in. Am I ready for this. I guess I kinda have to be. At this point we're both in shock. Really, is this happening to us for real? So no trip back home to prepare and gather belongings, nope, to the hospital pronto. UHG!
So our...geez...not everything is "our". I mean MY FFN test came back negative and it's level of certainly is about 95% when it comes back negative. So that's awesome news. That means my body is not gearing up for delivery within the next two weeks. After getting checked-in, we actually got transferred to about three different areas and beds until we landed in our final resting spot, which is a private room in antepartum in Labor and Delivery. I immediately get put in bed, told to lay down, and they started Procardia to stop contractions. It worked pretty well. It brought my contractions down to about 1-3 per hours through the night.
So what's the latest? A lot has happened today. Well we woke up bright and early and waited to meet with the perinatalogist, my OB, and the neonatalogist. First was our sonogram with the perinatologist, whom I didn't love. The baby looked great, was measuring great, and my fluid level was great. Yea. I am not dialated and my cervix was still closed as of this morning. He measured my cervix shorter than yesterday at 2.5cm. He didn't measure the cervix as Debbie has been, which is what we are currently using as my delta so I plan to ask my OB about that in the morning.
However, this means that with a lower measurement than we had the day before and last week, this is not good news according to my OB. Although a cervix that is measuring 2.5cm is short, it is typically still kinda okay. However, my OB's concern is that in 2 weeks I have lost about a 1/3 of my cervical length, a very quick drop.
So I get to stay on hospital bed rest for the week with the potential of going home on Friday if my next sono shows that my cervix has not changed at all. LORD, PLEASE!! Kevin has been a dream while I have been in here. He is doing everything for me. He hangs out in the room with me at least 8 hours a day just sitting and talking with me or curling up in my bed cuddling me, watching TV, and serving me. He then goes home with my list of anything I need, takes care of our animals, cleans the house, puts together our new stroller and car seat that we just got (whoo hooo!) scoops dog poop in the back yard, wraps Christmas presents, mails stuff for me at the post office, buys my skin tonor that I ran out of, and picks up my prescriptions.
I am totally overwhelmed but I'm sooo thankful for the amazing support we have received and my amazing husband. As I watch him spending his 7th hour in a super uncomfortable chair in my room, it makes me realize that this is what true love is made of and I'm incredibly blessed to have it in my life partner.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
25 Weeks
So here it is...25 week belly pic. For the record, I think I have noticed a "pop" in my belly this week. I think I officially look pregnant now. I weigh 124# as of today, which is a total of 12# gained to-date. You can find all baby bump pics under the blog post titled ' Tummy Tracker'.
December 15, 2011..me and Eli..and the Bean. This is a big week as the baby now has 'viability'. If I were to deliver now doctors would intervene and give medical attention to our baby. I love having a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner as a great friend. She takes care of babies that are as old as the one I'm carrying for a living at a children's specialty hospital in Dallas, so she knows everything there is to know about babies---at least from this point forward, for sure. Although she did say a 25 weeker is not the prettiest thing to look at. It is super tiny, really skinny, its eyes are fused shut, it is covered in body hair, and the head is disproportionately big, and they face an uphill battle in the short and long term---but they can make it. Very cool to know!
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Really?
All I can start with is O.M.G and maybe...'really'??? As many know we are not sharing our chosen baby names in order to make the day of delivery that much more special for everyone. Well, we worked really hard to choose names that were just perfect. Not too new, not too trendy, not too popular, names that will age well, names that are easy to spell and pronounce, names that are strong and classic...and the list goes on. Well, our girl name is super uncommon. It's an old southern name from the 1800's. According to the Social Security Name Database, this little girls name doesn't even make the top 1000. In 2010, there was only 1200 little girls in the US given this name, which I assume were given as a throwback to an old family name. I have never met someone with this name, young or old.
Anyway, I was just watching a commercial this evening and the little girl on the commercial had this name, our name!! What the heck!! This name is virtually unheard of, especially by those who would be in their baby makin' years. Kevin and I were dead set on naming our daughter Stella for the longest time, and wouldn't you know it, by the time we were ready to capture a name Stella is one of the most common little girl names with some serious rising power according the SS database. This is why we moved away from naming our daughter Stella. Big time bummer, because I looove this name. But I don't love it if 2 other girls in our daughter's first grade class will have the same name.
I'm not saying that just because we heard this name on the commercial we are changing our choice, but it does mean that this name may be on the rise. And we are feeling pretty irritated that this name is even on the radar.
Anyway, I was just watching a commercial this evening and the little girl on the commercial had this name, our name!! What the heck!! This name is virtually unheard of, especially by those who would be in their baby makin' years. Kevin and I were dead set on naming our daughter Stella for the longest time, and wouldn't you know it, by the time we were ready to capture a name Stella is one of the most common little girl names with some serious rising power according the SS database. This is why we moved away from naming our daughter Stella. Big time bummer, because I looove this name. But I don't love it if 2 other girls in our daughter's first grade class will have the same name.
I'm not saying that just because we heard this name on the commercial we are changing our choice, but it does mean that this name may be on the rise. And we are feeling pretty irritated that this name is even on the radar.
DO YOU SEE THE BUMP??!
Okay, there is really no post here other than to show off what I think is a true baby bump---I haven't even eaten recently in this picture! LOL I think I may have just recently "popped" as they say. WHHOOOOO HOOOOO!
24 weeks and 5 days
The bump is there, right??!! Praise the Lord!
The bump is there, right??!! Praise the Lord!
The Baby Whisperer
So Kevin is apparently The Wicker Bean Wisperer. I'm still sticking to my story that the baby does Zumba in my belly pretty much non stop these days, which one would think is perfect for allowing Dad to be involved in the action. Every single time the baby is in a good dancing rhythm I call Kevin over to have a feel and the baby stops dancing..every single time. Seriously. It's very frustrating. I'm wondering if Kevin thinks I'm lying about how much the baby moves. Plus, I want Kevin to be able to get in on the action that's going down between me and the Bean. But most days, we have no such luck. As soon as Kevin lays his hand on my belly the baby stops doing cannon balls off the diving board ( this is my other analogy to describe how some of the movements feel).
So I've come to wonder if Kevin has a calming effect on the baby. It's now a joke between us. Is it really possible the baby knows that his/her Dad is merely a couple of inches from them when Kevin's hand is on my belly? Surely not, right. I think maybe Kevin has scared the baby into some weird form of submission. Kevin likes to talk to the baby, but for some reason Kevin can't seem to talk to the baby in a normal voice. He has to talk really loudly, slowly and kind of distorted. It's like when people who don't have a clue about social awareness and they speak to someone who is deaf or blind. There is really no need to talk that slowly or loudly people. I wonder if Kevin is scaring the Bean with his scary manipulated voice. Hahaha. Just kidding. Just kidding.
Anyway, we shall put this whole "bean whisperer" thing to the test in about three months. I know the first person I'm handing off our inconsolable baby to at 3am. Kevin, the baby whisperer. Sounds like a perfect fit to me.
