What a Week!

Last week was not like I ever Imagined it to be...  I always imagined my world would be surrounded by endless joy when it was time to meet my son. And it would have been.

Monday morning I was awoken with the tragic phone call that my little sister had died.  She has had drug problems for several years and through those years my parents have tried countless ways to save her.  Ultimately they couldn't, but it wasn't for lack of effort.  She died of an accidental heroin overdose.  The guy she was with was also using but tried to save her when she stopped breathing.  That is all of the details I will share because nobody needs the mental image of what I was left with last week.

My sister was a good person and regardless of her flaws I loved her.  Every time I talked to her she would ask about her sweet precious nephew and how she couldn't wait to meet him once he was born.  Now he will live his life knowing one less aunt.  It breaks my heart.

I new last week that I had to hold it together for the baby. If I stressed about all of those events to much it would effect him while he was still in utero.  I couldn't allow that to happen!  My goal is to always to protect not to harm.  So I set out to hold my sh*t together! That doesn't mean that I didn't have a few breakdowns along the way. 

Being as I was overdue I was not allowed to travel, which I expected but wanted to ask my doctor anyway.  He told me the earliest he would say I could travel would be two weeks after delivery.  I knew that I would miss her funeral.  She knows I would have been there if I could but protecting baby comes first.  

So last Wednesday night I was admitted.  I was apparently having contractions but could not feel them.  They weren't strong enough to make me do anything anyway considering I had not even begun to dialate or efface.  Overnight they gave me cytotech which serves with the primary goal of causing effacement.  It must have worked pretty good because I started feeling contractions on the middle of the night.  Around 6 am baby boys heart rate started to drop at the wrong time so my nurse came in, had me roll over to my left side and started some oxygen.  That seemed to work for the most part but he still had some unfavorable drops so she called my doctor.

My doctor came in around 7:45 and said I was 1cm dialated and since the babies heart rate was dropping some he wanted to break my water and put an internal monitor on the babies head.  The breaking of water was so not fun!  Imagine me grabbing the side rails and arching my back through it, but it needed to be done.  The internal monitor is this wire that has this small cork screw type thing at the end of it that they attach to the babies scalp, leaves a small scab but not to bad.  

After that they started pitocin which is supposed to aid in dilation.  The nurse told me she would come in every 30 minutes to increase the rate.  Well she only had to increase it once.  My contractions really started and let me tell you I had no idea how painful they would be!  Originally I wanted to try to labor naturally, however with the scare that baby boy gave us with the cytotech I feared that he would start having heart rate drops again and they would want to do an emergency c-section, so I opted to get the epidural early!  Not to mention I was not allowed to change positions because he was doing well with me on my left side.  I didn't want to do anything to harm him so I listened.  

The epidural was not as bad as I expected, and it was amazing how after that I did not feel anymore contractions.  Prior to the epidural my contractions were 2 minutes apart and lasting for 90-100 seconds giving me only 20-30 seconds reprieve.

Ultimately the day went quick and my sweet boy arrived safe and sound!

Oh my time flies by!

Here I am almost at the end and I can not believe that it's time for him already!  It seems like just yesterday we were still in the struggle to even get to this point.  I know one thing for sure is that this gift I have been given will not be taken for granted.  I will always remember our journey to get here.

I'm 39w4d and there is no sign of our little guy coming anytime soon.  My doc seems like he is getting nervous that my cervix is making no progress towards birthing this boy!  Last week he saw me a day earlier than he had to because he was going out of town, but he wants to see me again tomorrow even though its only been 5 days since he last saw me.  I am totally ok with whatever he thinks is best! I have a feeling he will also want me to come back on Friday.

My last day of work was this past Tuesday so I am officially on maternity leave!  I wish I could have worked up until delivery but I have to much vacation time and since our fiscal year starts in July I had to use so many of my days before then.  I still feel great so I feel like I am wasting the time I could be spending with him when he is here.  Although I will say there are parts of my house that have never been so clean!  Hopefully I can continue on that path and he will have a nice super clean house to come home too!

We finally finished the nursery today!  I will leave you with some pics!  All of the decorations on the walls were made by my husband and I.  The wreath on his door was made by a friend.

Being blog MIA!

I have been MIA from my blog for awhile now. Part of that is because I feel like I shouldn't post our joyous news all over for my infertility warriors to have to read. I feel bad that we have had a good outcome so far and I know so many cyber warriors still fighting daily for what they deserve.

I want all of my cyber infer tiles to be the moms they want to and deserve to be!!!

I am going to post an update on our baby front, I hope nobody minds! Last I left off we were just over 15 weeks and we had found out we are having a Boy!! Two glorious weeks later at 17w3d I felt a real kick for the first time! It made me giggle! My little man gave me the hope that he is a super strong little guy.

Next we had our 20 week ultrasound, which also confirmed that we are having a boy. And quiet the active little man at that! It was very hard to get good pictures of him because he was moving all over the place in there! We were able to get a couple of cute pictures, one in which he is kicking himself in the head. Crazy little baby!

Days came and went and I started to feel him kick on a regular basis. I learned his patterns, which in the beginning made me a nervous wreck! For the most part he is super active for several days in a row and then he decides to rest and be lazy for a day or so! Talk about panic the first few times it happened! I invested in a Doppler to ease my mind. Now I know it's just him!

One of my friends is pregnant (after 6 long years and several miscarriages) with a little boy and about 8 weeks behind us. It's been nice being able to give her the reassurance she needs to get through each day. I never realized how much I would worry throughout pregnancy! Her little boy seems a lot like ours in his behavior patterns so I have passed on my Doppler so she can have the reassurance she needs when she needs it!

