Olivia's quilt square + 27 weeks

Volunteers from the Pre-Eclampsia Foundation are putting together a quilt for 2011...
"The Promise Walk Team is pleased to announce that the memory quilt is back! In 2007 and 2008 foundation members came together to create memory quilts to benefit the Preeclampsia Foundation. Foundation members were asked to design and create a quilt square to honor a loved one lost to preeclampsia or to honor a survivor. The past quilts have been auctioned off at the yearly Saving Grace – A Night of Hope 2007-08 events and were a huge success. The quilts not only raised awareness and research funds, but provided an emotional outlet for family members to spotlight their loved ones. The Promise Walk wants to give those who wish to participate a chance to remember and honor their sons, daughters, mothers, aunts, and sisters. The new quilt will be displayed at walks around the country during the 2011 walk season." - Rosemary, the person coordinating the quilt, explains it better than I could.


I'm not particularly crafty and especially suck at sewing or anything like that. So I wasn't really planning to participate until I remembered iron on stuff and fabric paint and decided we'd figure out something. We were a bit rushed with it because I'm supposed to have our square back by March 1 and I didn't request it until about a week ago. So anyway, my handwriting isn't that great and so we stuck with iron ons. And in fact, I brought everything to my mom and watched her put it together because I've never actually done anything iron on. Unfortunately, when we were putting our last name on the square, some of the letters moved around and we didn't notice until it's too late. I think we probably did a bit overkill with the butterflies, but, oh well.
So the square didn't turn out the way we would have liked...but I guess nothing with Olivia worked out the way we would have liked, so I guess it's fitting.

In other news, today makes 27 weeks! We found a dresser yesterday for relatively cheap at Big Lots. I'm not sure that the color of wood will match exactly but they are both cherry and I don't really care that they match exactly, I'm glad to be done with the dresser search. I have started panicking a little bit, not about getting sick or babies dying (although those thoughts are always in the back of my mind), but about the fact that we'll probably have a baby here in a couple of months. There is so much to do and buy still. I can't let myself think about it for too long or I start getting overwhelmed and panicky which isn't really great for my blood pressure.

The gestational diabetes diet is CRAP. Or maybe the nutritionist is a sadist. All I know is I'm not really following the diet and luckily my blood sugars have been good after every meal anyway. (Even after Outback Steakhouse.) In fact, this is almost sort of backfiring because my blood sugar "goal" is 140 and under, 1 hour after a meal. After dinner at Outback, my blood sugar was in the low 100's, and so I thought "damn, I should have had a few extra pieces of bread." There have been days when I closely followed the diet (today I was pretty good), but I've noticed that my dizziness is actually worse when I follow it as opposed to eating normally. Tonight I was so dizzy that I didn't want to get up off the couch because I was afraid I'd fall over myself. I don't really think the dizziness is related to my blood sugar at all, though, because I've tested my blood sugar when I get dizzy and it's always right smack in the middle of normal. It makes me a little worried that maybe the dizziness is an ominous warning sign of trouble to come that hasn't shown other signs yet...I know it's not a typical symptom of pre-eclampsia or anything and that a lot of people with normal pregnancies have dizziness...but I didn't get sick the normal way last time and so it's always kind of in the back of my mind. I'm not sure if my high risk doctor is going to free me from the gestational diabetes prison on Wednesday or not. (Taking your blood sugar 4 times a day and thinking about food 6 times a day is really a pain, I want to go back to just worrying about my lovenox injections and blood pressure 3x a day.) After every meal, my blood sugars have been normal, but twice my morning fasting numbers have been a little higher than the "goal". She said if things look normal we'll back off testing, so I'm not sure if those two bad readings are going to screw everything up or not. I don't think there's anything I can really do diet-wise about fasting numbers especially since my numbers are good after meals, so, I don't know how it's going to work out.

Aside from the dizzy and annoying possible gestational diabetes junk, I'm feeling good. Blood pressure has been really good. And Luke is moving a lot. It definitely feels like his movements are stronger so I think we'll be in good shape at our ultrasound on Friday. Now if I could just drop this gestational diabetes stuff and get a lot done around the house, we'd be in really really good shape.

26 wks + vent + belly

I'll start with my vent to get it out of my system.

I love my OB and really like her nurse practitioner (NP) too. The nurse practitioner is very nice and thorough and competent and compassionate, etc. etc. But my OB has told me she wants me to just see her, and if/when the front desk tries to schedule me with the NP instead, to remind them that I'm high risk and should just see her.  So today, I was under the impression that my appointment was with the OB (the receptionist had even written down my OB's name and date and time on the card, as if I was really seeing my OB, when you are seeing the NP, they usually write down the NP's name)...so it turns out my OB is never even in this office on Tuesdays. So I was a little bit annoyed that I had been misled. When the nurse mentioned that the NP would be in, in a minute, I said, "Oh. I thought I was just supposed to see my OB since I'm high risk." Nurse looked and agreed that I shouldn't have been scheduled with the NP but said my OB isn't even in the office on Tuesday's, I said it was fine, I like the NP and everything, it was just a surprise to me.

So my appointment was good and I do like the NP. She didn't check for swelling (which my OB would have done), but everything was fine. She agrees that my blood pressure is creeping up (now more consistently near low 120's/low 80's, a month ago it was usually 110-119/ 70's.) But it's not a huge jump, and it's not technically high, and I still have quite a few readings that are still in the previously normal range and sometimes lower, it's just that I'm getting more 120's/80's reasons more consistently then I have in the past. She thinks it may be just due to increased blood flow, baby getting bigger, etc. then pre-eclampsia or pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH) creeping it's way in. My weight gain is "fantastic", no unusual symptoms, everything looks good. But because of how quickly and how severely I got sick last time, we agreed I'm going to start seeing OB every 2 weeks, to go along with seeing my high risk ob (also known as MFM-maternal fetal medicine specialist which is a fancier way of saying high risk ob) every 2 weeks, so I'll be seeing one of them every week. So next week I see my MFM, the next week I see OB, then back to MFM, etc. (Right now I'm 3 weeks farther than I made it with Olivia, but I got sick really fast and it was severe, so I really do want someone keeping an eye on things every week even with things seemingly well. In fact, if they wanted to hospitalize me now just for fun and monitor me 24/7, I'd be okay with that, though I'd really miss my dogs.)