So I've come to wonder if Kevin has a calming effect on the baby. It's now a joke between us. Is it really possible the baby knows that his/her Dad is merely a couple of inches from them when Kevin's hand is on my belly? Surely not, right. I think maybe Kevin has scared the baby into some weird form of submission. Kevin likes to talk to the baby, but for some reason Kevin can't seem to talk to the baby in a normal voice. He has to talk really loudly, slowly and kind of distorted. It's like when people who don't have a clue about social awareness and they speak to someone who is deaf or blind. There is really no need to talk that slowly or loudly people. I wonder if Kevin is scaring the Bean with his scary manipulated voice. Hahaha. Just kidding. Just kidding.
Anyway, we shall put this whole "bean whisperer" thing to the test in about three months. I know the first person I'm handing off our inconsolable baby to at 3am. Kevin, the baby whisperer. Sounds like a perfect fit to me.
Very Thankful
Today is a big day in the Wicker House, well, a thankful day, that is! We had a very generous member of our family buy Wicker Bean's stroller/car seat travel system for us! This was our top need! We are incredibly thankful to Tracy, Kevin's Mamma. I know we won't need this item for about 3 months, but I have to tell ya, it's so dang nice to already know that you have some "big" needs checked off the list. Plus, this is one less item that Kevin and I will have to purchase which is beyond AWESOME.
We went with the top rated car seat, Chicco Keyfit 30, and matching stroller/travel system. I have a lot of friends who use this same model and they all have nothing but great things to say about it. Kevin and I, of course, did plenty of independent research, and, for the money, you cannot beat this buy. I also love the fact that Chicco has a lot of simple color schemes and designs--nothing that will out-date too quickly and they offer a lot of versatility. Our little gender neutral Bean will be sporting Midori Green and Brown. I think it's going to look pretty perfect.
Our new item should be here in about a week. Can't wait! We are immensely grateful and are so excited to have something super real for Baby Wicker in the house!
We went with the top rated car seat, Chicco Keyfit 30, and matching stroller/travel system. I have a lot of friends who use this same model and they all have nothing but great things to say about it. Kevin and I, of course, did plenty of independent research, and, for the money, you cannot beat this buy. I also love the fact that Chicco has a lot of simple color schemes and designs--nothing that will out-date too quickly and they offer a lot of versatility. Our little gender neutral Bean will be sporting Midori Green and Brown. I think it's going to look pretty perfect.
Our new item should be here in about a week. Can't wait! We are immensely grateful and are so excited to have something super real for Baby Wicker in the house!
May I Touch It?
Hhmm...okay, I think it's a little weird, so I'm thinking not, so back away from the belly.....immediately! This is what first came to my mind when a stranger asked to touch my belly today. This is a first for me. I have not yet experienced this odd rite of passage for pregnant women. But, of course, I didn't say this to the woman who asked to touch my belly. Instead I gave her a polite 'okay' and she oohhed and ahhhed and rubbed and patted until her heart content. It's crazy to think that just six months ago if this woman would have asked me the same thing it would have been quite the no-no. But now that I'm growing a human inside my body it somehow makes this request totally within the realm of normal human behavior. Hmm...very interesting. But, on the bright side, it didn't eeek me out one bit to have some strange woman molest my belly. Maybe that's the truly interesting thing about this odd dynamic. So I don't think I'm going to be one of those who gets weirded out when strangers reach out and cop a quick feel ...of the belly, of course. With my level of modesty..or lack thereof, this should come as no surprise.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Smorgasbord of Thoughts Today
First topic of discussion, nipples. Yep, I said it. Nipples. There ya go, I said it again just for fun. Speaking of those pesky little things, what in the world is going on with the two I have! Holy Cow, has someone set them on fire and just not told me. Is this some one's idea of a funny joke? Those babies are on fire lately and feel like they are raw skin that's being slowly peeled off with a butter knife. Wow. So much so that showers are very painful, having water touch them is over kill and I must always wear a bra. There is no loosey-goosey business allowed anymore. Just having a tshirt touch them is too much too take. Again, I'm throwing this in the "pregnancy pile". If you have any better ideas to explain this anomaly, please let me know. Until then, I will take all my showers facing away from the shower head and never go braless again.
Next topic of discussion, is vitamin D. As many of you may know, there is a lot of controversy surrounding vitamin d in the body, well, vitamin d deficiency in the body. Vitamin d is really more of a hormone regulator rather than a true vitamin, which means that if it's out of whack so are a lot of other things. Vitamin d deficiency has been known to increase one's breast cancer risk exponentially, cause thyroid dysfunction, acne...all sorts of things. Finding a doc who believes that most Americans are deficient in vitamin d is becoming more prevalent, but most docs who treat individual systems in the body, and not the body as a whole, are still out of the loop. Anyhoo, at one point in my fertility journey my vitamin d level was tested and was virtually non existent. I was put on a high dose, relative to the government's current daily intake standard, which was 5000 iu. I stayed on this dose for quite a while. Now that my levels have surely rebounded, I now take about 2500 iu while pregnant. The government says that a pregnant woman needs about 400 IU of vitamin d per day. This is a VERY old standard that was adopted to keep kids from getting rickets. I think we are well passed a very basic minimum to keep our kids from getting rickets, but it has never been reassessed or changed.
I have mentioned before that I loved the book Origins, which goes in depth about fetal origins,which is the study of things that happen to the mother and a baby during pregnancy and the belief that these things shape a baby as an adult. I fully believe in this premise. One of the things they discuss in the book is vitamin d during pregnancy. Mothers who take high levels of vitamin d, according to some studies pregnant women should take about 4000 IU per day, have less risk of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, low birth weight babies, kids with asthma, and it also promotes babies who have more neuro synapses, promoting a calmer and smarter baby. I take about 2500 IU of vitamin d per day, this includes the 400 IU that are in my prenatals. I guess we shall see how Baby Wicker turns out! Just kidding. I have no doubt I am doing the very best for our Bean.
Funny story. Last night Kevin and I purchased something off of Craigslist. We are well versed in dealing on Craigslist, and have sold and purchased many things off of CL's. But we had an experience like no other with our latest purchase. The item we found on Craigslist was a great deal, and we really wanted to make this purchase. We made the drive there, which was about 45 minutes. I had a weird feeling about the guy we were purchasing from from the beginning. He only wanted to text and his texting, well, lets just say wasn't what I'm used to, but, granted, this could have been because he is not in my generation. Something told me I needed to do some research on this address online before we made the drive. So the address went into Google. I quickly discovered that this address is currently for rent, it's in the middle of no-where, on a dirt road, with a creek running behind the house, and there was a registered sex offender living at this address at least at one point. HHmmm..So needless to say, at this point I was feeling very concerned, but Kevin said I was being dramatic and there was no reason to worry. So before making the trip to his house I sent my mom the guy's address and expressed my fears. This way if she never heard from us again she could direct the search team in the right direction.
