Week 28 - Started With A Scare (everything is OK)

Well we made it to week 28 and that means we made it to the 3rd trimester!  Making it to the 3rd trimester is a huge milestone for us.  There was a time when we honestly didn't see this happening.  We are so happy to put that awful 2nd trimester behind us and move forward.


However, because it is us and we are doomed to never have this pregnancy be uneventful, we had a bit of a scare on Friday.  Only 1 day into the 3rd trimester and we had a freakout.  Everything is ok now, but it was a rough start.

On Fridays I do prenatal yoga which is more like a stretching and meditation class.  At the end, during savasana, our teacher has us recline back and close our eyes and talk to our babies.  It has been a very special time for me since I have been so excited to finally feel out little guy inside me.  He always reacts and I feel him kick and move a ton during this time and its one of my favorite parts of the class.  Anyways on Friday he didn't make one single movement.  I came straight home after class and ate something and laid down as that is supposed to wake them up and get them to move.  Still nothing.  I then googled 'how to get your baby to kick' and tried everything, after 30 minutes of nothing, we called our doctor.  In a very calm voice he told us to hang up and go immediately to Triage.  So Ryan ran upstairs, changed, let Parker out to pee and we were in the car in about 7 minutes and off to the hospital we went.  We arrived about 10 minutes later, checked in and was in a bed and hooked up to monitors within about 3 minutes.  And luckily about 1 minute after all that commotion, he decided to wake up and start kicking and kicking and kicking.  When you are hooked up to the monitors it puts his kicks on like a microphone.  It was the most amazing and beautiful sound and feeling ever.  Afte about an hour we were discharged and we quickly came home and I took a nap.  That was a lot of action for one day.  At least we learned that in an emergency, we handled it pretty well and that our hospital is amazing.

Aside from that scare, things are going well.  Up until this point we had decided to not buy anything or do anything baby related because we just weren't ready yet.  Now that we have turned a corner, things are progressing and we are moving forward nicely, we decided to move ahead and start planning for this baby.  We are in the middle of planning a shower, we ordered things to start putting the nursery together and most excitingly, we made our first baby purchase...

would you really expect anything less??!!!

Thanks for reading,
HEATHER

Gender Reveal

IT'S A BOY!!!   

After we made it to the viability stage we were much more comfortable with the idea of actually finishing this pregnancy and taking a baby home from the hospital.  As soon as we started to feel kicks, it was if something got switched in my brain and I really started to connect with the pregnancy and with the baby.  It was at this point that we felt comfortable enough in our situation to share the good news and let everyone know the gender. 

I ordered a dog collar online that revealed the gender and put it on our dog Parker.  We brought her over to my parents house and let her inside and didn't say anything.  It took my Mom about 5 seconds to notice and then my Dad turned around and saw it too.  I burst into tears and we all hugged.  It was really special and wonderful to finally be able to celebrate this pregnancy.  For the family members not in San Diego we sent a video of Parker wearing the collar and just said that Parker had something to tell them.  It was kind of fun to do something special.  We are super excited and knowing the gender makes it that much more real.

Thanks for reading,

HEATHER

Week 25 - GD

After finally being able to feel our little guy and feeling like we are in a good place, it was time for more testing.  Every pregnant woman takes a glucose test at this point in their pregnancy.  It is to test for gestational diabetes and sadly, I failed the test.  There are 3 tests, The first one is a fasting test and you are supposed to score 92 or under and I tested at 94 and unfortunately no matter how much you fail by, a fail is a fail. The other two I passed just fine but that doesn't matter. So my doctor ordered a diabetes testing kit for me and told me to monitor myself for 2 weeks and go to the diabetic center at the hospital.  The diet they told me to follow I already eat that way so there is no real diet change of what I eat.  The only thing I can change is when I eat and how much.  She actually wants me to eat more often and eat more food and calories when I do eat.  So I did that for about 10 days and my fasting number still bordered around that 94 number and didn't lower.  So my doctor put me on a pill that I take a night and that did the trick and now my fasting number is between 70 and 89 so well below 92.  I still have to test my blood 4 times a day and by me, I mean Ryan has to do it for me because I can't see or deal with blood.  Our doctor isn't concerned and thinks there are no additional issues.  We are already being monitored very closely so no additional appointments are needed at this point.

Week 24 - Kicks & Viability

   Finally at week 24 we felt the baby kick!!!!!  This is amazing and exciting and just down right awesome news.  Most folks feel the baby starting around week 15 so we are 2 months late to the party.  Both of my placentas attached in the front so we weren't quite sure we would get to the feel the baby.  Actually Ryan always felt we would but I was never sure.  Anyways on Friday I woke up to about 5 clear as day kicks, I guess the baby got up before me :)  I couldn't wait to text Ryan and tell him the good news.  When Ryan came home, he put his ear to my stomach and about 30 seconds later, the baby kicked and it physically made Ryan's head jump a bit.  It was amazing.  I am so glad we both got to feel this on the same day.   Since then, like clockwork, our baby kicks every morning and every night when I lay down.

   Week 24 is the viability week.  It means that if for some reason, I gave birth today, our baby would have a good chance of surviving.  It would still be in the NICU and wouldn't be good, we are really only talking about basic survivability, but it's still great news to make it here.  3 months ago, I couldn't even imagine getting this far.  Hitting this milestone the same week we finally felt kicks has been a huge accomplishment for us.