So NP tells the receptionist, "schedule her in 2 weeks with OB." I guess receptionist missed her saying that because she tries to schedule me in 4 weeks with NP again. I tell her that no, she wants me back in 2 weeks and it should be with the OB because I'm high risk. Supposedly OB has no appointments open that week. She schedules the next 3 appointments and 2 of the 3 are with NP. I really don't like that they are tossing me back and forth between the NP and OB. When I got sick with Olivia, we all totally missed how swollen I had gotten in the weeks leading up to disaster. I had seen my ob the week before and she even missed it. (In hindsight there are some pictures of me from that time frame and it's very obvious.) So the inconsistency is really bugging me and I'm pretty skeptical that my OB is completely booked up. (My guess is this would be the same receptionist who scheduled me to see NP for my 2 week and 6 week postpartum check ups, even knowing our baby had died because I asked them to try to schedule me when there wouldn't be a lot of pregnant people there. My OB called me personally to see how we were doing and asked when my appointment was to see her and when I mentioned it was with NP, 2 minutes later she had it fixed so I was seeing her instead.) I don't like using the term "Nazi" lightly but this particular receptionist is seriously a scheduling Nazi. (There are 2 other receptionists and with the other 2, I've never had a problem getting scheduled with the OB. ) So I can't remember which appointments are actually with my OB, I think in 2 weeks I'm supposed to see NP, but it's at least a day that OB is in the office so I'll address it then I guess and I won't be that surprised if it's my OB who sees me. I'm glad I'm at least seeing my MFM every 2 weeks and it's her every time so at least there is *some* consistency. I think my OB is a little more cautious than my MFM at this point because she was there last time and MFM wasn't. But, whatever, I'm not going to stress about it, it's just a little frustrating.

Anyway, now that is out of my system, yesterday was 26 weeks! No obvious swelling, weight gain is fantastic, no alarming pains or headaches, I still get dizzy (thinking my MFM was right and it really might be caused by GD since I'm not anemic, or it might just be normal for me pregnancy I guess), Lucas is moving more steadily. A week or so ago, he moved a lot in the morning and a lot at night, but not so much throughout the day. Now he never really moves *a lot* but it's steady, a few kicks or obvious movements an hour, most hours. No one is concerned about this ("At this point, as long as you feel him once a day it's fine." Um, not for me!)  so I'll try not to be. She did say I should start kick counts at 28 weeks. Upcoming: gestational diabetes class on Thursday, high risk appointment next Wednesday, growth ultrasound next Friday, OB appointment (maybe with NP?) the following Monday when I'll be 28 weeks.

We can get a 3D ultrasound done at my OB's office for cheaper than we can at the elective non-medical place. I'm debating if I want to or not. I'm completely undecided about it, but slightly leaning towards yes because I like ultrasounds. (And the pessimistic side of me thinks that if something goes horribly wrong again, I want as many pictures as we can get. But the cheap/frugal side of me thinks that we could spend that money on professional pictures when he's actually out of the womb.And then the pessimistic side says, but if it goes horribly wrong...saving the money for professional pictures isn't going to matter much...and it's not like we don't have the money for both, it's not really either/or.)  I'm leaning towards yes, let's do it. Joe is ambivalent and has no problem with doing the extra ultrasound if I want to.

Also, she asked if we've picked out a pediatrician yet. I laughed. (And thought, "well, I figured the neonatal doctors will do for now" because we have at least 8+ weeks to go before we are out of NICU territory.) I'm not really looking forward to the pediatrician hunt especially because we (really- I- Joe just shrugs and says that's fine honey) want to delay vaccinations. I'll do some of them on the regular schedule and some of them later and some not at all (no chicken pox vax-it doesn't work for too many kids). The main thing is, I won't let them give my baby 10 different shots at once, or even 4 or 5 different shots at once. We'll do most of them eventually, but I want them spread out. I'm not really looking forward to finding a doctor who will mesh well with that because most of them are used to patients just doing what they say and not questioning anything, and I'm a pain like that. I've seen a few recommendations from the "crunchy"/"natural parenting" crowd online but most of the doctors I've seen recommended are either pretty far away, or family practice doctors and not specifically pediatricians. One of the family practice doctors I've seen that is apparently more laid back about the vax schedule is actually my general practice doctor and she's 5 minutes away, so I guess that would work for now if nothing else. I'd rather have a pediatrician but we'll see. My mom really likes my 14 year old brother's pediatrician so I'm hoping she'll ask him about the vaccination thing for me because it's not something I'm going to change my mind about and I'm not going to waste my time with a doctor who is adamantly inflexible about the schedule. So, blech. I'm not really looking forward to the doctor search.

I'm getting a little anxious about "the class" on Thursday. But I'll save that for a blog post tomorrow because I've rambled enough for today.

Belly shot yesterday, please disregard the spots on the mirror which look like they are on my shirt, and our husky Koda is supervising from the doorway:

7 days to stuff my face.

So I saw my high risk doctor today and it was mostly good news.

#1- She's not going to make me suffer through the 3 hour glucose test since it's pretty likely that I'll fail. (She looked over my 1 hour results and said, "yeah, you really bombed it."  She's going to consider me to have GD and I go to the "diet class" next Thursday. Fun times. (Hence the title, 7 days to stuff my face. As far as I'm concerned, since I haven't failed the 3 hour and they haven't officially told me the rules yet, I'm going to enjoy eating till next Thursday.) She said that if when we start the diet and testing my blood sugar levels, if things seem to be normal and very easily controlled, we can always ease up on it. Sounds good to me. Right now I'm bracing myself for about 10 weeks of diet though.