So we get all the way out there. It was dark. We are on a gravel road that dead ended and the address given to us was no where to be found. We call the guy and he tells us that to our left of the dead end there is a dark dirt road that we need to follow. It is more like a ditch full of water, bumps, and rivets. Poor Penny the Prius. Keep in mind we are in the middle of no where with not one street light. It's pitch dark. When I looked down the windy path that he was telling us to travel my heart jumped into my throat. I became panicked. At this point Kevin is still on the phone with the guy getting further directions. So Kevin starts taking our little Prius off roading
Kevin is still on the phone with the guy and I'm freaking out in the car imagining scenes from the movies "Wrong Turn" and "The Hills Have Eyes". I'm in a full panic and telling Kevin to just hang up and turn around, we're leaving! The guy is telling Kevin that we need to continue driving past this house through more dangerous terrain and off-roading. Kevin tells him that our car will not be able to handle the path in front of us. He tells us that he will drive up and meet us where we are. A few minutes later he appears in a pick up truck and tells us that we can just get in his truck and he'll take us to the item we're looking at which is in a travel trailer out on the property!! What the hell is happening??!! Kevin just kept saying, "well, we've come this far...." I told him that even if we drove 500 miles, if we're about to be killed, it's not worth it!! So at this point I had to make a very quick decision on whether or not I was going to let Kevin go alone with this guy and just stay in the car and wait, or go with Kevin and have this guy take us to the travel trailer. The compromise: I went with Kevin, but we declined the ride in his truck and just asked to walk to the travel trailer, in the freezing pitch black night. So here we were in pitch black with this guy standing in the middle of no where, and I'm wearing heels. Awesome.
Shortly into our walk the guy says he has to run back to his truck because he forgot something. So Kevin and I are left to stand there alone wondering if he was coming back with a gun to kill us. Luckily, that wasn't the case. So we continue the walk and see multiple houses, travel trailers and lots of dogs on the property. In our awe, we say, " wow, there sure are a lot of homes out here." He then goes on to tell us that this is family owned property ( are you thinking what I'm thinking??? Texas Chain Saw Massacre!!) and it works out perfectly for poor folks, as they can all live on the same land. He then goes on to point out where every cousin lives on the property. Oh my.
Finally, we come to "our" travel trailer. It was disgusting. I actually just stood outside the front door, but I did peer in not wanting to look anymore rude than I was already looking. This travel trailer was DISGUSTING!! It was filled with trash and junk---everywhere. I didn't want to touch a thing! I mean, gross!! We had just stumbled upon an old lumber jacks man cave! At this point a super sweet little chihuahua mix whom was roaming the property and whom was also pregnant jumped up on my leg. She actually scared the crap out of me I was so on edge, but she did manage to calm me a bit as I pet her, she was a sweet little love. I felt really sad to leave her. Her name was Lola.
So Kevin is in the trailer looking at what we came to purchase and all looked in working order with the item, so I was ready to make the deal and be gone. Although the item was dirty, to which we were told it was probably smoke. Umm..I don't think so, but it looked totally cleanable, so no worries in this case as I just wanted out of there. We did offer him a little less than his asking price, but we made the deal and were on our way. So we walked back down the long path to the car and I took this opportunity to talk about Miss Lola, the sweet dog I had just met. No, I didn't load her up in the car also. She lives outside and they have no plans for her puppies, although we were told to keep in touch if we wanted a new dog. :) I told him that her puppies would be a really adoptable small breed puppy and they would get adopted readily at the local humane society, so they should consider dropping them all off up there when the puppies were done weaning from Mamma.
We made it back to the car, loaded up, got in, and locked the doors . It's at this point I ask if we got the remote, to which Kevin replied, " oh crap, no!" So Kevin got out of the car and yelled for our new friend who was now on the phone and walking off. He obliged and went back to the trailer to grab it for us and we were on our way as fast as humanly possible. I cannot tell you the complete happiness I felt when we were safely back in a "normal" part of the world. I had Kevin clean his hands with some wet wipes I had in the car before touching anything in the car. I know, I'm crazy. But the filth was insane.
When we got home the item was fully sanitized, wiped down, and Cloroxed. But it cleaned up as good as new. I've become rather germ-o-phobic as of late, and I actually gloved up as I cleaned this thing. Hahaha! Surely I didn't breathe in any dangerous spores from that nasty trailer. Hope not. I guess you would have had to of seen where it came from to be this cautious! Luckily, we purchased an electronic that was really new to begin with, there is no way in heck I would have bought anything that wasn't plastic from this place.
Moral of the story: different strokes for different folks. We get really accustomed to how we live in our little bubbles and it's shocking when we see something that we don't define as "normal". It's not that it's "bad", it's just different. And makes for a laughable memory and blog entry for girls like me.
Next topic of discussion, is vitamin D. As many of you may know, there is a lot of controversy surrounding vitamin d in the body, well, vitamin d deficiency in the body. Vitamin d is really more of a hormone regulator rather than a true vitamin, which means that if it's out of whack so are a lot of other things. Vitamin d deficiency has been known to increase one's breast cancer risk exponentially, cause thyroid dysfunction, acne...all sorts of things. Finding a doc who believes that most Americans are deficient in vitamin d is becoming more prevalent, but most docs who treat individual systems in the body, and not the body as a whole, are still out of the loop. Anyhoo, at one point in my fertility journey my vitamin d level was tested and was virtually non existent. I was put on a high dose, relative to the government's current daily intake standard, which was 5000 iu. I stayed on this dose for quite a while. Now that my levels have surely rebounded, I now take about 2500 iu while pregnant. The government says that a pregnant woman needs about 400 IU of vitamin d per day. This is a VERY old standard that was adopted to keep kids from getting rickets. I think we are well passed a very basic minimum to keep our kids from getting rickets, but it has never been reassessed or changed.
I have mentioned before that I loved the book Origins, which goes in depth about fetal origins,which is the study of things that happen to the mother and a baby during pregnancy and the belief that these things shape a baby as an adult. I fully believe in this premise. One of the things they discuss in the book is vitamin d during pregnancy. Mothers who take high levels of vitamin d, according to some studies pregnant women should take about 4000 IU per day, have less risk of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, low birth weight babies, kids with asthma, and it also promotes babies who have more neuro synapses, promoting a calmer and smarter baby. I take about 2500 IU of vitamin d per day, this includes the 400 IU that are in my prenatals. I guess we shall see how Baby Wicker turns out! Just kidding. I have no doubt I am doing the very best for our Bean.