At 28 weeks I had my glucose test and passed with a 111!! The drink was not as bad as I had anticipated it being, thank goodness! After that appointment I started going to the doc every two weeks! Which has made the last month fly by.

I am now 32w2d and everything still seems to be going well! I am starting to get nervous about the delivery, birth, and whether or not I will be a good mom, whether or not he will latch on and I will be able to breast feed... But I am so very excited!

Our little guy does not have a name yet, I have pretty much given up on this because I think I am going to have to see him in the flesh to give him a name.

We are working on our nursery, can't wait to have it all together so I can start nesting! I want to nest I just can't because the rooms not ready!! I will post a pic of the theme we are trying to duplicate (with some of our own changes and touches) and a pic of me at 2 days shy of 30 weeks.

Know that I pray for all of you still trying regularly. I only for great things to happen for all of you!

Relief!!

We had our early ultrasound today at 15w 2d and baby looks good! It was so nice after being sick all week to see the baby and breath that huge sigh of relief!!

Baby was asleep and did not really want to participate in the ultrasound but had a nice heartbeat of 153!!

And the early gender prediction is in!!! And it's a:

Sick and Pregnant

I hit the 15 week mark yesterday and am so excited!!! It really seems to be going by pretty quickly. I think all of the holidays have something to do with that.

This week however has not been the best of weeks. It has been filled with worry... I think all pregnant people probably go through it although I think it is worse when you have waited so long to get this precious gift (for us it took 2 yrs). And I think for anybody who has had a miscarriage you are always on edge with the "what If's". So this week I have had this horrible throat infection and we don't know what it is. It started on Monday with a mild little sore throat. I thought no big deal, I get these all of the time because of my allergies. I assessed my throat, it was a tad bit red and my right tonsil was slightly swollen. Because of my job I so not take anything to lightly because the last thing I want to do is take something infectious up to our unit and infect these precious children who do not have any immune system. So Tuesday morning I woke up, my throat hurt a little bit more so I took my temperature, no fever, and looked at my throat again. To my surprise my tonsils were more swollen and now had white patches on them... My concern became strep throat even though I didn't have the fever that usually goes with it. So I tried and tried to get an appointment with my regular doctors and nobody could get me in. They were all willing to just call in a prescription for antibiotics but I didn't want to put anything in my body that wasn't necessary since I am pregnant.

Finally I found an office that would see me. Strep was negative but the nurse practioner was pretty impressed with my growing tonsils (they were growing as the day progressed and with the growth came more white patches). She felt like it was probably viral and sent me on my way. She also felt that it would be ok for my to return to work on Wednesday.

Wednesday came and my tonsils continued to grow, along with all of the lymph nodes in my neck. So my neck concern was mono. I had recently taken care of a kiddo with very active mono so I figured it wouldn't hurt to also get checked out. I went to our minor med after work that night and the nurse practioner there also felt like I looked like a classic mono case. But it was negative.

Thankfully Wednesday was my last day of work for the week so yesterday I could rest and recoup. My tonsils continued to grow, I was only able to eat soft foods at this point because they were so big that was the only thing that could get through.

Friday comes (today) and they finally seem a little smaller!! I hope I am on the mend!! My sweet kitty, Cooper, has given his momma lots of extra love and attention these last few days!!!

But this sickness has left me wondering if everything is ok with the baby. Did the baby get sick while I was sick? Is this virus anything that could harm the baby? Because as a nurse I know that there are several viruses that are NOT ok to get while pregnant and I just have to hope and pray that this virus was not one of those. It scares me.

My husband and I had set up to have an elective ultrasound this Saturday in order to have a very up to date picture to give to his family to open on Christmas Eve, since that is when we will finally tell them that we are expecting. So again I have this nervous anxiety about tomorrow's ultrasound. I am very hopeful that everything is ok, but you can't help but worry. I just need s/he to be safe and healthy and happy in there.

Please Lord let tomorrow provide the peace and comfort that this recent infection has taken away from me.

Hello 2nd trimester!!!

It's so weird to think that we are officially 1/3 of the way through this pregnancy already!

Nothing really new to report.  All continues to go well and I can't wait for my next doctors appointment!  The only new symptom that I have is head aches.   I have one almost everyday, they aren't terrible just annoying and if it continues to mean good things in our future on the baby front then I will take them!

My little jumping bean!!!

This past Thursday I had my 12 week check-up!   As appointments go I was nervous about going.  I don't know what it is but a few days before each appointment this nervous anxiety kicks in....

I knew this was supposed to be an "easy" appointment and that is what I wanted it to be, but I was still nervous!   Doc brought in the Doppler and said well we will see if we can find the heartbeat with this and if not I will just role in the ultrasound machine because being this early sometimes it is hard to find with the Doppler.  All sounded good to me!  One of my biggest concerns was that they wouldn't hear it with the Doppler and then they would just send me on my way left to wonder....  Glad he was willing to use his options!

Well doc was able to find the heartbeat very quickly with the Doppler and it was the sweetest little sounds!!!  He kept losing the heartbeat because he said we had an active little baby in there!!  Yet another good thing!!  

So my 12 week appointment went by with flying colors and I have a video momento with the heartbeat on it so I can listen to it whenever I want to!  Baby had a nice strong heart rate of 165-170!

Baby must be going through a big growth spurt this weekend because I have been more exhausted then I have been in a couple of weeks!  I will take my exhaustion as a good sign!