#2- The best news of all, as far as I'm concerned, is that she agreed to let me cut my lovenox dose in half. Since I was 7 weeks pregnant, I've been injecting myself in the belly with blood thinner injections (aka lovenox), twice a day, at 10:30 am and 10:30 pm. I like it because I think it *has* helped, but that crap BURNS. Some people say it gets better but for me, it never really did, probably because most people are only on one dose a day and I was on two. My belly is out of places that aren't bruised. I've hit blood vessels so many times it doesn't even phase me anymore. And sometimes the places where I inject turn into a little knot that is achy all the time whenever I accidentally touch it or brush my hand against that spot. So, cutting back to just one a day makes me really happy. She was actually considering taking me off of lovenox completely now with everything so well, I halted that when I said, "No! I want to stay on it! Just not as much!" (Um, if it's helping, I don't want to stop it now and watch everything go to hell in another week or two.) Most of the people I "know", including people with real blood clotting disorders are only on 1 shot a day, 30 or 40 mg, (I don't even have a clotting disorder, I'm on lovenox mainly because they don't know why things got so bad the first time and to hopefully prevent growth restriction, so far so good on that account). So now instead of being on 60 mg a day-2 shots- I'll be on just 30 mg a day, 1 shot. At 32 weeks, I'll go off of it completely because once I make it that far they expect that I might deliver at any time and they really don't want my blood extra thin for a c-section. So hooray, only having one shot a day is a pretty big deal to me.

#3- I've only gained 9 pounds this pregnancy (as of today 25+2) and of the 9 pounds, only 1 pound in the last 2 weeks. My weight has been weird this time. I didn't really start gaining until 20 weeks and my gains have happened in big spurts that freak my high risk doctor out. Like 4 pounds since my previous visit and at my visit 2 weeks ago I had gained 4 pounds in 2 weeks. My diet really isn't changing much from week to week and neither is my activity level so I don't really have an explanation for it except it does seem like my belly goes through big spurts, some weeks where I don't think I've gotten bigger at all and some weeks when it was like, "whoa, when did this happen?" . But I'll take 9 pounds gain, for sure, especially when about 2 pounds of it is baby.

#4- She gave me the option to start seeing her every week. And guess what? I'm feeling so good about things that I actually said "eh, no thanks for now." (I see my OB next week so I really don't feel like I need to see the MFM too, since if something comes up I'd call them anyway.) So week 26 will be OB and diet class, week 27 will be high risk ob and ultrasound at the end of the week, week 28 I'm hoping to start seeing my ob every 2 weeks but if not I might ask to see high risk ob or I might just enjoy a doctor-free week, we'll see how I'm feeling then.

#5- No signs of swelling, my blood pressure was up a little but I was kind of stressed today (I thought I had lost the little photo album I've been keeping ALL of my ultrasound pictures in, so I was scrambling to re-trace my steps and trying to figure out where it might have fallen out of my purse), but my blood pressure has been normal tonight and every other day and time except this morning and afternoon, no headaches, no heartburn, no suspicious pain, and baby is moving okay.

#6- I'm not anemic. Guess that wasn't causing my dizziness. My platelet levels were great. (Since they haven't been tested since week 10 and blood thinners can sometimes lower them, that's good to know.) They did bloodwork to test my liver function today just as a precaution- I actually asked for it since I've had a twinge or two here and there. I'm 99.9% sure the twinges are just from the baby shifting around and moving and organs and ribs having to readjust...but still...they are usually on the right side. I know they are nothing like the "upper right quadrant" pain that I had with Olivia when I was sick (they usually don't even last a full minute, that pain lasted for hours and hours), but still, I'd rather have them double checked. I *could have* asked for a 24 hour urine test to make sure I'm really not spilling any protein, and she would have smiled and ordered it for me, but peeing in a jug for 24 hours is not my idea of a good time and I never spilled protein with Olivia so I don't really trust that it would mean anything anyway. My problems with Olivia were all in my liver enzymes and blood platelets, so I'm more concerned with watching those.

She asked if I've started believing we are going to have a baby, yet. And I shrugged and said sometimes and sometimes not, but told her how we have a crib, and she was happy about that. She's convinced that this baby won't die, she said she can't guarantee that we'll take him home with no NICU time, but we "won't have another death". In theory, I know that the odds are becoming overwhelmingly favorable that she's right. (Some calculators give survival odds of male, 2 pounder (907 grams), 25 weeker, with steroid shots as 90% http://www.nichd.nih.gov/about/org/cdbpm/pp/prog_epbo/epbo_case.cfm.) But I also know that unfortunately, babies die all the time, at all gestational ages for a lot of different reasons (and unknown reasons). I'm not sure it's even possible for me to 100% believe in this until we're strapping the baby in his car seat and driving away from the hospital.

It is good to be 25 weeks with no glaringly huge problems. The dizziness has pretty much gone away and his movement has returned to normal, I guess yesterday was a lazy day for him or a growth spurt day or who knows. This morning I did a kick count and he moved 10 times in 10 minutes and then several times during the day. My high risk ob really is not concerned about keeping track of movement yet, but I'm neurotic like that and it actually reassures me. So today was better pretty much all the way around.

25 weeks and new drama.

Yesterday was 25 weeks. I feel myself relaxing a little bit more each week, at least some of the time.

