Although it's hard to see ....he's giving me the finger in the picture. I was seriously disturbing his cuddle time with the placenta. Love it.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Sweet Baby Boy.
Although it's hard to see ....he's giving me the finger in the picture. I was seriously disturbing his cuddle time with the placenta. Love it.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
A-okay
Amazing what a decent night of sleep and another ultrasound can do for peace of mind.
Although ...the night of sleep. Geezus. Baby A2 fairly recently started sleeping through the night consistently. Like ..maybe 2 months ago. 3 weeks ago, he started talking/yelling in his sleep. All. Night. Long. Last night, he kept yelling "SUPERMAAAAAN" about every 10 minutes. I've resigned myself to no sleep for the next 10 years or so.
Anyway ...I called the OB and she sent me right over for a formal ultrasound. The placenta is thankfully - so very thankfully - now more than an inch away from the cervix and pulling farther away all of the time. I drank approximately 27 gallons of water between yesterday and today (clearly, an exaggeration ...but omg. the water) and fluid levels were much, much better today.
The only problem is that I was contracting throughout the ultrasound. Umm. Still have really good cervix length, though.
Although ...the night of sleep. Geezus. Baby A2 fairly recently started sleeping through the night consistently. Like ..maybe 2 months ago. 3 weeks ago, he started talking/yelling in his sleep. All. Night. Long. Last night, he kept yelling "SUPERMAAAAAN" about every 10 minutes. I've resigned myself to no sleep for the next 10 years or so.
Anyway ...I called the OB and she sent me right over for a formal ultrasound. The placenta is thankfully - so very thankfully - now more than an inch away from the cervix and pulling farther away all of the time. I drank approximately 27 gallons of water between yesterday and today (clearly, an exaggeration ...but omg. the water) and fluid levels were much, much better today.
The only problem is that I was contracting throughout the ultrasound. Umm. Still have really good cervix length, though.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Overwhelm.
I'm currently curled up in bed cuddling a lovey two year old and panicking.
Curiosity kills the cat. I was overwhelmed with gender obsession today and asked one of the docs I was working with to take a peek. We think there is probably a penis. Think. It could have been a hand. Or a cord.
Also? Happened to notice that I stil have complete previa. And really low amniotic fluid.
I'm not really sure what to do with this info other than panic. I did drink about six gallons of water, left work, and came home to lay on my left side. I'll talk to the regular ob tomorrow..and see the Mfm on the 25th. And obssess about congenital defects and abruption in the interim.
I'm exhausted and crabby. Work is in major suck mode. Right now my best case scenario seems to lead to bed rest, financial ruin, and no maternity leave.
Maybe I'll just go to sleep.
Curiosity kills the cat. I was overwhelmed with gender obsession today and asked one of the docs I was working with to take a peek. We think there is probably a penis. Think. It could have been a hand. Or a cord.
Also? Happened to notice that I stil have complete previa. And really low amniotic fluid.
I'm not really sure what to do with this info other than panic. I did drink about six gallons of water, left work, and came home to lay on my left side. I'll talk to the regular ob tomorrow..and see the Mfm on the 25th. And obssess about congenital defects and abruption in the interim.
I'm exhausted and crabby. Work is in major suck mode. Right now my best case scenario seems to lead to bed rest, financial ruin, and no maternity leave.
Maybe I'll just go to sleep.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Hi ho ..hi ho ...it's off to MFM I go.
I can't quite getting used to seeing "advanced maternal age" as a diagnosis on my check-out sheet when I leave the OB office. I swear to God I'm still in high school. Advanced age?? Seriously?