   Mentally and emotionally we still have lots of issues we are working through and will still continue with weekly therapy appointments.  Since I can now feel the baby on a daily basis we are going to try and go longer than ever week to our OB check appointments, but nothing crazy, instead of every week we are going to go every 1 1/2 weeks and see if we are comfortable in doing so.  Our doctor is leaving the decision up to us and if 10 days seems too long, we will move back to weekly appointments.  For now though, it's really starting to feel real for the very first time and hopefully that turns into some comfort on our end.

Thanks for Reading,
HEATHER

Week 22 - Cardiology Appt

what a strong heart we have!

  Today was our much anticipated cardiology appointment. I am extremely happy to report that Baby A has a perfectly formed heart with no defects. This was a huge relief and the best news we could have received.  Our little fighter keeps on fighting and proving what a strong heart they have.
  Our echo was upstairs and it's always hard for me to go up there.  It's where we found out about Baby B and where we went back two days later and reduced the pregnancy.  We have discussed this with our therapist and she has likened it to PTSD.  Anyways about 10 minutes into the procedure I got light headed and briefly felt like I was going to faint.  Luckily she let me turn on my side, raised the bed and Ryan took my shoes off.  I calmed down and was able to continue and complete the procedure.
  After it was over, we went and met with our doctor to go over the results and game plan the next few months.  Prior to our results, we were placed in a category all its own, I don't think there is a name for above high risk, but now with our good news, we are back to a regular category of just regular high risk.  This means that the rest of our appointments are the same as any other high risk pregnancy, we don't have to do any more crazy testing.  At this point, if we were in a normal risk pregnancy, we would have monthly appointments, but I am not at all ready for that, especially since due to my placenta placement, I'm cant feel the baby's kick yet.  Luckily our doctor is amazing and understanding and is letting me continue with weekly ultrasounds and heartbeat checks.  I said once I can feel the baby maybe I'll feel more comfortable going every two weeks, but we will see.  He also wants us to have monthly anatomy scans upstairs so we will continue with that as well.  Then starting at 32 weeks we go twice a week to the hospital for monitoring.
  The hardest part is still the emotional side of all of this now and what we focus on in therapy.  I am having a really difficult time still accepting and welcoming this pregnancy.  Our therapist says I put up walls as protection for myself.  Losing a child was just beyond painful, it's like I'm trying to not get too attached in case anything goes wrong.  Our doctor started talking about child birth and the future and I got very uncomfortable.  I told him my issues and how I was feeling.  Again he is so kind and said he understood,  Then he started talking statistics and viability.  He said if I went into labor today that we would have a low chance of survival, but if I went into labor in two weeks we would have 30% and in four weeks 70% and 5 weeks 90%.  He went over everything and said at this point we really need to anticipate bringing a baby home.  When he started talking about birthing classes again I got uncomfortable.  he gave me the name of a nurse that does private lessons in your home.  The idea of that sounds much better.  It's hard for me to be around 'regular' pregnant people, every time they introduce themselves, its super difficult.  Its still hard for me to hear about unplanned pregnancies or people bitching about morning sickness and classifying their pregnancy as horrible because of that.  We shall see how we both feel about things as we start to settle in with this new information.  One day at a time is all we can do.  But for now, we can celebrate this huge milestone and be happy, even if the anxiety quickly crept back in, it was still an amazing day with great news!

Thanks for Reading,
HEATHER

Week 20 - Anatomy Scan

   On Friday we had our 20 week anatomy scan.  We were both really nervous for it but I am happy to report that everything is OK and our Baby A is still our little fighter.  

   We were there for over an hour.  The ultrasound tech measures everything and then takes pictures of everything.  I told her we were still bad at reading ultrasounds so luckily she labeled everything for us.  It's amazing how tiny the baby is, yet how much detail they are able to see and show us.  We have 10 fingers and 10 toes and a cute little baby nose.  We have a really strong heart and the baby still moves a bunch.  We also saw two kidneys, a great looking spin, shin bones (which are measuring long so she thinks the baby will be tall which is awesome), arm bones and pretty much everything else.  She also was able to look at the brain and said everything looked good there too.  It was all very reassuring and great news to hear.  We have more pictures than we have ever recieved before.  As you can see on the right, we have a cute little baby face profile pic.  Most of the pictures up until now are more alien-like than human.  Some have looked like the Terminator even.  Its awesome to have moved past that and be able to see a little baby now in the photos.

   

   The only difficult part was that after all the good news, I actually started looking at the monitor which I never do.  She was pointing out all kinds of stuff and I momentarily got caught up in the excitement.  Then when she was done with Baby A, she moved over to Baby B.  As soon as she did, I was speechless.  That was the first time I saw our baby since we were here last time and received the horrible news.  Its amazing how much you can miss someone that you never met, but I really do, it's  really hard.  In the beginning it was tough for me knowing that our Baby was still inside me but now I appreciate the fact that I still have some time with it before I say goodbye.  I started taking prenatal yoga and each time they say put your hand over your baby and I always put both hands on my belly and talk to both babies.  I guess in a sense, I'm lucky that I can do that.

   The next big hurdle is our cardiology appointment next week to further check on Baby A. So more fingers crossed please for that one.

Thanks for reading,

HEATHER

Support & Thank You

Ryan and I are so grateful for all the support we have been given over the last few months.  When this first happened we felt so alone and isolated in our struggles, but mainly by choice, it was just too hard to face the world with all of our sadness.

I just wanted to express our gratitude for all of you out there that have done so much for us in your own ways.  At one point we had so many flowers and bouquets there was no more surface space to put them on.  We have recieved cards and food and texts but mainly we have recieved all the love and support that you have sent our way.   It really means alot to us and we can't thank you enough.


Much Love,
Heather & Ryan