For some reason, probably just in my head, it seemed like Lucas was moving a little less than usual last night. But I did a kick count and had 10 movements in about 30 minutes, still not exactly reassured by it because it still seemed like less to me. And then this morning when he's usually crazy active too, there were a few movements here and there but they weren't as strong or as frequent as I'm used to. I can't even remember the last time I used our fetal doppler, it's been weeks and weeks, but I got it out this morning, his heartbeat was his normal 140's, still, not really reassured. He's been kicking every once in awhile this afternoon, though, which is usually his most quiet time, so...I don't know. If I wasn't seeing my high risk doctor tomorrow already, I'd probably call them. It's so hard to know what's me being paranoid and what's trusting my instincts. Right now, I'm just a little freaked out about everything.

I found out yesterday that I failed the 1 hour gestational diabetes test, which really didn't surprise me because I felt awful the entire day afterward and was so dizzy that afternoon-evening I really didn't like walking. So now my ob's nurse wants me to do the 3 hour, but I don't think I can and am pretty pessimistic that I'll even pass it. (I say I don't think I can because I got sick after the 1 hour and I'm doubtful I can keep down double the drink for 3 hours. And I don't really want to take it and feel like crap all day long only to find out I failed that too.) I'm going to mention it to my high risk doctor and see how she wants to proceed. If I have to try the 3 hour than I guess I will (apparently insurances can be crappy about covering things for it without the 3 hour being done first.) But with my history of severe early onset pre-eclampsia and PCOS and also the unexplained dizziness, I think the odds aren't really in my favor. I'm crabby and frustrated just thinking about a diet or MORE shots- I'm eating relatively well already (but I do like carbs and I'm not going to give them up easily). And also, if I do have it, of course that brings my risk of getting pre-eclampsia up even higher. (And it's already high because of my history and then the notching in blood flow.) It's just weighing on me.

On the bright side, my c-section is officially scheduled, 9:45 am on April 27th, pending the results of an amnio indicating mature lungs the day before, I'll be 36 weeks and 2 days. I'm going to pretty much insistent on getting steroid shots by 34 weeks so his lungs should be good. (Knowing my luck, I'll go through the amnio and find out we have to wait another week.) If lungs aren't mature, we'll deliver at 37 weeks exactly (May 2nd), no amnio redo, because by then the risk of me going into labor is too high to risk waiting longer (if I go into labor, I'm at higher risk for my uterus rupturing because of the type of c-section they had to do with Olivia. So after 34 weeks if I start having real contractions, they'll probably just deliver then without an amnio.) Any drama before 36 weeks or at 36 weeks (blood pressure, pre-eclampsia, labs acting up, contractions, fetal indicators like blood flow or growth), and they'll deliver sooner without an amnio. So April 27th is actually pretty iffy, but we'll see. I have no interest in prolonging this pregnancy a minute longer than necessary just to see how bad things will get or if they'll get bad.  It was a little weird because they actually started giving me instructions for the c-section (don't eat after midnight, be there by 7:30) as if it was a week away and not 80ish days from now which as far as I'm concerned is *forever*. (This was still my ob's nurse, not the hospital.)

Last night we finished the Valentine's day project for all the newly bereaved parents. We got them all finished but my friend and I both noticed that Maggie had a rather large stack of new people that had had losses in the last couple of weeks, since we met last, not even 2 full weeks ago. Blech. And then, we were using post it's because we were putting in pink "presents" for parents that lost a girl and blue for boys and yellow for if she couldn't remember and couldn't tell by name for (white) presents...when we were all done stuffing the envelopes, I sorted the post its into piles by color so she could reuse them later since they didn't have writing or anything on them....the stack of blue post-its was so much more than the pink pile. That might be the reason I'm a lot more freaked out today. Yesterday was just not a great day for me. I ended up strolling around the garage for about 20+ minutes in the freezing cold trying to find my car. I thought I had parked on the ground floor because for some reason when I walked in the nearest door, it was on the ground floor. So I walked the entire ground floor of the parking garage several times with no sign of my car and was starting to think it got towed or stolen- and my car isn't anything worth stealing so that seemed nuts. I went back in to the hospital and sat and warmed up and decided to try again and started on the first floor, I had parked on the first floor after all (but I really did walk in on the ground floor before, I had to go up a flight of stairs, I'm not sure how I managed to end up parking on the first floor but walking in on the ground floor.) Anyway, I hate that stupid hospital, it's such a maze. Yesterday was just not my day. Hopefully the rest of this week will get a bit better.

Guess what I did?

So, in a moment of total bravery or maybe insanity or optimism or whatever you want to call it, today I went to Babies R Us with my mom for the bazillionth time.

Babies R Us is having a "trade in" sales event so you bring in an old carseat/stroller/playpen/high chair/etc. and they give you a coupon for 25% off any of those items new. I had initially thought that this meant you bring in a carseat, you get 25% off a new carseat, etc. which is still not a bad deal. (I contemplated maybe trying to find a piece of crap crib somewhere to trade in even though I have a 20% off coupon, Joe said no way is he hauling a crappy crib in there just for an extra 5% off.) Someone on Freecycle gave me their old carseat to trade in, and so I was able to bring that in and they gave me a coupon for 25% off anything in those categories, it didn't have to be a carseat.

So, I went and ordered the crib with it. (And now I still have a 20% off coupon I can use for the carseat.)

My mom was with me when I ordered Olivia's crib, too. (After a ridiculous number of trips to Babies R Us and everywhere else that sells cribs, not to mention hours of reading review books and reviews online.) I think I was right about 18 or 19 weeks when I ordered her crib last time. It was brand new and when I put the order in they said it would be about 2-3 weeks, which was fine. And then the week before everything went to hell, they called me at school- well on my cell phone and I remember sitting at my desk calling them back on my plan period or after school- and told me it would be 2 or 3 more weeks because the warehouse was out of them too, blah blah blah. I told them that was fine and was relieved we didn't have to deal with it yet because by that point every week was more bad news. And then the next week we lost Olivia, and I think the day I was released from the hospital I called and had them cancel it. (I did NOT want to risk a phone call telling me it was in so it was one of the first places I called.)