Funny story. Last night Kevin and I purchased something off of Craigslist. We are well versed in dealing on Craigslist, and have sold and purchased many things off of CL's. But we had an experience like no other with our latest purchase. The item we found on Craigslist was a great deal, and we really wanted to make this purchase. We made the drive there, which was about 45 minutes. I had a weird feeling about the guy we were purchasing from from the beginning. He only wanted to text and his texting, well, lets just say wasn't what I'm used to, but, granted, this could have been because he is not in my generation. Something told me I needed to do some research on this address online before we made the drive. So the address went into Google. I quickly discovered that this address is currently for rent, it's in the middle of no-where, on a dirt road, with a creek running behind the house, and there was a registered sex offender living at this address at least at one point. HHmmm..So needless to say, at this point I was feeling very concerned, but Kevin said I was being dramatic and there was no reason to worry. So before making the trip to his house I sent my mom the guy's address and expressed my fears. This way if she never heard from us again she could direct the search team in the right direction.
So we get all the way out there. It was dark. We are on a gravel road that dead ended and the address given to us was no where to be found. We call the guy and he tells us that to our left of the dead end there is a dark dirt road that we need to follow. It is more like a ditch full of water, bumps, and rivets. Poor Penny the Prius. Keep in mind we are in the middle of no where with not one street light. It's pitch dark. When I looked down the windy path that he was telling us to travel my heart jumped into my throat. I became panicked. At this point Kevin is still on the phone with the guy getting further directions. So Kevin starts taking our little Prius off roading
Kevin is still on the phone with the guy and I'm freaking out in the car imagining scenes from the movies "Wrong Turn" and "The Hills Have Eyes". I'm in a full panic and telling Kevin to just hang up and turn around, we're leaving! The guy is telling Kevin that we need to continue driving past this house through more dangerous terrain and off-roading. Kevin tells him that our car will not be able to handle the path in front of us. He tells us that he will drive up and meet us where we are. A few minutes later he appears in a pick up truck and tells us that we can just get in his truck and he'll take us to the item we're looking at which is in a travel trailer out on the property!! What the hell is happening??!! Kevin just kept saying, "well, we've come this far...." I told him that even if we drove 500 miles, if we're about to be killed, it's not worth it!! So at this point I had to make a very quick decision on whether or not I was going to let Kevin go alone with this guy and just stay in the car and wait, or go with Kevin and have this guy take us to the travel trailer. The compromise: I went with Kevin, but we declined the ride in his truck and just asked to walk to the travel trailer, in the freezing pitch black night. So here we were in pitch black with this guy standing in the middle of no where, and I'm wearing heels. Awesome.
Shortly into our walk the guy says he has to run back to his truck because he forgot something. So Kevin and I are left to stand there alone wondering if he was coming back with a gun to kill us. Luckily, that wasn't the case. So we continue the walk and see multiple houses, travel trailers and lots of dogs on the property. In our awe, we say, " wow, there sure are a lot of homes out here." He then goes on to tell us that this is family owned property ( are you thinking what I'm thinking??? Texas Chain Saw Massacre!!) and it works out perfectly for poor folks, as they can all live on the same land. He then goes on to point out where every cousin lives on the property. Oh my.
Finally, we come to "our" travel trailer. It was disgusting. I actually just stood outside the front door, but I did peer in not wanting to look anymore rude than I was already looking. This travel trailer was DISGUSTING!! It was filled with trash and junk---everywhere. I didn't want to touch a thing! I mean, gross!! We had just stumbled upon an old lumber jacks man cave! At this point a super sweet little chihuahua mix whom was roaming the property and whom was also pregnant jumped up on my leg. She actually scared the crap out of me I was so on edge, but she did manage to calm me a bit as I pet her, she was a sweet little love. I felt really sad to leave her. Her name was Lola.
So Kevin is in the trailer looking at what we came to purchase and all looked in working order with the item, so I was ready to make the deal and be gone. Although the item was dirty, to which we were told it was probably smoke. Umm..I don't think so, but it looked totally cleanable, so no worries in this case as I just wanted out of there. We did offer him a little less than his asking price, but we made the deal and were on our way. So we walked back down the long path to the car and I took this opportunity to talk about Miss Lola, the sweet dog I had just met. No, I didn't load her up in the car also. She lives outside and they have no plans for her puppies, although we were told to keep in touch if we wanted a new dog. :) I told him that her puppies would be a really adoptable small breed puppy and they would get adopted readily at the local humane society, so they should consider dropping them all off up there when the puppies were done weaning from Mamma.
We made it back to the car, loaded up, got in, and locked the doors . It's at this point I ask if we got the remote, to which Kevin replied, " oh crap, no!" So Kevin got out of the car and yelled for our new friend who was now on the phone and walking off. He obliged and went back to the trailer to grab it for us and we were on our way as fast as humanly possible. I cannot tell you the complete happiness I felt when we were safely back in a "normal" part of the world. I had Kevin clean his hands with some wet wipes I had in the car before touching anything in the car. I know, I'm crazy. But the filth was insane.
When we got home the item was fully sanitized, wiped down, and Cloroxed. But it cleaned up as good as new. I've become rather germ-o-phobic as of late, and I actually gloved up as I cleaned this thing. Hahaha! Surely I didn't breathe in any dangerous spores from that nasty trailer. Hope not. I guess you would have had to of seen where it came from to be this cautious! Luckily, we purchased an electronic that was really new to begin with, there is no way in heck I would have bought anything that wasn't plastic from this place.
Moral of the story: different strokes for different folks. We get really accustomed to how we live in our little bubbles and it's shocking when we see something that we don't define as "normal". It's not that it's "bad", it's just different. And makes for a laughable memory and blog entry for girls like me.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Feeling 'Listy'
I'm again feeling like it's a list kind of day. So here's what I have on my mind...literally, point by point..
1. Why must both of our next door neighbors be idiots and leave us in a crappy situation. One of them up and moved out of their house this Spring. One day we saw a U-Haul, then never saw them again. We later learned they foreclosed on their home and it has been left for months with no action from the bank until just this month. This means their house looks like crap and has for many, many months. There are weeds everywhere, bushes and plants are half dead, and now tons and tons of different kinds of workers are at the house daily to repair it, clean it, and finally mow the lawn but with a weed eater that sprays all of their weed clippings and trash all over our yard!
Our other next door neighbor moved to Houston TWO YEARS AGO. They leased the house out to one tenant for a short time about a year ago but other than that the house has been abandoned. Yes, the owner is still paying the mortgage, but no one has lived there is ages. What does this mean...see above. We spend a lot of money on our yard to keep it very well groomed and weed-free. This is kinda difficult when you live on a postage stamp lot and you have two weed ridden yards on either side just waiting to take over your lawn! Yes, we have the exact same problem on both sides. I have contacted the City and the Home Owners Association on many occasions. Neither can offer any help or give me any info. This infuriates us. We pay $500 a year to a HOA for them not to be able to do anything. Awesome. We are praying for new, great neighbors...soon!
