For Father's Day yesterday, my husband got up at 7 AM with the girls, mediated four fights and two tantrums, then took them to Toys R' Us, Target, Best Buy, Linens N' Things, and Wal-Mart. He put up with naplessness and the ensuing whining, grilled pork chops for supper, bathed the girls, and did the dishes and a load of laundry. He got up at 6 this morning, so he could get to work by 7 and be home for more child duty by 4:30, when the nanny has to leave.
I think I may have to cave and let him buy the giant widescreen TV he's lusting after, as a reward for being Father of the Year. He certainly deserves it, poor man.
I got to leave the house today and go to a doctor's appointment. It was nice to see some sunshine, although it is freakin' HOT outside today, 96 degrees with heat index. I'm already flushed all the time from the Procardia, and heat doesn't help. Procardia isn't as bad as mag sulfate, which is like the aftermath of a day at the beach on spring break -- you didn't use enough sunscreen and drank too many margaritas, and you feel sunburned and nauseated and dizzy so tired you can barely move -- but it's vaguely reminiscent of it.
The doctor's appointment itself wasn't too exciting. Baby sounds fine, and I just need to keep doing what I'm (not) doing, and come in if I have contractions. Dr. Pro did say that she will be concerned if I do begin to dilate at all, because the Lagniappe is breech, and therefore at even higher risk for things like cord prolapse If I do start dilating and he is still breech, we'll be talking about hospital bedrest, and we will make the decision to deliver sooner than we would with a vertex baby. Clearly, the thing to do is not to start dilating.
78 days to go.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Bedrest
So, two days of bedrest down, and hopefully about 80 left to go.
I'm supposed to be on complete bedrest rather than just house arrest, although of course I've been experimenting to see what I can and can't do. I sat on the sofa for a couple hours yesterday and chatted with my girl Stacey, with the girls crawling up into my lap and all over me (and ran out of nifedipine to boot). That was good for a round of contractions, although they settled down after I popped a pill and lay down for a while.
My husband the jail warden says no more sitting on the sofa with the girls around, which is just rotten. I'm in the bedroom with the door closed -- can't even leave it open and baby-gated, because the poodles can jump the baby gate, and they will get excited and leap on me. (The dogs in question are 50-lb standard poodles, mind, not your grandmama's teacup Fifi.) Basically, I'm locked up alone in the bedroom, without my children or my dogs, alone with the laptop and the knitting. Doesn't that sound pathetic?
I'm hoping that the contractions will settle down in time, and I'll be able to move around the house a little more. Today, I am having them whenever I stand up, sit up, sit back down after standing up, roll over, get kicked in the cervix by the Lagniappe, or do anything other than stay in a semi-recumbent position. There's no pattern to them yet, but it feels like they're just waiting for a good excuse to fall into one.
There's a lot I wanted to do before the clock ran out on this pregnancy. I was going to make a crib quilt and bumper set for the baby's quilt -- I should show you the play quilt I made for him, it's adorable -- but that involves lots of standing up and cutting fabric, and then lots of sitting at a sewing machine. I have a maternity top cut out and ready to piece together, but I don't need it now, because I won't be leaving the house to speak of. The nursery is nonexistent (well, right now it's an occupied guest bedroom, which is a whole 'nother story), and I guess I won't be picking out paint or window treatments or decorations or furniture. I wanted to get my hair cut next week, and sort out a bunch of old clothes and take them to Goodwill or sell them on eBay, and replace the dead pansies in the flowerbed, and fold and put away the laundry. I planned to go to my sister's wedding next weekend, and my niece's birthday party the week after that, both of which are over an hour's drive away, and held outdoors. We were going to take the girls down to the Coast for the weekend, and try to get away for an evening to see a movie or two. I have business meetings to go to, which will either have to be canceled or held in my living room.
Most of all, though, I have to hang on to the baby for a while longer. I don't think I'm in imminent danger of delivering any time soon -- it's reassuring that I'm not dilating or effacing -- but that's not something I want to put to the test.
I'm supposed to be on complete bedrest rather than just house arrest, although of course I've been experimenting to see what I can and can't do. I sat on the sofa for a couple hours yesterday and chatted with my girl Stacey, with the girls crawling up into my lap and all over me (and ran out of nifedipine to boot). That was good for a round of contractions, although they settled down after I popped a pill and lay down for a while.
My husband the jail warden says no more sitting on the sofa with the girls around, which is just rotten. I'm in the bedroom with the door closed -- can't even leave it open and baby-gated, because the poodles can jump the baby gate, and they will get excited and leap on me. (The dogs in question are 50-lb standard poodles, mind, not your grandmama's teacup Fifi.) Basically, I'm locked up alone in the bedroom, without my children or my dogs, alone with the laptop and the knitting. Doesn't that sound pathetic?
I'm hoping that the contractions will settle down in time, and I'll be able to move around the house a little more. Today, I am having them whenever I stand up, sit up, sit back down after standing up, roll over, get kicked in the cervix by the Lagniappe, or do anything other than stay in a semi-recumbent position. There's no pattern to them yet, but it feels like they're just waiting for a good excuse to fall into one.