So anyway, this time we decided to get the same crib. It's now been out awhile and has almost all good reviews online. And I like the idea of Lucas having the same crib that Olivia would have had. I expected it to take somewhere between 2-6 for it to come in because that's what happened the first time, but to my surprise (and a little bit to my dismay), he said,  "I think we have one in the back". I crossed my fingers that they *didn't* have one in the back because I'd feel a lot better about getting it in 2-6 weeks. No such luck. There really was one in the back. They are letting us do a "delayed pick up" in the next few days.

I've decided that instead of freaking out about having the baby crib already, I'm mostly trying to take it as a good sign. Like Olivia's crib wasn't in stock and never came home with us just like she never came home with us, and Lucas's crib is there and ready to go, like he will be when he comes at the end of April (86 days or so). Otherwise, it's going to freak me out. It will be SEVERAL more weeks before we actually take the crib out of the box and Joe puts it together. Partially because the baby room has a twin bed and some stuff that needs to go in the office, and the office is a crowded mess of random stuff and so that's going to take some time. And partially because I'm not quite ready to see a baby crib up and ready to go in our house yet. I think that would be a good way to celebrate the "I'm 28 weeks" milestone.

I was planning to start my registry today but after the crib ordering did not go the way I expected, I was a little overwhelmed already, and Babies R Us is just overwhelming in general. Plus, there were like 8 people at the registry counter and only one person working. So I'll maybe start that sometime next week.



Here's the crib we ordered, (I like it especially because it's low to the ground and I'm short), we've decided not to get the dresser that comes with it, so next week we'll probably start looking for a dresser too. (I want something low enough that we can plop a changing pad on and use as a changing table, all of the ones at the baby store only have 3 dressers and a cabinet, I don't want/need a cabinet, I'd rather have extra drawers.)

Anyway, today is 24+3 and everything is still well. I'm going to hopefully venture out tomorrow for my gestational diabetes test. I just hope the lovely orange drink doesn't make me throw up.

24 weeks and ultrasound

Today is 24 weeks exactly.

Emotionally, I'm a little conflicted. Happy and excited and relieved to be this far. But also, really sad that I couldn't have made it this far with Olivia. When I got sick with her at 23+2, 24 weeks was an impossible milestone. She would have died inside me and I probably wouldn't have made it either. But still, I would have willingly died to get this far if it would have saved her. I've made peace with the fact that it wasn't actually a choice between her or me, if we hadn't delivered when we did it would have been both of us pretty quickly. But still, every milestone we reach with Lucas is a bittersweet reminder of all of the milestones we weren't able to reach Olivia. Why couldn't my pregnancy have went like this the first time? It isn't that we aren't excited and happy about our little boy, we are, but it doesn't take away from missing our baby girl so very much. Being pregnant again is so much harder than I expected it to be.

Anyway, my ultrasound was supposed to be tomorrow, but since they've called a weather state of emergency for tomorrow, and we're supposed to be getting a bunch of ice, sleet, and then a blizzard, when they called and asked if I could come in today, I said okay. Luckily, my mom's school was released early for the weather and she was able to meet me there. I have a phobia about going to ultrasounds alone now, because when I got bad news with Olivia (over and over again), it always worked out that I was alone- even in the hospital, I had just sent Joe home to get food and let the dogs out when they figured out I had HELLP. So anyway, my strategy for ultrasounds this time has been have someone with me and the bad news will stay away. I was relieved my mom could make it.

So, the ultrasound was pretty much entirely good. Baby Lucas really wasn't as active today but it was during his 1 pm naptime and I could feel him moving most of last night (ALL night even through 2-4 am) and most of this morning. (He was moving around, just not upside down and all over the place, he mostly stayed in the same position for once.) His heart rate was 150 and his shortest measurement was 25+1, his biggest measurement was 25+6 (I think that was his femur), when they averaged it together he is now about 8 days ahead, estimated weight 1 lb 13 ounces (pretty good for 24 weeks exactly), and he's in the 66% for growth. My fluid levels look good and everything else looked good. (They didn't do a blood flow study.) At one point during the ultrasound he kicked me so hard the tech felt it and my mom saw it on my belly. He was laying horizontally, looking down, with his legs stretched out all the way down. I really didn't get any good pictures this time, he was in a bad position and she gave me a couple of face shots, a not very good picture of his legs stretched out, and another "boy!" picture. Not that there's been any doubt before, but he's definitely still a boy, today's picture was very clear about that.

My mom asked the ultrasound tech a bunch of questions about the notching for me. (They aren't going to look at blood flow again for now unless his growth slows down or I start showing concerning symptoms/blood pressure acts up). It turns out it was only in one artery (as opposed to two), and was really really mild. I feel better about it since his growth has actually gotten better instead of worse. With Olivia, it was about 4 weeks from the time she first started falling behind to the time I had HELLP,  so I feel like this hopefully should guarantee us at least four more weeks.

The dizziness  is still hanging on. I didn't do my gestational diabetes test this morning because they were originally expecting the ice to start at 6 am today and I didn't want to be out on the roads in that. I'm hoping to get it done Friday and I'm going to call my doctor's office on Thursday and ask them to write another lab slip for them to test me for anemia at the same time- might as well limit my number of blood draws and I really think the dizziness is probably either just an annoying pregnancy thing or anemia and not gestational diabetes. I wouldn't be surprised if I have both GD and anemia, but I haven't found any mention of GD causing dizziness and I tried doing the GD diet and it really didn't help the dizziness at all. (But the dizziness actually went away last night after I ate steak and broccoli for dinner.) Anyway, I'm hoping that the roads will get clear enough that maybe on Friday I can get the tests done, but in the meantime I guess I'll just have to deal with dizzy afternoons. At least it doesn't seem to be bothering or hurting the baby, whatever it is.

