35+4

So, we're probably coming home with a baby this time is starting to sink in. (And I don't think I'll be able to get rid of that probably that's always lingering in the back of my mind until we're putting him in his carseat.) Anyway, it's exciting and overwhelming and oy, we have so much still to do. The good part of that is that the days are flying by. The bad part of that is this "nesting" energy I've heard about is seriously lacking. I just want to sleep.

It still definitely feels very surreal. Random people keep asking me when I'm due (someone must be looking out for me because in the 5 or so times I've been asked when I'm due, no one has asked if this is our first, not this week, at least. That almost makes up for the 6 or so times I had to go over that question and my medical history in the 2 days we had our hospital stints a few weeks ago. Funny how they manage to keep track that I'm allergic to penicillin but we have to talk over that our first baby died and why every single time and with multiple people when I was admitted. Even the wheelchair lady who brought me down for the follow up biophysical asked.)

Anyway, this week was mostly uneventful with a few minor touches of excitement. On Monday we had monitoring and I was apparently having some contractions. But I wasn't feeling them so they weren't worried, though there were 2 in 20 minutes. And on Thursday I didn't have any and Luke did great again. Wednesday was my last (hopefully) high risk appointment for this pregnancy. I say "this pregnancy" because both my high risk doctor and my OB have said how much easier my "next pregnancy" will be. And I'm permanently high risk so even if everything ends up better than they could have expected, I'll still be on lovenox and low dose aspirin and have growth ultrasounds and everything. Although high risk doctor said she'll be a lot more mellow with me next time. I'm not really up for even thinking about a next pregnancy at this point, though.

Last Friday at 34.5 weeks, Luke was measuring in at 6 lbs 11 oz or 6 lbs 6 oz, depending on which u/s tech you believe.  (There was one in training who got the smaller estimate and the real tech who got the bigger estimate.) But they both have a margin of error of a pound at this point, so my guess is he was right at 6 lbs and if he's born as scheduled, he'll be right at 7.5 pounds.

Next week I see my OB on Monday. Tuesday I have the amnio (assuming that labor is not threatening and everything else looks stable), we do that around 9 am and I believe we'll know the results for his lungs by the time we leave, afternoonish. I also believe they keep me most of the day on monitors, just to be sure the baby is still doing okay. (The most serious risk for these late term amnios is that it might break my water, which wouldn't be a big deal, they'd just deliver, and it's extremely rare for even that to happen. I have read a story about a baby moving into the amnio needle and they have a little scar on their foot from it, but they do them at the baby's feet and as far from the baby as possible- plus babies usually generally instinctively stay away from needles in that situation-so it's really really unlikely and not a huge problem other than the poor baby got poked in the foot with a needle. It's scheduled for a time when Luke is pretty mellow.) Anyway, I'm told that it doesn't really hurt anymore than the lovenox injections I've put in my belly for 20+ weeks of this pregnancy, (actually they said it hurts a lot less) so I'm not that worried about that part. I am a little worried that his lungs might not be ready to go yet and then we've done the amnio for nothing because they'll just have me deliver at 37 weeks without a follow up amnio. But both of my doctors are really convinced they'll be ready especially since I had steroid shots. My high risk doctor even said she'd "bet money on it." Since she hasn't been wrong about anything this pregnancy, even when I've worried anyway and she wasn't, I mostly believe that he will be ready to come out. But I try to brace myself for the possibility that it might not turn out that way so I'm not really disappointed just in case he's not ready yet.

But, if everything goes as planned, we are down to just 4 days left until we meet Luke!

32+4 week update

I'm still pregnant and have not been admitted to the hospital since last Saturday.And holy cow, we've made it all the way to April! Hopefully Lucas will be here safely by May.

Lucas looked good at monitoring on Tuesday and fantastic today (in fact, the doctor said this must be a different baby.) And the nurse, before she knew about the drama from last week and previously, said, "This test strip is so beautiful! I wish all of our babies looked like this!"  This kid is going to keep things interesting, clearly. When they checked my fluid levels both Tuesday and today, he was breathing, too. So all is well as far as that is concerned, at least for the time being.