2. Our dogs are pushing me over the edge..well, at least their ailments are. Glory's laceration is infected. Why is it infected? Because despite her wearing a t-shirt day and night and being on antibiotics, when she is put up in her crate every night to sleep she licks her wound through the shirt, which has caused a nasty infection. What does this mean? This means that her wound has opened up, it bleeds through her t-shirt and gets all over things, she now has to wear an e-collar which causes her to crash into every door jam and wall corner, and this also means that she REFUSES to sleep in her crate without almost choking herself to pull the e-collar off of her head so she can lick her wound. After many options explored and attempted, the only one that remotely works is to have her sleep on our bed with the e-collar in place. This means I get no sleep because she is crowding my foot space and/or hitting me with the plastic cone on her head. Ready for this dang thing to heal.
We also found a mass under Kelsey's chin that periodically opens and bleeds on a whim. The mass itself is not of any concern, we think, according to the vet, but the random bleeding has left me a lot to clean. She loves to lay in our bed. Well, she has smeared blood all over our dry clean-only comforter a couple of times, on the sides of our new couch, and her dog bed. So I have to hand clean all of these spots....over and over and over again. I have tried covering the mass with everything I know of and nothing will stick to her hair/chin. Our bed is now protected just in case she slips into our bedroom, but we now have our bedroom off limits to her. But we're still on constant 'checkin for blood' patrol. Not fun.
3. I have finalized our baby shower and baby announcement list/addresses. Baby shower invites will be worked on sometime in January, but I wasn't sure how long it would take me to hunt down addresses, so I went ahead and got them all done. Feels good! I hate doing admin. stuff like this.
4. I have one pair of 'normal' jeans that I can wear. That's it. I tried on every pair of pants in my second closet that contains all my 'larger Kristen' clothes and none of them fit. So it looks like it's off for some maternity pants in the very near future. But at 24 weeks, I think this is pretty good.
That's what I have for now...
1. Why must both of our next door neighbors be idiots and leave us in a crappy situation. One of them up and moved out of their house this Spring. One day we saw a U-Haul, then never saw them again. We later learned they foreclosed on their home and it has been left for months with no action from the bank until just this month. This means their house looks like crap and has for many, many months. There are weeds everywhere, bushes and plants are half dead, and now tons and tons of different kinds of workers are at the house daily to repair it, clean it, and finally mow the lawn but with a weed eater that sprays all of their weed clippings and trash all over our yard!
Our other next door neighbor moved to Houston TWO YEARS AGO. They leased the house out to one tenant for a short time about a year ago but other than that the house has been abandoned. Yes, the owner is still paying the mortgage, but no one has lived there is ages. What does this mean...see above. We spend a lot of money on our yard to keep it very well groomed and weed-free. This is kinda difficult when you live on a postage stamp lot and you have two weed ridden yards on either side just waiting to take over your lawn! Yes, we have the exact same problem on both sides. I have contacted the City and the Home Owners Association on many occasions. Neither can offer any help or give me any info. This infuriates us. We pay $500 a year to a HOA for them not to be able to do anything. Awesome. We are praying for new, great neighbors...soon!
2. Our dogs are pushing me over the edge..well, at least their ailments are. Glory's laceration is infected. Why is it infected? Because despite her wearing a t-shirt day and night and being on antibiotics, when she is put up in her crate every night to sleep she licks her wound through the shirt, which has caused a nasty infection. What does this mean? This means that her wound has opened up, it bleeds through her t-shirt and gets all over things, she now has to wear an e-collar which causes her to crash into every door jam and wall corner, and this also means that she REFUSES to sleep in her crate without almost choking herself to pull the e-collar off of her head so she can lick her wound. After many options explored and attempted, the only one that remotely works is to have her sleep on our bed with the e-collar in place. This means I get no sleep because she is crowding my foot space and/or hitting me with the plastic cone on her head. Ready for this dang thing to heal.
We also found a mass under Kelsey's chin that periodically opens and bleeds on a whim. The mass itself is not of any concern, we think, according to the vet, but the random bleeding has left me a lot to clean. She loves to lay in our bed. Well, she has smeared blood all over our dry clean-only comforter a couple of times, on the sides of our new couch, and her dog bed. So I have to hand clean all of these spots....over and over and over again. I have tried covering the mass with everything I know of and nothing will stick to her hair/chin. Our bed is now protected just in case she slips into our bedroom, but we now have our bedroom off limits to her. But we're still on constant 'checkin for blood' patrol. Not fun.
3. I have finalized our baby shower and baby announcement list/addresses. Baby shower invites will be worked on sometime in January, but I wasn't sure how long it would take me to hunt down addresses, so I went ahead and got them all done. Feels good! I hate doing admin. stuff like this.
4. I have one pair of 'normal' jeans that I can wear. That's it. I tried on every pair of pants in my second closet that contains all my 'larger Kristen' clothes and none of them fit. So it looks like it's off for some maternity pants in the very near future. But at 24 weeks, I think this is pretty good.
That's what I have for now...
Blah...
For the past couple of weeks everything I eat tastes way too salty, well, especially items that already have a "normal" amount of salt on them, like Ritz crackers, for example. Even cheese is way too salty. I have no idea why this is happening, but if there is one thing I have learned about being pregnant it's that anything goes and all types of things can happen. There is also tons of variance from one woman to the next. I have been on a huge Ritz and cheddar cheese kick and I'm really bummed that I can't even enjoy my vice because of some darn hormonal change. But something must be up with the hormones, as the nose bleeds have also been coming much more frequently. Hate these.
But on a non-"blah" note, Kevin and I were on a mission to get all of our to-do's accomplished Saturday morning/afternoon before heading out to Saturday evening church service ( we're transitioning to the Saturday night service in an effort to avoid all the heavy crowds on Sunday, as we really want to minimize my exposure to large masses of people and potentially the flu). We hit the to-do list strong this morning and we managed to get everything all done. We applied some touch up paint to one of our cars where someone was nice enough to scratch our door with their door, we pulled some darn weeds in the yard...it's December!!, worked in the baby room, finished cleaning things up in the garage after the big move last weekend, I put some stuff on CL's, I cleaned blood stains from our comforter...again..ugh, dogs...(long story), I baked some cozy winter snacks, and a few other odds and ends. This means we have a full Sunday ahead of us with nothing on the agenda! Nice!
On that to-do list was to finish two items in the baby room. We spent way too much money on a wall decal that I literally could not find any place other than one online store ( so I was forced to buy it there) and after applying it to the wall, it doesn't want to stick to the wall! We worked long and hard on placing three little words on the wall and it doesn't stick well. We finally got it up there and it's kinda sticking for now, but we'll see how it holds up over the next few days and weeks with temperature and humidity changes. I'm gonna be one peeved chick if this decides to peel off the wall. Plus, it looks cute! I want it to stay!
Cute decal that won't stay on the wall! Argg! Our Bean is sooo 'Worth the Wait'!
New microfiber rocker that we picked up this week. Finally found one that fit perfectly in the budget. Whew!