But yeah ...apparently seriously. This two step integrated NT scan thing is becoming a pain in my keister. I had the second draw done just yesterday. Which um...doesn't make sense to me. I thought that the whole point of the test was to get results in the first trimester? Anyway. They still don't anticipate having results for another couple of weeks ...and I'm old ...and had another episode of bleeding on Wednesday at work so I'm being turfed to MFM. I'm not sure for how long. My weight is already up 6 pounds ...which isn't a great thing this early in the pregnancy. I keep trying to remind myself that I'm starting this pregnancy out 30 pounds lighter than the last one ...but I really liked my 13 pound gain for the entire pregnancy the last time. It's probably up 12 pounds today, in all honesty ...because I bought a loaf of pretzel bread at Whole Foods and between baby A2 and I, the entire thing might already be gone. My god it's good.
AHHHHHH. Sorry. Had to get that out. Stupid pelvic pain from symphysis pubis dysfunction is back. Already. I could cry just thinking about it, honestly. I'm going to attempt to start PT now - even though they say it's useless and the pain is mild right now. There's NO way I can go through what I did post-partum with the last pregnancy. Can. Not. Do. It. So ..I'll push through whatever during this pregnancy in an attempt to come out at the end with some muscle tone somewhere. I'm really, really nervous about having this pain with my job. Even on "limited" activity at work, I'm walking at least 4 miles a day. By my fourth 12 hour day, every step is painful. Towards the end of the last pregnancy, I could barely walk 10 feet without crying. The OB still wants me off work - or at the very least working no more than 6 hours a day. I convinced her to let me push through until I see the MFM so I can try and come up with some sort of compromise. I have to work if we want to eat and keep our house.
Other than the terrifying episode of bleeding, we've had a really good week. I'm trying to adjust to having an almost 16 year old that has friends that are driving her all over everywhere. It's painful. And scary. And somewhat wonderful to see her blossom. We spent the day at the Detroit Zoo on Thursday. Baby A2 could not be more fascinated by everything zoo lately. My town has a cute little zoo that is the perfect size for him - with mostly farm animals. He can run through the entire thing without a stroller and goes nearly every day with his Mimi (my mom). The BIIIIIIIG zoo, as he calls it, was completely fascinating. We spent over an hour watching the gorillas and chimps alone. And I spent at least 20 minutes trying to convince him that an anteater was not, in fact, an elephant despite the long nose. Too freakin' cute.
Hope everyone else is having a great summer!
But yeah ...apparently seriously. This two step integrated NT scan thing is becoming a pain in my keister. I had the second draw done just yesterday. Which um...doesn't make sense to me. I thought that the whole point of the test was to get results in the first trimester? Anyway. They still don't anticipate having results for another couple of weeks ...and I'm old ...and had another episode of bleeding on Wednesday at work so I'm being turfed to MFM. I'm not sure for how long. My weight is already up 6 pounds ...which isn't a great thing this early in the pregnancy. I keep trying to remind myself that I'm starting this pregnancy out 30 pounds lighter than the last one ...but I really liked my 13 pound gain for the entire pregnancy the last time. It's probably up 12 pounds today, in all honesty ...because I bought a loaf of pretzel bread at Whole Foods and between baby A2 and I, the entire thing might already be gone. My god it's good.
AHHHHHH. Sorry. Had to get that out. Stupid pelvic pain from symphysis pubis dysfunction is back. Already. I could cry just thinking about it, honestly. I'm going to attempt to start PT now - even though they say it's useless and the pain is mild right now. There's NO way I can go through what I did post-partum with the last pregnancy. Can. Not. Do. It. So ..I'll push through whatever during this pregnancy in an attempt to come out at the end with some muscle tone somewhere. I'm really, really nervous about having this pain with my job. Even on "limited" activity at work, I'm walking at least 4 miles a day. By my fourth 12 hour day, every step is painful. Towards the end of the last pregnancy, I could barely walk 10 feet without crying. The OB still wants me off work - or at the very least working no more than 6 hours a day. I convinced her to let me push through until I see the MFM so I can try and come up with some sort of compromise. I have to work if we want to eat and keep our house.
