34w4d quick update

I'll make this post short but wanted to just post a little about what has been going on! Holy moly it's been busy around here.

I had a good friend of mine, Candace, fly in from Maryland on Wednesday to throw our baby shower. We have spent most of her visit shopping and prepping for the shower. And of course, the shower itself happened on Saturday.

It was a dream come true. I couldn't imagine anything better.

I'll post a separate post all about the shower because it was so beautiful and so amazing, something I never thought I'd ever experience. My friend is a professional photographer and will be sending me the photos. Once I get them, I'll post all about it.

Kevin and I felt so loved by all of the people who joined us to celebrate little Sammy and I just can't say enough about how grateful and happy I was (and still am) that we have made it this far! I even had an amazing blog-reader-turned-friend drive all the way from Dallas to celebrate with us. I could not feel more blessed. Truly.

Candace is visiting us with her 7 week old baby girl and she is just such a sweet, good baby. It's been a treat not only having Candace here, but also her little baby girl. Candace has given me lots of great parenting, breastfeeding, and photography tips and I wish she could stay longer! And of course it's been lots of fun having the sweet smell of a baby girl around with her smiles, giggles, and even cries. All of our pets have done great with her and it's been fun having a glimpse into our not-so-distanced future.

Last week I had a biophysical profile with my MFM and Sammy passed 100%. She weighed approximately 4lb 15oz, so I'm sure she's beyond 5lb now. My MFM says that in a few days, if she were to be born, she likely wouldn't even need NICU time. Can you believe that? This amazing little girl could actually come home with us! The MFM had nothing negative to say during our appointment and even praised me for taking such good care of my gestational diabetes. Sammy shows no signs of the effects of it which makes this mama very happy.

The OB is also beyond ecstatic and my appointments these days are nothing but positive.

We had a 3d ultrasound, but Sammy didn't really cooperate so they had to reschedule us for a final one this Saturday. Here she is facepalming because we poked her too much. ;-)

Quit poking me, mom!

I ordered the DNA test we will be using to swab Sammy's cheek and Vicky's little boy to determine genetic relationships after birth. It arrived Friday and seems simple enough, It's now packed in the hospital bag.

Hmm what else? Oh, I scheduled a house cleaner to deep clean our entire house in mid-July. I'm starting to slow way down physically but still have that need to nest, you know? So we have treated ourselves to someone professionally coming in to take care of it and I'm really excited for a clean house. It's getting a little neglected these days.

So much more, but I'll leave it at that for now.

TWENTY EIGHT DAYS (or less) LEFT!

Some pink and white puffs hand-made with love by some of my friends

33 weeks and lots going on!

I'm 33 weeks today. Woo hoo!

It has been a really busy week so I'll catch you up. Starting Monday afternoon, I started feeling some abdominal pressure and didn't think much of it. I figured it was Sammy's position and it seemed to come and go depending on how I laid or walked. But Tuesday morning, I had some severe cramping that lasted about 20 minutes. It worried me, but went away after I laid down for a bit. I called my OB nurse and left a voicemail as a heads up but didn't think much of it after that since I felt much better. I still had pressure, but no pain. I went about my day, which included my first physical therapy session for my hip and back pain. On that note, it turns out I have sacroiliac joint dysfunction, in case anyone is familiar. I am hopeful that doing PT will help with all of it because it's starting to get debilitating for walking, bending, and even laying down.

After PT was over, I went into work and around 2pm got a call back from my nurse. She asked me about the pressure and cramps and said I needed to come in right away to be checked out. Yikes! I quickly left work in a hurry and they did a pelvic exam and an FFN swab test. The FFN test can tell if you are approaching labor in the next two weeks or so. They sent my results to the lab but in office found that my cervix was closed and firm, a good sign. They sent me home to rest until Friday. Luckily the FFN test came back negative and we are confident the pressure is either Sammy's position or possibly even an UTI. I should know about the UTI sometime today.

I also had my weekly MFM appointment this morning. I am getting biophysical profiles every week, not growth scans like I once thought. Sammy looked perfect, fluid looked perfect, and all is well with her. My GD is well controlled, but my dinner numbers have been going up. We added a short-acting insulin with my dinner and that should take care of that! We didn't get any pictures today but I got to see her cute little tooshie on top of her chunky little baby thighs, and her sweet little fingers moving around. She passed the BPP 100%. Next week is growth scan, so I am excited to see how big they think she is! I'm guessing over 5 pounds already?

Last night, Kevin and I went to a newborn care class at the hospital. My OB cleared me to go, despite this short-lived bedrest I am told to follow. It was really informative and I'm glad we went. Each couple got a practice baby. I'm glad ours had a smile on it's face because the couple next to us...well, their baby didn't.

Our baby is on the left, the couple sitting next to us had the baby on the right. LOL!

All in all, I'm glad things are looking stable once again and I'm taking the time to relax at home on my short-lived bedrest. Our air conditioning somehow broke yesterday (nice timing, right?) so we have an a/c guy coming out at noon to take a look. Not sure how I can survive in this house without AC. I just might melt!