Last but not least:
Ginormous belly at 24 weeks, I'm definitely not complaining, if huge belly= huge baby, then bring it on. I'm just glad my back doesn't really hurt, strangely it hurt a lot in the first trimester so much that I asked my high risk doctor about it (worried that the epidural with Olivia had somehow screwed up my spine because that's where it hurt), but now that I'm huge, no back pain.

23+3, and high risk appointment (it's a long one)

Well, I've at least made it one extra day this time, hopefully with many more days to go.

So my high risk doctor appointment yesterday wasn't the greatest, mainly for a bunch of little reasons.(It wasn't especially bad, just annoying more than anything.)

First, she thinks that the dizziness is probably gestational diabetes- my blood sugar getting too high. (Funny because my ob thinks it's from my blood sugar being too low, which lines up more with what I've seen online.) I'm not a doctor, but I really don't think it has anything to do with food, because on Sunday I got dizzy and I'd barely eaten anything that day, every other day I've been sure to eat because that was my ob's advice, but my times of eating have varied, and it always starts at 2 - 3 pm regardless of what I have ate or haven't ate and what time. I'm not saying I don't have GD because with PCOS and a history of pre-eclampsia (well HELLP), I'm at higher risk for it, but I find it doubtful that's really causing the dizziness. (Dr.Google does not mention anything about dizziness being a sign of GD.) I was going to do my 1 hour glucose test at 26 weeks before my OB appointment, but if it's really GD and it's really so bad that it makes me dizzy for 8+ hours a day, we should probably know about that and try to fix it (argh) sooner than later. So I have the drink and the lab slip already so I'm going to go do it on Monday. I'm going to ask the lab tech how long the results take and call my ob's nurse and ask them to test my iron levels if I pass it, because I'm still not convinced it isn't anemia. (I take my prenatal vitamins at night around 11 pm, they have iron in them, and I never wake up dizzy in the morning and I feel fine every morning until around 2 pm to 3 pm. That might explain why it's an afternoon thing. Maybe I'll take them around noon tomorrow and see what happens.)

I can't remember what I weighed last time at the high risk doctor (it's kind of confusing because my ob's scale and high risk ob's scale give totally different numbers). In any case, I've either gained 4 lbs in 2 weeks or 7 lbs in 2 weeks, hopefully it's 4, I should have asked. My diet really hasn't changed and I'm not really doing a lot less than I was before, I wasn't doing much before. The first trimester, I actually lost 5+ pounds and I didn't start actually gaining weight until 20 weeks, so they aren't really concerned about my total gain, just that I put on so much pretty quickly. My ob checked for swelling last week and high risk ob checked me again today, no swelling. I think my belly is bigger than it was 2 weeks ago. But still, this happened about 3 weeks before I got sick and we (including my ob) didn't notice swelling then. So, it has me a little freaked out for impending doom.

And then there were a bunch of little things that got on my nerves, because some of the things she said the last time I saw her, she told me totally different things today.

Like the notching. It's bad. It means they have to watch me more closely. (That's not new/different.) But yesterday she tells me she's not that concerned with checking it again because even if it's gone away, they still need to watch me more closely. And she's more concerned with keeping an eye on the baby's growth than the notching because if the notching gets bad/worse, his growth will likely show it. Last appointment, she said to try not to freak out because the mild notching was our "baseline", which implied to me that they planned on looking at it again because what's the point of having a baseline if you don't check again later? My ob said last week that in the plan my high risk doctor wrote her, it included after my 20 week ultrasound to check the blood flow every ultrasound, and she said that if the notching gets worse she wants me on bedrest, for sure. I mentioned the part about bedrest to high risk ob and she said, "Eh, don't go looking for trouble. You'll be on bedrest soon enough."  Uh, I'd rather be on bedrest before the trouble starts to hopefully prolong it from starting as long as possible. Anyway, I plan on disregarding what my high risk doctor said (about not looking at the blood flow again) and if the tech doesn't automatically do a blood flow study (I'm pretty sure they should have a copy of "the plan" in my file somewhere so they might just do it), I'll mention what my ob said about wanting me to go on bedrest if notching is worse and hopefully they'll check it. But I'm not holding my breath on that. I'm not going to be a happy camper next week if they don't look at it at all. (My high risk doctor didn't say that they shouldn't/won't look at it for sure, she just isn't going to specifically tell them/ask them to look at it because she doesn't really think it matters, suddenly. There was notching, that is bad, the end, basically. My ob does want them looking at it, she wants to know if it's worse, so I'm just going to say that if I need to.)

And then! At my last appointment, I asked if we could do the amnio at 36 weeks exactly and deliver when the results were back (apparently they should be back within a few hours so we'd be set to go for 36+1.) She said she'd much rather do the amnio at 36+1 and have delivery at 36+2. Fine, so I talked to my ob about that last week and she said that works out perfectly because her surgery day is Wednesday anyway and that's when I'll be 36+2. So yesterday, when I told high risk ob that ob wants to put my c-section on her schedule now so tell her when we're doing the amnio for sure, she looked at the calendar and said, "So do you want to do it Monday (36 weeks?) or Tuesday (36+1)?" If I had known I could have done it on Monday, I would have asked my OB if she could schedule my surgery for Tuesday, but I didn't, so I didn't want to tell her let's do the amnio on Monday since that's suddenly now okay but wasn't okay a week ago. Anyway, it's just a day difference, so I just stuck with the original plan, amnio is scheduled for 36+1 on April 26th, and delivery will be 36+ 2 April 27th. (My friend was told by a different high risk doctor in the same practice that they actually just keep you after the amnio and only send you home if the lungs aren't mature, but she's getting induced so I don't know if they will keep me since I'm having a scheduled c-section and all.)