Other than the terrifying episode of bleeding, we've had a really good week. I'm trying to adjust to having an almost 16 year old that has friends that are driving her all over everywhere. It's painful. And scary. And somewhat wonderful to see her blossom. We spent the day at the Detroit Zoo on Thursday. Baby A2 could not be more fascinated by everything zoo lately. My town has a cute little zoo that is the perfect size for him - with mostly farm animals. He can run through the entire thing without a stroller and goes nearly every day with his Mimi (my mom). The BIIIIIIIG zoo, as he calls it, was completely fascinating. We spent over an hour watching the gorillas and chimps alone. And I spent at least 20 minutes trying to convince him that an anteater was not, in fact, an elephant despite the long nose. Too freakin' cute.
Hope everyone else is having a great summer!
Thursday, June 30, 2011
16 weeks
LAZY THOUGHT BUBBLES POST
- Things are still chugging along here. I'm feeling ...well....HUGE. Seriously. It's out of control. Not a ton of weight gain but I'm so firmly into maternity clothes it's not even funny. At 16 weeks. I can't figure it out. I was barely - and I mean barely - showing at this point with A2 ..and not at all with the golden child.
- Baby A2 turned 2 (two!?!?) last week. We had a really, really good time and celebrated over 2 days. He thoroughly enjoyed everything about the birthday celebration ...especially the Elmo and Cookie Monster cake pops and blowing out candles. Seventy four times blowing out candles. So much fun.
- We had the kids wear "oldest" and "middle" child shirts to the birthday party and finally came out of the closet to my family. They felt mildly silly when I pointed out that I was wearing maternity clothes.
- I'm not even kidding when I say that waiting 16 weeks to tell family (including my mom!) gave me a new understanding of how women and teens try to hide their pregnancies. Every day that went by made me more reluctant to tell people and more worried about what their reactions would be. I made myself sick with anxiety about it on the morning of the party ....and then everything was fine.
- No more bleeding for now ...though I've had some pretty intense cramping on a couple of days. I remain pretty nervous ....actually, very nervous.
- I'm still so. freaking. short of breath. It's to the point now where it significantly limits my activity. I talked to a cardiologist that I work pretty closely with about it and he dragged me up to his office for an echocardiogram right away yesterday while I was at work. I was about ready to throw up waiting for the tech to put the ultrasound on me. About half way through the test, the cardiologist walked in the room to tell me what he was seeing. This was bad for a couple of reasons:
- A doctor I work with every single day walked in to see me laying on a cart topless with naked disgusting I just breastfed for 2 years and now I'm pregnant again boobs. I don't know that he'll ever recover from that image.
- Him giving me a play by play of what he was seeing was not nearly as reassuring as you would think it would be. He told me right away that my ejection fraction was normal - which WAS a huge relief. It was what I was worried most about. No evidence of pregnancy induced cardiomyopathy. Then he says to the tech, "Is that real?" to which she responds, "Not sure yet." And then I committed myself to an inpatient psychiatric ward. The end. No seriously ...he thought that he saw a significant anomaly in the septal wall of my heart but wanted to confirm after the test was done. I was on late shift this week, so he came down to find me in the ER around 11 p.m. and said he wanted a couple of extra images. I nearly pooped my pants. In the end - everything turned out fine. He thinks it's a normal variant when he got the extra pictures, but wants to follow up after pregnancy. Umm.. Geezus. It was a nerve wracking couple of hours.
- Now we just sit back and wait. Next ultrasound in a few weeks....should find out gender. Still waiting for the results of the NT scan. We won't even go there yet.
- How's everything with all of you?? I suck at commenting...mostly because I can read blogs at work but get blocked from commenting by the censors. Incredibly annoying. I'm working on it ...I promise.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Relief.
I went in for an ultrasound/OB appointment on Tuesday. Baby looks good. Flip flopping all around. It's so weird to have ultrasounds this frequently ....he/she totally looks like a baby now. Like ...a baby baby instead of a blob. Crazy. The SCH is still there but tiny. My placenta is lying directly on top of my cervix ...so at this point the OB is not sure if the continued bleeding is from the SCH or from the placenta. In either case, I get to continue with weekly appointments and every other week ultrasounds. And pelvic rest. Seriously. The pelvic rest is killing me. Not to mention Monk.