I also washed the crib bedding and put up the crib bumper this week. I know, it's suuper early to be doing this, and I'll probably change things around and rewash everything I washed before March comes around, but that's okay, it makes me feel good to do it now too. :)
But on a non-"blah" note, Kevin and I were on a mission to get all of our to-do's accomplished Saturday morning/afternoon before heading out to Saturday evening church service ( we're transitioning to the Saturday night service in an effort to avoid all the heavy crowds on Sunday, as we really want to minimize my exposure to large masses of people and potentially the flu). We hit the to-do list strong this morning and we managed to get everything all done. We applied some touch up paint to one of our cars where someone was nice enough to scratch our door with their door, we pulled some darn weeds in the yard...it's December!!, worked in the baby room, finished cleaning things up in the garage after the big move last weekend, I put some stuff on CL's, I cleaned blood stains from our comforter...again..ugh, dogs...(long story), I baked some cozy winter snacks, and a few other odds and ends. This means we have a full Sunday ahead of us with nothing on the agenda! Nice!
On that to-do list was to finish two items in the baby room. We spent way too much money on a wall decal that I literally could not find any place other than one online store ( so I was forced to buy it there) and after applying it to the wall, it doesn't want to stick to the wall! We worked long and hard on placing three little words on the wall and it doesn't stick well. We finally got it up there and it's kinda sticking for now, but we'll see how it holds up over the next few days and weeks with temperature and humidity changes. I'm gonna be one peeved chick if this decides to peel off the wall. Plus, it looks cute! I want it to stay!
Cute decal that won't stay on the wall! Argg! Our Bean is sooo 'Worth the Wait'!
New microfiber rocker that we picked up this week. Finally found one that fit perfectly in the budget. Whew!
I also washed the crib bedding and put up the crib bumper this week. I know, it's suuper early to be doing this, and I'll probably change things around and rewash everything I washed before March comes around, but that's okay, it makes me feel good to do it now too. :)
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
It's a Happy Day: 23.5 week Sonogram
So it has been another two weeks, so you know what that means, another sonogram has rolled around. I always thoroughly enjoy getting to see our Bean on screen. And today was especially cool.
2D Profile
3D of the face. He/she has their mouth open.
Here are the stats from today's visit:
Cervix: 3.41 cm--It went down a smidge, but still a great measurement. They are totally happy with anything above 3cm.
Momma's weight: 122.5#. This means that in two weeks I've gained only a half pound. Hhmm..Doc didn't say anything about it. I've gained about 10 pounds total to-date.
Baby's weight: 1 pound and 6 ounces
Baby is in the 51% percentile for its weight. This is still one time that I like being "average"
They did a growth scan today of the baby and the baby is measuring exactly 23.5 weeks, exactly how far along I am. I'm not sure why they decided to do a growth scan today, as I was told most "normal" women would only have a 9 wk sono, a 20 wk, and maybe one right before delivering to confirm the baby's weight. I think I'm going to call and ask why they needed to do one today, as they have never done a growth check other than on the standard anatomy scan at 20 weeks. Huh.
Update: Their new protocol is that if someone is coming in for regular sonos they will check the baby's growth rate once a month just to be as thorough as possible.
Update: Their new protocol is that if someone is coming in for regular sonos they will check the baby's growth rate once a month just to be as thorough as possible.
I was also told that the baby and I create magnificent textbook sono images and that we could be used as subjects in sonography school to teach students. Interesting. She thinks this is due to how well I stay hydrated, as more hydration in the body allows for the sono waves to bounce back easier and give a cleaner image from all the water in the tissue.
I told the doc and the sono tech that in the last week I have not been able to feel the baby move near as much. Reason for this: 1. The baby is sitting in a breach position with the head right at my belly button and its feet down by my cervix, which is where it was last time too, which doesn't offer a lot of space to feel baby kicks. 2. During this time in pregnancy the placenta is growing and getting thicker and since mine is high front, it is further muffling all the movements from the baby as it's very "pillowy". The baby was moving a lot during the sono but I could barely feel any of them. But the doc says that she thinks this will all change in the next 2-4 weeks as me and the baby will grow a lot. We'll see. I've been waiting on all that growing for some time. The doc also said she wasn't worried about my Braxton Hicks contractions and some women contract more than others without causing any change to the cervix, and my cervix hasn't made any radical change in two weeks. And as long as there is no change to the cervix and they aren't painful, then not to worry about them. But she did say that I need to make sure to be taking it easy and not to stay on my feet too long, as sometimes these can be caused by over activity and standing too long. Huh. Don't think this is the case with me, maybe I just have a cranky uterus.
The baby has grown over a 1/2 pound in the last 4 weeks, averaging a little over 2 ounces per week. So even though I haven't gained any weight in the last two weeks, at least the baby appears to have put on some weight.
Side note, I love my sono tech. She has been doing almost all of my sonos from day one and we have really built up a great report. I feel totally comfortable with her and she totally takes her time with me and the baby and always gives us lots of pics of the Bean. Love you, Debbie!
She also turned on the 3D imaging today during the sono! The baby was not directly facing her so she couldn't get great 3D images of the face, but we did get two. I totally think this baby is a boy. I think the face looks totally like a little boy's face. What ever the sex organs he/she is packin' below, this little one has some plump little lips, too! Gorgeous lips! And the baby has Kevin's face shape, a heart. Since the baby still hasn't put on a ton of fat on the face you can really tell the facial shape pretty clearly. I absolutely looooved getting to see the baby look more "babyish"!! It really made me feel connected to our little one.
2D Profile
3D of the face. He/she has their mouth open.
3D pic. Look at those lips! And that is totally Kevin's jaw line. I think I'm even more in love. And for the record, I think this is my little boy.
Today was a great visit. So I'm feeling really happy. We will go back in two more weeks for the same thing and then reassess from there what the plan is going to be. So it's looking like starting in January there may be no more sonograms, just regular OB appointments with the doppler. I think I've been spoiled with all the sonos, but I'll take no sonos if that means we have a totally normal and healthy pregnancy any day.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Strange Feeling
Funny story. As I stumbled my way to the potty for one of my many pee pee trips in the middle of the night, I was struck with an epiphany. Maybe it was the act of trying to navigate my way through sleeping dogs on the bathroom floor, trying to find the actual potty to sit on all while in the dark and listening to my husband 'sleep crack his knuckles'. My husband doesn't sleep walk; however, he does crack his knuckles religiously every night while in a deep mid-night slumber. And he does all ten fingers, never missing one. I find this highly annoying most nights as it wakes me up almost every night.
However, last night, I found it quite amusing as it was coupled with my sleepy stupor and the fun of making yet another potty trip in the middle of the night which always reminds me that I'm still pregnant. Thank goodness for glowing lights radiating from my husband's plug-in razor in the bathroom.
So there I was having finally arrived at my destination, the potty, and I sat there literally zonked out with my eyes closed and barely awake while listening to the sound of my hubby's favorite sleepy-time activity, cracking his knuckles. On this night it evoked a small chuckle from me. It's so weird that he does it, yet it's kinda oddly funny at the same time.