Anyway, the gist of the appointment was that she's not worried (and would tell me if she was worried), but watching me extra closely, and still concerned about the notching and a little about the weight gain, not really too concerned about the dizziness, and we'll see how the baby looks next week and if I pass the 1 hour test.  (I guess GD would explain the weight gain, at least.) I see her again in two weeks, so that keeps me covered with appointments for the next 4 weeks: 24 wks ultrasound, 25 wks high risk ob (and labs), 26 wks regular ob, 27 wks high risk ob (probably), 28 wks ultrasound (probably). It's going to make me crazy if she keeps changing what she says. (I can just see it for my appointment in 2 weeks, "of course you didn't have gd, that shouldn't make you dizzy, it's probably....") Anyway, I still like her, but some consistency would be nice and I think she's a little too cavalier about "oh I'm not worried yet"...luckily my OB IS consistent, I think she has my chart memorized, and she worries what I deem "enough" and not too much.

Helping out was a lot harder than I expected. I didn't realize that Maggie's office is on the labor and delivery floor, I mean, it makes sense that they would keep her there (she runs all of the support services for families who lose babies, stillbirths, miscarriages, NICU losses, etc.plus the support group plus sort of acts as a grief counselor), but for some reason it didn't occur to me that's where they would put her. So yeah, that was a fun time walking through that floor yesterday with her. I sat in her office and cut bubble wrap for the Valentine's day thingies, and cut little stuffed animals out from their boxes, and labeled things with stickers, and then went to meet my friend and fellow pregnant again baby loss mom for dinner. Walking through L&D sucked again to get out, worse this time because there was a couple checking in, expecting their first, a little girl, and I was just hit with a moment of jealousy, not for their little girl but because I wish that's how it would have been for us, and just feeling sorry for myself. (And of course I got lost because when Maggie gave me directions to get out of the floor, I nodded but didn't really pay attention, so I got to stop at the nurse station because I didn't want to wander around on that particular floor a minute longer than necessary.) 

Dinner was good. Hope nobody was eavesdropping because they would have gotten an earful, not that we really cared (topics ranged from our babies dying, how the heck we're going to figure out breastfeeding, why our high risk doctors are getting on our nerves, etc.) I'm so lucky to have a friend who has been through this pregnant at the same time.

Then we went back to the hospital, but luckily just to the cafeteria and not Maggie's office, walking through the L&D floor four times in one day, on that day, would not have been my idea of a great time, two times was plenty. Too, too many babies have died in the last year. Maggie was saying they have someone new pretty much every day, some days more than one. Ugh. It was good to be around people who have been there, done that, and it felt good doing something for other people who have been through this, but it was depressing, too.

Anyway, that's all my rambling for now.

23 weeks, phone call to OB #4

 Today officially makes 23 weeks. I'll start with the good news:

Blood pressure- still normal (or normal enough, almost always under 120/80 though both numbers seem to be creeping closer to 120/80 more often than not, but my blood pressure machine always runs a little higher than the office readings anyway.)

Swelling- none, it turns out my fingers are just fat.

Pain and heartburn-None lately (thankfully)! My back hurt much more in the first trimester than it ever does now. Weird.

Baby- Moving often, kicks seem like they are a lot harder, and my belly does seem like it's getting bigger and bigger. I feel pretty good that his growth will still be right on track for our ultrasound next Tuesday, that's what we're praying for anyway.

The bad:

Inexplicably, yesterday afternoon, I started feeling a bit lightheaded and dizzy. Not so bad that I couldn't walk or stumbled, but enough that I just felt off. Like I'd had a couple of drinks and was a bit buzzed/tipsy. We still went to the angel and picked up a few groceries and then ate dinner. My blood pressure was still normal, but nothing made it go away. Not eating something sugary, not eating in general, and not laying down (on my left side). It lasted about 8 hours or so, basically until I fell asleep for the night. It wasn't bad enough that I thought it warranted calling a doctor on a Sunday, especially with the baby acting normal and my blood pressure normal, but it was annoying and slightly troubling.

This morning I woke up feeling normal. I did a few things around the house but nothing strenuous. I ate normally. And around 1 or 2 this afternoon, the feeling came back. I took my blood pressure again and it was normal. Joe and I went car shopping (didn't like either of the cars we drove), dropped my car off to get inspected and a new tire,  and then ate dinner. The dizziness has gotten worse as the night has gone by, not really better. It's not so bad that I can't drive or walk, it's mainly kind of annoying. I have no signs of a cold or any other illness.

As we were driving to go car shopping and I could tell that the dizzy feeling was not going away, I decided to give my ob a call just to make sure this isn't something especially concerning. I left a message reminding them of my history, explaining the situation, and telling them that I see the high risk doctor on Wednesday. (Joe laughed and gave me crap "you don't need to tell them your life story". I almost punched him in the face.) They told me to be careful walking, make sure I eat small meals throughout the day (if it had to do with food/my blood sugar, wouldn't it be better after I eat? Tonight it's gotten worse and I made sure to even eat fruit tonight.)  If it gets really bad to take dramamine or something like that, and to make sure to tell the high risk doctor on Wednesday. That's fine by me, I just wanted to make sure this didn't warrant going into the hospital or anything, I'm not especially worried about it right now.

Joe thinks I have gestational diabetes (a possibility but I hope not!), I think I might be anemic (but again I hope not! I'm going to be uneasy about taking iron supplements since there are some studies out there that think too much iron may be linked to unexplained stillbirths,) and when I told my mom about it yesterday, she thinks I may have a symptomless inner ear infection (um, doubtful.) I don't know what it is but I hope it goes away, like now, would be nice.

But anyway, except for the dizzy thing, everything seems to be good and I'm feeling pretty good, so hopefully this will be a very uneventful week. Wednesday will make me as far along as I got with Olivia, and Thursday I will be more pregnant than ever before.