I opted for the NT scan integrated two step test instead of amnio ...we'll see what kind of wreck that makes me. I completely forgot to ask if there was a nasal bone present. The NT measurement was 1.4 ...and seriously, I was ecstatic for like an hour over that. As if it meant it guaranteed a perfectly healthy living baby 6 months from now ecstatic. I tend to think that the blood draw will increase my risk again ...but I guess I'll deal with that bridge when I come to it.
Baby A's mood/temperament went completely back to normal on my 3rd day home from work ...so I'm still thinking that it was a get your butt home kind of communication. He still uses his siren song whine, but in short intervals and clearly to express his displeasure in something (having to take a bath before we go to the park, etc.).
I'm struggling at work, lately. I've gone through this periodically throughout my career, and it usually passes on it's own but this is a particularly difficult round. I spend the majority of my time in a tiny little dictation room in the ER. The dictation room is directly across the hall from a "consult room" where they put families that have loved ones that are critically ill so that we can go and talk to them. Unfortunately, they also use it for a dead body viewing room if someone dies in the ER. It's uncomfortable, at best, because you end up trying to work 3 feet away from a family at the height of grief/shock ...there is usually wailing, screaming, sometimes violence. Very, very uncomfortable. Last week, there was a major accident on one of the nearby highways involving 10 cars and a 5 year old died. I sat and listened to a mother wail for 3 hours before I lost it myself and had to leave. Yesterday, a 20 year old came in after overdosing on a new - legal - street drug.
I can't figure out how to deal with the emotion of it all appropriately in this little space.
I opted for the NT scan integrated two step test instead of amnio ...we'll see what kind of wreck that makes me. I completely forgot to ask if there was a nasal bone present. The NT measurement was 1.4 ...and seriously, I was ecstatic for like an hour over that. As if it meant it guaranteed a perfectly healthy living baby 6 months from now ecstatic. I tend to think that the blood draw will increase my risk again ...but I guess I'll deal with that bridge when I come to it.
Baby A's mood/temperament went completely back to normal on my 3rd day home from work ...so I'm still thinking that it was a get your butt home kind of communication. He still uses his siren song whine, but in short intervals and clearly to express his displeasure in something (having to take a bath before we go to the park, etc.).
I'm struggling at work, lately. I've gone through this periodically throughout my career, and it usually passes on it's own but this is a particularly difficult round. I spend the majority of my time in a tiny little dictation room in the ER. The dictation room is directly across the hall from a "consult room" where they put families that have loved ones that are critically ill so that we can go and talk to them. Unfortunately, they also use it for a dead body viewing room if someone dies in the ER. It's uncomfortable, at best, because you end up trying to work 3 feet away from a family at the height of grief/shock ...there is usually wailing, screaming, sometimes violence. Very, very uncomfortable. Last week, there was a major accident on one of the nearby highways involving 10 cars and a 5 year old died. I sat and listened to a mother wail for 3 hours before I lost it myself and had to leave. Yesterday, a 20 year old came in after overdosing on a new - legal - street drug.
I can't figure out how to deal with the emotion of it all appropriately in this little space.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Guilt.
Surprisingly enough, I worked all six of my 12 hour shifts. It'll actually end up being the biggest single paycheck of my life to date. It's taking everything I have to store it away in a maternity leave fund and not shop til I drop for my entire 5-6 days off. Yikes. The bleeding completely stopped during my stretch of work ..and I thought ...yayayay. Then I was home for a single day and it started again.