And to shake things up even more, both of our cats are in for dental surgery today so I'm a little anxious about that since both of them have complicated health issues. Fingers crossed everything turns out okay.

We have our final elective 3d scan on Saturday and our breastfeeding class too. Talk about jam-packed June, right?

And I've started packing my hospital bag! Can you believe it? I swear I'm talking about someone else.

I decided to take a bump photo today since I haven't posted one in a while. Please excuse the scrubby outfit, I'm not dressed up for work today since I'm resting. And nothing like a dog photo-bomb to start the day.

So that's the excitement around here these days!

Only 39 days left. THIRTY NINE! OH MY GOSH!

I'm not a fan of tornadoes

Yesterday I made it to 32 weeks. 32 weeks started out with us at the MFM getting our weekly biophysical profile. Sammy looked great and passed all of the tests at 100%. My favorite part of the scan was noticing her chunky thighs. She is gaining some fat on them and they are just so cute! I wish I had a picture of them to share, but unfortunately we didn't get one.

I headed into work like usual and later in the afternoon we started getting tornado watches issued in the Austin area. Tornado watches don't scare me all that much because it just means conditions are favorable for one to appear. And we get watches often this time of year. I absolutely love Austin, but one of the three things I do NOT like about Austin is the threat of the occasional tornado. The other two: nasty summer heat and icky bugs, in case you're wondering. Otherwise this place is perfect!

Shortly after getting home from work and eating dinner, the tornado watch then turned into a tornado warning for the counties next to us. This meant a tornado had actually been spotted. A tornado warning isn't nearly as common and I began to worry.

Then all of the sudden, our home alarm system started going off. It was because a tornado warning had just been issued directly in our county and our alarm system notifies us so we can take shelter.

Between the loud sound of the home alarm and the bangin of the thunder, holy crap. Cue total freak out.

The storm was incredibly electrical and came with some torrential rains. I was so on edge that even every noise I heard coming from the dishwasher I'd swear was a looming tornado outside of our door! Hey, I grew up in Utah and lived in California for 10 years. This is all very new to me!

We had the news on non-stop and my anxiety continued. We got the cats together with the dog, put our shoes on JUST in case, and got ready to take cover in the bathroom as we stayed glued to the TV. The power went out for a brief moment and I think I just about lost my ever-loving mind. We could hear the crazy storm outside of our home with loud thunder crashes.

My reaction was really over the top, I get that. For those of you who are used to tornado warnings, feel free to make fun of me. But I couldn't help it. I was really, really scared!

Finally at around 11pm, things died down enough that I breathed a sigh of relief and finally relaxed a little bit.

One large tornado did take a home entirely off of it's foundation in a county near ours and damaged other homes as well. No injuries were reported, thank goodness.

I think I need to find tornado anxiety treatment classes to cope better because all joking aside, it made my blood pressure and blood glucose go way up. And I think having my body in that level of anxiety really did a number on my already fairly screwed up back. It hurts really bad today. So in reality, my anxiety itself turned out to be the most dangerous part.

And needless to say, I didn't sleep too well last night. I had dreams about tornadoes. :)

The tornado that damaged homes in the county near ours. Beautiful, yet scary!

Cottage cheese, you've made me happy!

Want a glimpse into my wacky brain?  I'm super excited at the realization that we've bought dairy products with an expiration AFTER Sammy's scheduled arrival date of July 29th. That must mean she's going to be here very, very soon! Yup. I'm weird. :)

It's similar (only in a happy way) to how I'd have realizations in October 2013 about food expirations that were on or after the estimated due date of our first loss, Maggie.

I'm just grateful for the fact that the date this time means something happy!

31w3d update

I'm so boring these days and don't know what to blog about, lol! Boring is good when you're pregnant though. The fact I'm boring means Sammy is growing without complications and we're just moving (slowly, it seems) toward her scheduled arrival on July 29! I'm 31w3d pregnant and only 50 days left until she's in my arms!

June is jam-packed with all kinds of baby-related classes, appointments, baby shower, etc. It's making all of this seem more and more real as well as getting us more and more excited. I think it's making the time move by quicker as well.

As for a GD update, my MFM and I are playing constant catch-up with my insulin dose. With GD, t's not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of thing. The bigger your placenta gets, the higher your insulin needs become. And apparently I'm at the point of pregnancy where levels go extra out of whack! So I'm slightly above goal sugar numbers right now despite eating exactly how I'm supposed to. It's pretty much a moving target! We continue to gradually up my dose every couple of days.

Sammy is moving and dancing like crazy these days. I can't believe how big she is. I can feel her whole body wiggling around and it gives me a good idea of her size. She stretches all the way across my abdomen! It still blows my mind there is a real, live human being in there. One with a cute little tooshie, wrinkly fingers and eyelashes. I love her so much. I'm finding myself trying to picture what her movements would look like outside of the body. Sometimes I swear I feel wiggling toes and fingers. Is that even possible to feel something so delicate?