22 weeks + ob appointment

Monday brings us to 22 weeks (so today is actually 22 +2). I'm not sure when/how it happened, but it seems my belly has exploded.

By this time with Olivia, she was measuring about 2 weeks behind, I had already started having the upper right quadrant pains under my shoulder blade and back and around my rib cage, and it was pretty much the beginning of the end, we just didn't know it yet. My last appointment whilst pregnant with my ob was at 22+2 weeks exactly, it was an impromptu appointment because of the pain, but my blood pressure was normal, urine was normal, and nothing else was glaringly obvious wrong so she chalked it up to baby growing pain and said try prenatal yoga. I think that if she had done bloodwork then, it probably would have been normal even despite the pain, because even a week later when I was admitted to the hospital, my labs were *nearly* normal at first (my liver enzymes were just a little elevated, but that was it, it wasn't until 6 hours later when they had more than doubled and my platelets had dropped by more than 100,000 that the problem became apparent.) I've pretty much come to peace with the fact that we were just flat out doomed with Olivia. So much went wrong so early, so drastically.

So anyway, I do feel like we're in better shape this time, that we'll at least make it to the 24 week "viability" milestone and possibly even the 28 week milestone. (I suppose I should probably be more optimistic but I prefer to take it one milestone at a time and not get my hopes up too much about a 36 weeker.)

My blood pressure was up to my "call us" number Sunday morning and again in the afternoon, (but the instructions are to take it again in 20 minutes and if it's still up to call, and my numbers had gone back down plus I knew I was seeing my OB the next day and I felt fine, so I didn't call). Anyway, my OB isn't worried about it yet- it was normal again Sunday night and all day Monday and has stayed normal (albeit a little bit higher for me than my numbers a month ago, but not even a 10 point difference), she thinks it may have been something with the cuff. Anyway, so far, so good.

My ob is concerned about the notching and was surprised that high risk doctor hadn't put me on bedrest or modified bedrest because of it. She was happy to hear I'm "taking it easy" on almost bedrest and thinks it's a good idea. She said they'll be looking at the blood flow at every ultrasound from now on, and if the notching gets worse and possibly if it stays the same, I should expect official bedrest, and she forewarned me that it's a good idea to "tie up anything" now, basically saying she does expect me to end up on bedrest sooner than later.

It turns out that Dr.Everyone Hates at the perinatal center did not mention if the notching was unilateral (in one spot) or bilateral (two spots) in his report. It's kind of an important detail because it gives us a lot less information for a "baseline" to compare to later. (So if it's bilateral next time, we don't know if it's gotten worse or if it was bilateral all along. And if it's unilateral, we don't know if it's gotten better or it was unilateral all along.) I'm glad he's not my regular (high risk) doctor because he clearly sucks, and I'm hoping someone different will be there for my next ultrasound- the high risk doctors all have different days in the perinatal center keeping an eye on the ultrasounds, I'm going on a Tuesday instead of Friday next time, so it should hopefully be someone else.

My ob does want me to get the high risk doctor to schedule my amnio when I see her next week, so she can put me on the schedule for my c-section. (I have to deliver at our local "baby factory" hospital because it is the only level III NICU, and apparently they book up quickly so my OB wants it scheduled asap.) High risk doctor said amnio will be at 36+1, which would be April 26th, and provided his lungs are mature (they should be because I'm going to push for steroid shots at 34 weeks and my ob agrees that I should get them for just in case), delivery day will be 36+2 on April 27th. If anything comes up or starts acting up sooner (or I start having contractions), we deliver sooner without the amnio, which I think my OB suspects will probably be the case.

 I'm starting to get a little bit excited to be 22+2 weeks with no glaringly obvious issues except for that freaking notching, but it will be even better to be 24 weeks. My OB pointed out that we're only 6 weeks away (ha! "only"! She must not know how slowly these past 3 weeks have gone by) from the 28 week milestone.

Better

Thanks for all of the kind comments and thoughts, first of all. We really appreciate them.

So far, physically everything is still good as far as we know. It might be in my head but I feel like Lucas is kicking harder already. He's been a little quieter so far today but yesterday he was busy busy. I've noticed that's how it goes, a busy day followed by a quieter day and then a busy day again. Last night I was on Facebook and I swear he kicked me so hard I was startled by it and jumped. Freaky and awesome. I love being pregnant, most of the time.

Mentally, I'm feeling better for now. It helps hearing a few others that had notching after a history of severe pre-eclampsia and made it 30+ weeks. Still, we're kind of anticipating/hoping/mentally preparing for just a 28 weeker at this point. I figure that with Olivia, it was about 4 weeks after she first started falling behind that the HELLP really set in, so hopefully that means we still have at least 6 weeks considering Lucas has so far been ahead. But, a lot depends on how his growth is in a few weeks, and apparently it's not totally unrealistic to think that the notching might actually get better or go away. In any case, I'm not quite as panicked about it as I was Monday, but I don't think I'll sleep very well the night before the next growth ultrasound. (Luckily I scheduled it for 8:30 am so we can just get it over with and I can come home and sleep or freak out. ) I find myself getting superstitious, too. With Olivia, every time I got really bad news, like the bad quad screen results, and then when her growth was way behind, and then even in the hospital when everything was seemingly normal, I talked Joe into going home and letting the dogs out and getting food-since they were trying to starve me to death and there was no way he could eat in front of me, and I had convinced my parents everything was fine too...every time, even the half hour I was alone in the hospital, bad news. I'm a little relieved that Joe can go to all of my ultrasounds this time, and really lucky. (His off days are Friday and Saturday so I normally schedule them for Fridays, but I can't wait that entire week for the next growth scan, so I scheduled it for Tuesday and he's arranged to work a different shift that day so he can be there.) If only it was that easy to keep the bad news away.