Things aren't quite so fantastic on my end, but not horrible either. I've inexplicably lost all the weight I had gained in the last 4 weeks, last week. I thought maybe that could be explained by my amniotic fluid levels measuring 19 cm last Friday morning and by Friday afternoon they were 12. But apparently that wouldn't have made that big of a difference in my weight. So who knows. (It's certainly not because the baby isn't growing, and my diet/activity hasn't changed.) I'm more swollen (not just in my head, high risk doctor pointed it out on Monday) and my blood pressure is still weird but not alarming. I'm pretty sure I managed to catch a cold (hopefully just a cold) from the pediatrician's office- sore throat, check. dizzy and lightheaded, check. suddenly feel like I got hit by a truck, check. Blech, I guess it's always something. I don't really have time to be sick, suddenly April 27th is only 26 days away and there is so much to do, so I hope this is short lived. And really, high risk doctor and I weren't very optimistic about things on Monday with the swelling and my blood pressure being funky (it was high but then they retook it and it was better), she said that if it goes high and stays high, I'll be admitted until delivery, she isn't even going to mess around with home bedrest at this point and with my history. But here it is Friday and things seem mostly normal again. (Monday and Tuesday my blood pressure was up and down all day. Wednesday it kept going up and up and up and was only a couple points away from my call in number. Thursday and today, it's been normal.)  So anyway, I wasn't even all that sure that I'd make it through this week without at least being admitted for good, but here we are.

I got the steroid shots for Luke's lungs on Monday and Tuesday. I'm not sure if it's just a coincidence or those steroids really are working because he's been almost constantly active ever since. Not that he wasn't active before, but now there are very few hours when he's not rolling around. He's also had hiccups 3-4 times a day, which I'm assured is normal and even a good thing.

We found a pediatrician. Actually, it was pretty easy. We really liked the doctor that my youngest brother sees, and he's open to spreading vaccinations out and not following the official AAP vax schedule (and I especially appreciated that he didn't try to lecture us or convince us why we should follow it), so that was good. (Except suspiciously 2 days later, now I feel like crap. Then again, I suppose I could have picked up this cold somewhere else or it could be our freaking crazy weather.) Just having that settled is a huge relief, now that I'm at medical appointments 3-4 times  week, I'm just not up for a big doctor search. I guess supposedly it's recommended to interview several pediatricians and then pick the one you like the most. I'm kind of just doctor'ed out at this point. And I figure we can always change later if we need to.

So all in all, this week has been a pretty decent one. I have new (much better) 3D pictures and stuff to upload later, but for now, I'm going to bed to hopefully sleep off this ick.

Hooray Luke!

Today was one of our best monitoring appointments yet. Luke had a REACTIVE nonstress test (aka "passing") (at least according to the nurse who seemed mildly incompetent-she put the blood pressure cuff on upside down and proceeded to use it and then looked totally puzzled, deemed it "broken", and got a different one which she did put on correctly. Not exactly confidence inspiring. And she wasn't new, apparently she's been doing this for 20 years. She was nice, though.)  I kept a close eye on the test strip and it looked decent, no big variables (there was one dip that I thought looked might have been low enough to be a variable deceleration but it wasn't a *huge* drop and the aforementioned nurse didn't seem to think it was. When she checked my fluid levels on the ultrasound (which I'm pretty sure she didn't measure correctly, I've had my fluid levels measured like 8 times the last few months, I've never seen them measured the way she did it, and it didn't even save on the computer/machine, she had to add it up manually- they measure "pockets" of fluid in 4 quarters of the uterus and add it together for the fluid level, normally they just stretch out the controller things, save it, and the computer/machine adds it, what she did looked different, didn't save, etc.)

Anyway, while she was checking the fluid, he was moving around flexing his hands and sucking his thumb or attempting to suck it, and even breathing consistently. So, I'm pretty sure he would have pretty easily passed a biophysical profile within a few minutes, if they had done it. (They didn't do it because he passed the NST, except for that the doctor had ordered BPP's 2x weekly until 32 weeks, so I guess apparently nurses can disregard that if they pass the NST, which seems kinda strange to me, but whatever, he passed and looked good and I'm confident he's doing pretty well for the time being and would have easily passed the BPP too, since he'd pretty much done everything required just in the time she checked fluid levels.)