I had my first somewhat normal dream about her last night. My other dreams have been freaky where she's the size of a thumb or hurt in some way. But last light she was out, she was beautiful, and I got to hold her and look at her and love on her. It was blissful. The one thing I remember in my dream was how I recognized I couldn't feel her in my belly anymore and how I missed it. So when I woke up with her still in my belly, I felt a few kicks and smiled. I'm relishing every minute I can with her inside!

Anyway, I have two appointments this week - one with my OB on Wednesday and one with the MFM on Thursday. I'm starting to have a hard time walking due to some hip/back problems on my left side but not sure they can do anything for it. I'll ask, but I figure this is just part of what third trimester looks like and I'm okay with that. As long as I can feel Sammy moving around in there, my body can give me whatever aches and pains it wants to until we make it to the finish line!

A trip to labor and delivery

Yesterday Sammy gave us quite the scare.

Starting sometime on Saturday night, I stopped feeling her move. I can usually count on her having a dance party right before bed and also first thing in the morning. I'm also used to waking up periodically throughout the night and feeling her move. Saturday night and Sunday morning, none of that happened. I told myself I'd eat breakfast, and have a half caff coffee and that would surely get her to be active.

It didn't.

Finally after trying all of the usual tricks (drinking cold water, laying on my side, etc) I started to panic since I hadn't felt any significant movement in 10 hours. I called the OB nurse and they sent me to labor and delivery to get checked out.

Every possible scenario was going through my mind from a cord accident to the idea that she might actually have to come out at 30 weeks because she was in distress.

I dreaded waking Kevin up to tell him "We need to go to the hospital because I'm not feeling the baby move." I was seriously choking on those words as they came out, as I'm sure they were horrific to hear first thing in the morning for him.

We jumped into the car, headed to the hospital, and they put me in their pre-op room because their triage room was full of expecting moms for other issues. I was hooked up to a monitor where they immediately picked up plenty of movement and a strong, normal heartbeat.

I think the straps around my belly bothered Sammy because I finally felt some strong movement and kicks myself. Finally, Sammy! I was extremely relieved. While being monitored they noticed I was having some uterine irritability and some braxton hicks, which was interesting to me seeing how I've had some mild cramping on and off the past few days. I assumed it was braxton hicks, but seeing how I have nothing to compare it to, I couldn't be sure. Now I know and that's good knowledge to have.

The pre-op bed I called home for my visit

L&D was very backed up because of how many moms and babies had arrived yesterday morning so we had a long wait. I ended up having to order hospital food for lunch because of my gestational diabetes needs. During lunch, I heard a familiar voice in the hall - it was my OB! He stopped in and gave a good pep talk. He explained he happened to be on call and had just delivered two babies! It was so nice to see him and he reassured me I did the right thing by coming in too. After lunch, the L&D OB came in and said all looked good but offered us an in depth ultrasound and cervical check. They wanted to make sure I wasn't having real contractions and they were just braxton hicks. They did warn us we would be in there a long time because of how busy they were. We agreed to the extra tests for reassurance and Kevin and I kept each other company while I sat on a pre-op bed. We were already in a much better state of mind knowing Sammy was okay and kicking.

A few hours later, an ultrasound tech came in and did a complete anatomy scan and biophysical profile. Sammy passed 100% and demonstrated all of the necessary characteristics she needed to which indicated she is not in distress. It was amazing seeing all of her sweet little body parts again on the screen - her little feet, her tiny fingers, her sweet little nose and lip. She even gave us a "thumbs up" sign during part of it. It was her way of saying "I'm okay, mom and dad! I was just playing possum! Sorry to scare you!" They estimated her weight to be around 3lb 14 oz. Kevin was just 5 lb and some change when he was born so it just blows my mind how big this little girl already is!

I also had my first internal cervical check and everything looked perfect there too. I measured in at 3.79 and no signs of opening any time soon.

Did I mention I'm relieved? Oh, I am.

I didn't think we'd get pictures from a hospital visit, but we did. Here you go!

Top left is Sammy's lips and nose and top right and Sammy's profile showing her chubby cheeks. Bottom left Sammy's profile and bottom right is the bottom of her little foot.

Other than the uncomfortable pre-op bed I sat on for 5.5 hours yesterday (which I think is a form of torture from the middle ages) screwing up my hip, we are no worse for the wear and so glad we went in. Because I can barely even type this but...if something were to happen to Sammy because I made the choice to ignore decreased fetal movement, I don't think I could deal with it. I'm glad we went in and I'm even more glad she's okay!

During our long wait in the room we heard the squeal of a tiny baby. I'm not sure if he/she had just been born or if he/she was just hanging out with mama, but it was such a sweet sound that I look forward to hearing from Sammy in July.

She's been dancing up a storm ever since. In fact, she's having a little personal dance party as I type this. It's the best feeling in the whole world!