Anywho, I completed the task at hand, made my way back through the bathroom avoiding stepping on Julian sleeping in his bed ( yes, he prefers to sleep in the bathroom. I have no idea why. This is a new thing.) and then missed Kelsey sleeping in her bed right next to my side of the bed on the floor and then fell back in bed myself, but not before I had a few more lingering thoughts that my brain was obviously working out.
I have still been having fleeting moments where I feel overwhelmed by the fact that our entire lives will become completely engulfed with caring for a living being in 3 and a half months. Relatively speaking, this is REALLY SOON and this freaks me out!
Our lives as we know it will never ever be the same again come March. This is a very overwhelming thought. I know we will adjust and this is probably a very normal feeling for a lot of first time moms'. In a split second everything from how crowed it is in the house, to our house being full of baby gear, to how in the world I'm going to manage four dogs, one of which is a complete nut who doesn't have the best track record with kids, to the dynamic Kevin and I have together, it will all change.
We will no longer be able to come and and go as we please, our finances will further be impacted (scary. I don't know if we can take much more "impact"), I will slip into 'mom-mode' for a while, and any dutiful sociological study will show that marriage happiness plummets with the birth of a first child and only decreases as your family grows and doesn't start to increase again until the kids start to get a little older. These are all real things that take place in a virtual instant. I know most every couple who welcomes a baby into their world deals with most of these things, but if you sit and think about how much change is about to be inflicted upon your world, it's scary. I'm deathly afraid of most kinds of change, so this is probably why my subconscious is working through my little freak- out moments. So my epiphany, I guess it's better not to devote too much of my waking time to thinking about 'all this change' that is coming, but instead just validate it all, know that it's coming, and let it happen and evolve on its own.
Funny thing, Kevin hasn't expressed a lot of the same concerns. He has expressed some concerns about the looming responsibility of being being the sole provider of a family and having to make sure all of our needs are met, I think in guy land this is a big deal for men. As a matter of fact, I know it is. But beyond the financial aspect, he doesn't seem scared or overwhelmed about all the change that is headed our way. This is why I love Kevin, he often balances me out and talks me off the ledge.
On another positive note, Teen Mom 2 premiers tonight! WHOO HOOO! So excited. Kevin and I are addicted to this show and have followed all of the girls for a long time. Can't wait!
However, last night, I found it quite amusing as it was coupled with my sleepy stupor and the fun of making yet another potty trip in the middle of the night which always reminds me that I'm still pregnant. Thank goodness for glowing lights radiating from my husband's plug-in razor in the bathroom.
So there I was having finally arrived at my destination, the potty, and I sat there literally zonked out with my eyes closed and barely awake while listening to the sound of my hubby's favorite sleepy-time activity, cracking his knuckles. On this night it evoked a small chuckle from me. It's so weird that he does it, yet it's kinda oddly funny at the same time.
Anywho, I completed the task at hand, made my way back through the bathroom avoiding stepping on Julian sleeping in his bed ( yes, he prefers to sleep in the bathroom. I have no idea why. This is a new thing.) and then missed Kelsey sleeping in her bed right next to my side of the bed on the floor and then fell back in bed myself, but not before I had a few more lingering thoughts that my brain was obviously working out.
I have still been having fleeting moments where I feel overwhelmed by the fact that our entire lives will become completely engulfed with caring for a living being in 3 and a half months. Relatively speaking, this is REALLY SOON and this freaks me out!
Our lives as we know it will never ever be the same again come March. This is a very overwhelming thought. I know we will adjust and this is probably a very normal feeling for a lot of first time moms'. In a split second everything from how crowed it is in the house, to our house being full of baby gear, to how in the world I'm going to manage four dogs, one of which is a complete nut who doesn't have the best track record with kids, to the dynamic Kevin and I have together, it will all change.
We will no longer be able to come and and go as we please, our finances will further be impacted (scary. I don't know if we can take much more "impact"), I will slip into 'mom-mode' for a while, and any dutiful sociological study will show that marriage happiness plummets with the birth of a first child and only decreases as your family grows and doesn't start to increase again until the kids start to get a little older. These are all real things that take place in a virtual instant. I know most every couple who welcomes a baby into their world deals with most of these things, but if you sit and think about how much change is about to be inflicted upon your world, it's scary. I'm deathly afraid of most kinds of change, so this is probably why my subconscious is working through my little freak- out moments. So my epiphany, I guess it's better not to devote too much of my waking time to thinking about 'all this change' that is coming, but instead just validate it all, know that it's coming, and let it happen and evolve on its own.
Funny thing, Kevin hasn't expressed a lot of the same concerns. He has expressed some concerns about the looming responsibility of being being the sole provider of a family and having to make sure all of our needs are met, I think in guy land this is a big deal for men. As a matter of fact, I know it is. But beyond the financial aspect, he doesn't seem scared or overwhelmed about all the change that is headed our way. This is why I love Kevin, he often balances me out and talks me off the ledge.
On another positive note, Teen Mom 2 premiers tonight! WHOO HOOO! So excited. Kevin and I are addicted to this show and have followed all of the girls for a long time. Can't wait!
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Busy Weekend: House Project and Baby Room Update
This weekend was a busy one. We're back to it again. :) I'm sad to report I haven't left the house ALL weekend long. OMG, I have to get out. But going out for dinner is on the agenda for this evening, thank goodness. But, all this time cooped up has allowed me to productive because if it wasn't for things to do, given the dreary, cold, rainy weather we have had, I think I would have spent the entire weekend on the couch.
While Kevin and a buddy went to a Dallas Stars game on Saturday, I made a lot of progress on the baby's room. Originally Kevin and I were planning on going to the game together, but since I declined getting the flu shot, I'm working diligently at avoiding large crowds, and Kevin hasn't had a guys night in a while. So I think it worked out perfectly.
My back is killing me after sitting on the floor for 5 hours straight staying hunched over, but I think it was well worth it. I got a lot of stuff up on the walls and changed a few minor things around. So as of now, we are only missing one more item that will hang on the wall, but it should be here shortly assuming the mail delivery service doesn't delay too much given the holiday. Although I don't put it past me one bit to continue to add odds and ends to the walls as our due date gets closer. I'm constantly brainstorming and Pinterest will be the death of me!
But here are a few updated pics:
I love markers for chalkboards!!
Chinese paper lanterns, minus the bulb and wires, will comprise the baby's mobile, which will hang from the ceiling. We will work on getting this up soon.
Update: The mobile is up!
It turned out just like I had hoped. I made this by using 4" multi-colored paper lanterns, white sewing string, and a 10" wooden embroidery hoop with the outer hoop and clamp removed, and a white rotating hook to screw into the ceiling.
This glider actually belongs in the living room, but is visiting the baby room until the Christmas tree goes back up to the attic. But a chair will eventually go there.
This is the "infertility" section. As you can see the tack board is missing some items that I either need to get/find or those that haven't happened yet, e.g., final sono pics and pics of me when I'm big pregnant.