I've had 2 less than stellar nurses in a row for monitoring. (I won't even get started on the nurse I had Tuesday. She was much, much worse than the nurse I had today.) It wouldn't be as concerning if there was a doctor hanging around there keeping an eye on things. But there are no doctors where I go, they are at the actual hospital and sort of teleconference with the off site extra monitoring place that I'm at. Thus, the doctors have never actually even seen one of my test strips, (they can see ultrasound stuff because the computers are connected, but the NST's aren't really on a computer, it prints out paper the old fashioned way), so they are relying on the nurse's interpretation of the NST, which wasn't as concerning when I had great nurses, but now... On Tuesday, Luke had a nonreactive/failed NST (supposedly no variable decelerations but I'm almost positive there was at least one- she barely even glanced at the test strip at all). Anyway, so at the very least, he didn't "pass", but the nurse didn't even call the doctor at all to even let them know. (He did pass the BPP so she sent me home without talking to the doctor at all or at least not while I was still there. All of the other nurses I've had have always called the doctor after a not passing NST, and then again after the BPP, before letting me leave.) So, I'm seriously considering making the 30 minute trek to the hospital for monitoring, which will be a pain twice a week with gas prices, but whatever, if that's what it takes. I know that not all of the nurses are going to be perfect, but at least at the hospital perinatal center, there's a doctor around keeping an eye on everything. I'm going to wait to make that decision because I'm hoping one of the really good nurses will be back next week and this week was just a weird fluke. (Right now my monitoring place is only 5 minutes away, and there's only the ultrasound tech and a nurse present, so whichever nurse is there is who I get, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the schedule that I've picked up on.)

I haven't actually seen my OB for an appointment since back in January when we were approaching the dreaded 23 week mark, back then she was saying how happy she'd be to see me at 28 weeks. (She did stop and talk to me 2 weeks ago about my blood sugar fasting numbers, but it wasn't the same as an appointment.) I saw her on Thursday for my appointment, finally, and she was so absolutely jubilant when she burst into the room it actually made both me and in turn the baby jump. She kept saying over and over again how excited and happy she was to see me so far along. In the face of that contagious enthusiasm and excitement, it was a little bit harder to be all "By the way, I'm still terrified that this baby is going to die." So she kind of relaxed me a bit.

I'm measuring 33 weeks (!!) at least by tape measure. (To which she says that's perfectly fine with her, as I'm delivering no later than 37 weeks and having a c-section, as long as my blood sugar levels stay as good as they have been.) I've gained barely any weight since last time. Our next (and maybe last?) growth ultrasound next Friday shall be interesting for sure, I'm definitely expecting that he'll already be at the upper limits of 4 lbs...which means that we probably really are on track for about a 7 lb, 36 weeker. She is really hoping that his lungs are mature and thinks next week for steroids is probably a decent idea to give them time to work and just in case something happens that would require us to deliver earlier than 36 weeks or without the amnio reassurance of mature lungs. (She also told me that apparently the hospital initially told her she couldn't schedule me for April 27th when she went to have them schedule it, something about the residents being in training or something that day, she fought them over it, "We need that date!! I don't need a resident!" and won.) She's not too worried about contractions as long as it's less than 6 in an hour. So it was pretty much a good appointment all around, until I went to the truck, dug around in my purse for the truck keys for 10 minutes, and then realized they were in the truck, locked. Fun times.


It's really nice to feel like I get this weekend "off" from worrying. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before something new starts up, but for now, I'm enjoying the break.

30 weeks (!!!)

I could have done without the 4 or so slushy inches of snow today, first of all, but thankfully it didn't really mess up our plans, though we probably spent a little less time at the cemetery because it was so cold. We plan to go back in a few weeks, though. (It's about 40 minutes away so we try to go monthly at least, but the ultrasound place happened to be about 10 minutes away from it, so it sort of worked out, except for the stupid weather.)

Anyway, I think we've solved the heart rate dropping mystery. Luke was in his favorite position, sort of head down and sort of transverse/horizontal (laying across me), with his feet over his head. That pesky but all important cord was tucked between his face and his legs. I should mention that when they do ultrasounds for the biophysical profile, almost every single time, his legs have been over his head, he usually has the nurse laughing at his antics. So. It's easy to see how/why the cord may be getting compressed. Thanks to his knees being in front of his face and the cord being between them, we didn't really get great pictures. But, it was well worth it for the sneak peak and peace of mind. I'm not totally at ease about it, but I feel a little bit better. If nothing else, it will help me get through *this week* before new drama of some sort starts.