Baby A2 is going through a really difficult phase right now. I'm not sure if I should blame it on me being gone for too long during that work stretch or some other quickly approaching milestone that I'm not paying attention to. He sounds like a broken siren all day. He literally whines/cries nearly the entire day for umm...no particular reason that I can figure out. He's always been a super happy mellow little thing. This is totally throwing me for a loop. One of his favorite things (besides the zoo and the park) is to go out to eat. Loves it. Totally sociable, engages the waitress, gets excited about the food. We went out twice yesterday because we were out of town and umm. Holy disaster. As in ...ohmygod. How freaking embarrassing?? At the mall, we passed by the pretzel place and he literally threw himself on the ground shrieking "HOT NUMMIES!! HOT NUMMIES!!" which um. Okay. If I thought it would have helped, I would have bought him a stinking pretzel. But it clearly was not going to help. What was helpful, however, was the lady that walked by and commented that he was a wretched brat. To which I replied, "Yeah ..well. We all have our days." And seriously. I know he'll be 2 in a few weeks and this is likely the beginning of what's to come . I think I must have forgotten how truly awful this stage is ...or I'm missing something big going on with the little guy right now.
Which brings me to a confession of sorts. So ..it turns out I was still breastfeeding when I got pregnant. Not often. We were down to like once every other day ...but the kid would not give it up. I was over it. Like ...over it with a capital O. He was not so much. At all. And then, as soon as I got pregnant, nursing was extraordinarily uncomfortable. Psychologically, physically, the whole bit. And I sort of cut him off cold turkey. As cold turkey as you can get when you're already on an every other day schedule. But this crazy behavior makes me think that he wasn't ready. He still asks to nurse 3 or 4 times every. single. day. And mostly, if he's not asking to nurse? He's got his hand down my shirt feeling me up. Feeling anyone up, really. My mom watches him while monk and I are at work, and the two of them have a very close bond. The other day I was getting ready to leave, and I hear him ask her to nurse him. She busted out laughing. The poor little thing. I think he feels abandoned or something.
Mommy guilt. Somehow, it's always going to be something I did wrong.
Baby A2 is going through a really difficult phase right now. I'm not sure if I should blame it on me being gone for too long during that work stretch or some other quickly approaching milestone that I'm not paying attention to. He sounds like a broken siren all day. He literally whines/cries nearly the entire day for umm...no particular reason that I can figure out. He's always been a super happy mellow little thing. This is totally throwing me for a loop. One of his favorite things (besides the zoo and the park) is to go out to eat. Loves it. Totally sociable, engages the waitress, gets excited about the food. We went out twice yesterday because we were out of town and umm. Holy disaster. As in ...ohmygod. How freaking embarrassing?? At the mall, we passed by the pretzel place and he literally threw himself on the ground shrieking "HOT NUMMIES!! HOT NUMMIES!!" which um. Okay. If I thought it would have helped, I would have bought him a stinking pretzel. But it clearly was not going to help. What was helpful, however, was the lady that walked by and commented that he was a wretched brat. To which I replied, "Yeah ..well. We all have our days." And seriously. I know he'll be 2 in a few weeks and this is likely the beginning of what's to come . I think I must have forgotten how truly awful this stage is ...or I'm missing something big going on with the little guy right now.
Which brings me to a confession of sorts. So ..it turns out I was still breastfeeding when I got pregnant. Not often. We were down to like once every other day ...but the kid would not give it up. I was over it. Like ...over it with a capital O. He was not so much. At all. And then, as soon as I got pregnant, nursing was extraordinarily uncomfortable. Psychologically, physically, the whole bit. And I sort of cut him off cold turkey. As cold turkey as you can get when you're already on an every other day schedule. But this crazy behavior makes me think that he wasn't ready. He still asks to nurse 3 or 4 times every. single. day. And mostly, if he's not asking to nurse? He's got his hand down my shirt feeling me up. Feeling anyone up, really. My mom watches him while monk and I are at work, and the two of them have a very close bond. The other day I was getting ready to leave, and I hear him ask her to nurse him. She busted out laughing. The poor little thing. I think he feels abandoned or something.
Mommy guilt. Somehow, it's always going to be something I did wrong.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)