This was the back breaking project. The tree trunk was made with bulletin board paper and all of the circles with scrapbook sheets and stencils.
A "Worth the Wait" wall decal will scroll across the top of the crib once it gets here
It's taking shape! I still have a list of items that I need to get to tie things together, but at least some of the basics are done. Decorating the nursery is hard work, maybe because I'm making and/or putting together a lot of it, but it's soo much fun! I can't wait to get actual baby stuff and supplies in there! And our baby for that matter!
Kevin also had a busy weekend. He built shelves in the garage. I know, I can't believe we didn't have any with as much stuff as we have, but it has been a project that has literally been on the agenda for years. I think he is nesting in his own little way, as he was randomly adamant about getting them done--like this weekend.
I should have taken pics BEFORE the cars were pulled in, but you get the jist. He will add doors later, but at least we have ample space for our garage items and things look far more organized. Way to go, Kevin! I think he did a great job.
I am way looking forward to getting out of the house today, so I'm signing off, so I can go put my face on so I'm presentable for the general public. Until next time..
While Kevin and a buddy went to a Dallas Stars game on Saturday, I made a lot of progress on the baby's room. Originally Kevin and I were planning on going to the game together, but since I declined getting the flu shot, I'm working diligently at avoiding large crowds, and Kevin hasn't had a guys night in a while. So I think it worked out perfectly.
My back is killing me after sitting on the floor for 5 hours straight staying hunched over, but I think it was well worth it. I got a lot of stuff up on the walls and changed a few minor things around. So as of now, we are only missing one more item that will hang on the wall, but it should be here shortly assuming the mail delivery service doesn't delay too much given the holiday. Although I don't put it past me one bit to continue to add odds and ends to the walls as our due date gets closer. I'm constantly brainstorming and Pinterest will be the death of me!
But here are a few updated pics:
I love markers for chalkboards!!
Chinese paper lanterns, minus the bulb and wires, will comprise the baby's mobile, which will hang from the ceiling. We will work on getting this up soon.
Update: The mobile is up!
It turned out just like I had hoped. I made this by using 4" multi-colored paper lanterns, white sewing string, and a 10" wooden embroidery hoop with the outer hoop and clamp removed, and a white rotating hook to screw into the ceiling.
This glider actually belongs in the living room, but is visiting the baby room until the Christmas tree goes back up to the attic. But a chair will eventually go there.
This is the "infertility" section. As you can see the tack board is missing some items that I either need to get/find or those that haven't happened yet, e.g., final sono pics and pics of me when I'm big pregnant.
This was the back breaking project. The tree trunk was made with bulletin board paper and all of the circles with scrapbook sheets and stencils.
It's taking shape! I still have a list of items that I need to get to tie things together, but at least some of the basics are done. Decorating the nursery is hard work, maybe because I'm making and/or putting together a lot of it, but it's soo much fun! I can't wait to get actual baby stuff and supplies in there! And our baby for that matter!
Kevin also had a busy weekend. He built shelves in the garage. I know, I can't believe we didn't have any with as much stuff as we have, but it has been a project that has literally been on the agenda for years. I think he is nesting in his own little way, as he was randomly adamant about getting them done--like this weekend.
I should have taken pics BEFORE the cars were pulled in, but you get the jist. He will add doors later, but at least we have ample space for our garage items and things look far more organized. Way to go, Kevin! I think he did a great job.
I am way looking forward to getting out of the house today, so I'm signing off, so I can go put my face on so I'm presentable for the general public. Until next time..
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
It's an Alien!
I've come to terms with the fact that I'm literally growing a parasitic alien inside my body. But, of course, I'm okay with harboring a strange being in my body for now because I love this little alien.
Kevin has now joined me in being able to experience the movement of our Bean. The baby has been very active lately---even at 3 am when I have to get up for my third potty break of the night!-- and I can even feel his/her movements when I'm doing things other than just sitting still. In the beginning the only time I could feel the baby's movement was if I was very still and quiet. But I think we're making progress. I was blessed with a sweet ironic moment as we were interviewing another pediatrician yesterday. As the doc was talking away all I could concentrate on was our baby doing zumba in my belly.
Anywho, back to Kevin joining the ranks---every night as we both lay in the dark and wait to pass out I have been asking Kevin to keep his hand on my belly. I figured this was the best time to get Kevin to be still without thoughts of what to do next so he could focus solely on feeling the baby move. So he lays his hand on my belly that has been freshly slathered with lots Jojoba oil---LOL--and waits. So at one day shy of 23 weeks, he felt the Bean move a few times!
One of the kicks..or punches..that he felt was a big one for the baby, but Kevin said it felt very small to him on the outside. Dang anterior placenta. I guess this means the baby will literally have to be assaulting me on the inside in order for the baby's movements to be easily recognized and felt by Kevin. Yea, bring on being beaten from the inside, I guess. Sounds fantastic.
Nonetheless, Kevin was really excited to feel the baby as I was! I can't wait for him to be able to see our little alien move my belly all over the place. I think it's the coolest thing ever to watch!
Goood times! Lovin' being pregnant--minus having to take literally three to four pee breaks every single night despite not drinking fluids before bed and pottying right before I crawl into bed. Not loving this, or the nose bleeds. I can only imagine it will get much worse as I get bigger. Can March get here any faster?!
Kevin has now joined me in being able to experience the movement of our Bean. The baby has been very active lately---even at 3 am when I have to get up for my third potty break of the night!-- and I can even feel his/her movements when I'm doing things other than just sitting still. In the beginning the only time I could feel the baby's movement was if I was very still and quiet. But I think we're making progress. I was blessed with a sweet ironic moment as we were interviewing another pediatrician yesterday. As the doc was talking away all I could concentrate on was our baby doing zumba in my belly.
Anywho, back to Kevin joining the ranks---every night as we both lay in the dark and wait to pass out I have been asking Kevin to keep his hand on my belly. I figured this was the best time to get Kevin to be still without thoughts of what to do next so he could focus solely on feeling the baby move. So he lays his hand on my belly that has been freshly slathered with lots Jojoba oil---LOL--and waits. So at one day shy of 23 weeks, he felt the Bean move a few times!
One of the kicks..or punches..that he felt was a big one for the baby, but Kevin said it felt very small to him on the outside. Dang anterior placenta. I guess this means the baby will literally have to be assaulting me on the inside in order for the baby's movements to be easily recognized and felt by Kevin. Yea, bring on being beaten from the inside, I guess. Sounds fantastic.
Nonetheless, Kevin was really excited to feel the baby as I was! I can't wait for him to be able to see our little alien move my belly all over the place. I think it's the coolest thing ever to watch!
Goood times! Lovin' being pregnant--minus having to take literally three to four pee breaks every single night despite not drinking fluids before bed and pottying right before I crawl into bed. Not loving this, or the nose bleeds. I can only imagine it will get much worse as I get bigger. Can March get here any faster?!
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