Anyway, here's a couple of the pictures we got:
This is one showing him hugging his knees over his head,

And this one is okay for his face...the girl assured us that his lips aren't actually messed up and they just look a bit odd because of the cord being partially in the way between his legs and face...(and that's his shoulder/arm at the bottom, I'm pretty sure.)

And this is what he looks like from the outside:

Things are moving along relatively okay.  I'm still not so sure that pre-eclampsia isn't on the way, but so far there's nothing alarming and I think I should be able to make it at least a couple more weeks at this rate provided things stay status quo.

I did have a couple of contractions yesterday which is not going to please my doctor at all when I tell her on Thursday. (Even though they clearly weren't, "I'm in labor" contractions, because of the type of incision on my uterus, any contractions really aren't great. I'm not sure how big of a deal they are exactly because we haven't talked about it yet.-I know that labor is definitely bad and they'd deliver immediately emergency-like or try to stop it. But not so sure how bad just plain contractions that aren't really indicative of labor are.- I didn't call yesterday because at first I thought it was bad cramps, and by the time I figured it out around the 3rd one in an hour, I sat down to make sure, and they stopped and haven't started again. So I figured it could wait unless it started again, especially since for my monitoring they put a belt on to monitor contractions too and I have that tomorrow.) So maybe that will be our next drama and maybe not.We'll see. I'd much prefer that kind of drama instead of more crappy nonstress tests or something else, if we must have some sort of drama, which it seems we must. Besides that, I'm kind of shocked at how good I feel physically...no back pain...no rib pain...just some annoying heartburn and numb hands and sometimes dizziness (and bending down is quite annoying, as is getting up, and turning over to my other side in bed.Anything that requires a big shift in position, basically is a bit annoying. I'll take it though!)

30 weeks is a really good place to be, drama or not, it's farther than they realistically expected us to make it. I've never been in the 30's before. Now I try to remember that for every 1 day in utero saves 2 days in the NICU, so hopefully we can go another few weeks and keep our NICU stay either nonexistent or minimal.

March!

 First of all, thanks for thinking of us and for for all your nice comments and notes, we really appreciate it!

I love making it to a new month still pregnant. With Olivia, there were so many months that I was still "supposed to be" pregnant and wasn't. October. November. December. January. I even kept counting in my head how many weeks I should have been just to torture myself until it got to the point where I couldn't stand it anymore. Those months and weeks and days were such a crappy never ending blur.

But here we are in March with only one more month change left! Granted, we'll miss out on May I hope, but as far as I'm concerned weeks 37-40 of pregnancy don't sound like much fun to me anyway, I'll happily skip them and meet our little (big) guy instead.

Speaking of the little-big guy, I think he's gone through a growth spurt since Friday. For one, I noticed yesterday in the mirror that my belly seems to be sticking out more and even the nurse practitioner thought so. (Fundal height is measuring at about 29 weeks which is actually right in line with the baby's size predicted via ultrasound.) I haven't gained any weight in the last 3 weeks which isn't really bad and isn't really great since I'm supposed to be gaining a bit now, but whatever, I'm not exactly starving either of us. (Actually I'm kind of baffled by it.) Anyway, the other reason I think he's had a growth spurt is because I can now usually SEE him moving via my belly and all of a sudden his movements are a lot stronger. I think on Friday he'll do very well for the monitoring if what I've been feeling all day long is any indication.

Speaking of the monitoring, so the deal Friday was that he was having sharp variables/ drops, which like I said, they don't *like* to see, and it wasn't so much that he was having them in general, it was just that 4 in 20 minutes is a lot and they were pretty sharp. On Monday, his only variable/drop was much smaller. *AND* normally they don't do monitoring for 27-28 weekers. For 32 weekers, after they establish a baseline they want to see his heart rate go up for 15 seconds by 15 beats per minute. They call this "reactive" but basically it means passing. (A "reactive" NST is supposed to ensure fetal well being for about 3 days.) Anything less than that is by definition "non reactive" or in teacher terms, failing. But he's at a disadvantage since he's only 28 weeks and they don't really expect to see the "15 by 15" yet, for him, they are looking more for a "10 by 10"...10 seconds/10 beats per minute acceleration in conjunction with movement. She was going to give us a new label and call it "reassuring for gestational age". BUT. He ended up moving enough that she ended up calling it "reactive" instead. And then the biophysical profile (BPP) was the same as last time, breathing but not long enough, he was too busy moving around by then for that pesky breathing crap and who needs to practice breathing anyway when you have a mom to do that for you....except this time he "passed" the BPP because the reactive NST is worth 2 points. So on Friday he had a 6/10, fail, because -2 for NST and -2 for breathing. Monday was 8/10, -2 for breathing which is still not really bad this early. She said they are going to do a full BPP every appointment until 30ish weeks or so probably because the NST's will likely be iffy with the 15 by 15 standard. And we're officially twice weekly until the very end. Thank god I'm not working because there's no way I could keep up with all of these appointments and work.

I saw the nurse practitioner and my OB yesterday, though the NP did the appointment and my OB just stopped my briefly to talk. They aren't worried about all of the variables/drops that we saw Friday and think it was probably immaturity/movement/etc. and not something that's a big deal like a cord issue or whatever. And they were especially happy with the results from Monday. And that he's measuring so big after Olivia was so tiny. They have no idea why I haven't had a repeat blood flow study and apparently there was even a high risk doctor's order for another one in one of the reports that they never did, which should have been done a long time ago. She said she was going to put another order in for it but I'm kind of over it since he's obviously growing okay and I'm not showing any signs of trouble. But, whatever. We scheduled a fun 3D ultrasound for March 28th/ 32 weeks. That will be a great way to celebrate making it that far. Those pictures sort of creep me out, to be honest, but I really suck at surprises/secrets/etc. and I can't wait to see what he looks like. I hesitated to do it for a minute when I asked if they thought it would be overkill since I'm basically having a half hour ultrasound twice a week for the BPP. (But it's not like I get to see his face or anything, we are mostly watching his abdomen for breathing.) She laughed and said nah. And I figure what's one more ultrasound at this point. So we're doing it. Hopefully. But that's forever away and I can only think one week at a time.

My blood sugar fasting numbers have been borderline high since I started testing. My ob would like it under 90, high risk ob would like it under 95, I'm usually around 93 and sometimes 97-98, etc. It's not outrageously high that they knew I needed meds right away, and I've played around with the diet and even when I follow it exactly and eat a protein before bed (protein is supposed to level blood sugar out which sucks for me because I'm not much of a fan of any foods with protein), my levels will be high...actually higher than when I don't follow the stupid diet at all. They don't want me exercising and after I went crazy this weekend "nesting" anticipating delivery at any day this week, my fasting numbers were still high. Ironically, I can eat Olive Garden (minus breadsticks and drinking water) and my blood sugar levels an hour later were *fantastic*. Like 100 when they only want them 140 or under. So, I don't understand this at all. They decided after today (fasting blood sugar level 97 for the second day in a row, and last night I tried not eating a snack or anything before bed at all) to put me on meds. Right now it's just one pill at night and we'll see how it goes. So I guess I would have failed the 3 hour and I'm glad I didn't bother to take it. I'm nervous that the baby's growth will slow down (although I don't want a 10 lb 36 weeker and I don't want his blood sugar to be messed up), my high risk ob's nurse talked about his growth being at 78% like it is a bad thing. Um, after a severely growth restricted 1 percentile baby, 78 percentile sounds fantastic to me. (But I think she was just trying to convince me that meds are a good idea even though I really didn't need to be convinced, if they had put me on meds from the start that would have been fine by me.) I'm also a little curious to see if this is going to make me start losing weight because I'm already not really gaining...they aren't really concerned with me not gaining at this point but I'm pretty sure they don't want me gaining. But anyway, we'll see. I'm actually okay with it if I even need to go on insulin shots, I'm already doing lovenox shots so it's not like it really will be anything new.

So this week means a lot of exciting stuff. For one, March! Also, the first time I've ever been in the third trimester and 7 months pregnant, only 8 weeks to go.

Anyway, here's our big growth spurt picture:

I'm kind of liking that the bigger my belly gets, the smaller it makes my butt look in comparison.