There's a lot I wanted to do before the clock ran out on this pregnancy. I was going to make a crib quilt and bumper set for the baby's quilt -- I should show you the play quilt I made for him, it's adorable -- but that involves lots of standing up and cutting fabric, and then lots of sitting at a sewing machine. I have a maternity top cut out and ready to piece together, but I don't need it now, because I won't be leaving the house to speak of. The nursery is nonexistent (well, right now it's an occupied guest bedroom, which is a whole 'nother story), and I guess I won't be picking out paint or window treatments or decorations or furniture. I wanted to get my hair cut next week, and sort out a bunch of old clothes and take them to Goodwill or sell them on eBay, and replace the dead pansies in the flowerbed, and fold and put away the laundry. I planned to go to my sister's wedding next weekend, and my niece's birthday party the week after that, both of which are over an hour's drive away, and held outdoors. We were going to take the girls down to the Coast for the weekend, and try to get away for an evening to see a movie or two. I have business meetings to go to, which will either have to be canceled or held in my living room.
Most of all, though, I have to hang on to the baby for a while longer. I don't think I'm in imminent danger of delivering any time soon -- it's reassuring that I'm not dilating or effacing -- but that's not something I want to put to the test.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Round One
Last week, we went on a family vacation to a cabin in the Smoky Mountains. It wasn't much of a vacation for me -- no hiking or whitewater rafting for the pregnant woman, and the girls were less than amused by the sleeping arrangement. I had some episodes of contractions while we were there, but nothing too major. They started up again after we got home Sunday evening, though, so off I went to see Dr. Pro on Monday. She put me on nifedipine every three hours, and told me to rest and drink water and come to L&D if they kept up
They stopped for a while, then started back up again, and stopped and started several more times through Monday and Tuesday. Every time
I was about to make up my mind to head in, they'd quit. By Wednesday afternoon, though, they had quit quitting, so in I went. Terbutaline wasn't very effective -- it never does much for me except give me the shakes -- but they ran some fluids and gave me some Stadol, and eventually they tapered off. They're back again this morning, though, so I'm sitting here waiting to see what they're going to do about them.
My cervix was still closed, so I am probably not in imminent danger of actually having the baby. From past experience, my uterus is capable of producing plenty of sound and fury, without actually doing much. Eventually, I'll most likely get sent home with instructions to take it easy and come back if anything changes, and I'm ready to skip to that part of the program (especially the part that involves breakfast). Still, I'm a little dismayed that this has started so early. I was hoping to get to 30 weeks or so before we started playing this game -- 24 weeks is, well, a little premature.
Update: the good news is that Dr. Pro let me go home, under strict instructions to come back if I feel the slightest need. The bad news is that I'm bed-resting it for the next 12 weeks.
They stopped for a while, then started back up again, and stopped and started several more times through Monday and Tuesday. Every time
I was about to make up my mind to head in, they'd quit. By Wednesday afternoon, though, they had quit quitting, so in I went. Terbutaline wasn't very effective -- it never does much for me except give me the shakes -- but they ran some fluids and gave me some Stadol, and eventually they tapered off. They're back again this morning, though, so I'm sitting here waiting to see what they're going to do about them.
My cervix was still closed, so I am probably not in imminent danger of actually having the baby. From past experience, my uterus is capable of producing plenty of sound and fury, without actually doing much. Eventually, I'll most likely get sent home with instructions to take it easy and come back if anything changes, and I'm ready to skip to that part of the program (especially the part that involves breakfast). Still, I'm a little dismayed that this has started so early. I was hoping to get to 30 weeks or so before we started playing this game -- 24 weeks is, well, a little premature.
Update: the good news is that Dr. Pro let me go home, under strict instructions to come back if I feel the slightest need. The bad news is that I'm bed-resting it for the next 12 weeks.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Finally, some reassurance
G was adamantly against doing an amnio to check for T18, but when I called my OB back and told her how worried we were, she called the perinatologist and was able to schedule us for a Level II ultrasound this week. The peri took a very thorough look at the baby, and he has none of physical abnormalities associated with T18. The peri said he would be "shocked" if the baby turned out to have a chromosomal defect, and feels that the normal ultrasound reduces our risk level enough that he wouldn't advise an amnio. Needless to say, I am VERY reassured, and have managed to dial the worrying back down to my normal level of paranoia.
Sorry for not updating sooner, but between insane work levels and my brother's graduation from med school, crazy isn't even the word. I'm so glad the baby stress has been more-or-less removed, because there's enough other stress in my life to go around, and then some.
Sorry for not updating sooner, but between insane work levels and my brother's graduation from med school, crazy isn't even the word. I'm so glad the baby stress has been more-or-less removed, because there's enough other stress in my life to go around, and then some.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Not reassured
I had a bad run of contractions Saturday morning, two hours' worth of them, every three minutes or so. I thought about going in, but at just shy of 20 weeks, they wouldn't do anything anyway. Doesn't make me feel very good about how likely I am to avoid preterm labor and premature birth, though.
Also not reassuring were my quad screen results, which came back at 1:100 for Trisomy 18. (That is, 1 of 100 women with those levels will have a baby with T18.) My OB said she still would "absolutely not" recommend an amnio, given that we didn't observe any of the other T18 anomalies. However, 1 of 275 women with nothing other than CPCs will have a T18 baby, so the quad screen has actually raised our risk profile.
Dr. Pro wants to wait and do a Level II ultrasound at 26 weeks, to look in more detail for the other T18 anomalies (echogenic bowel, clubbed feet, ventricular septal defects, and so forth), which are easier to spot after the baby gets bigger anyway. However, six more weeks is a long time to wait, when there's a 1 in 100 chance that your baby will die. 1% is actually a pretty significant chance, higher than the risk of uterine rupture in a VBAC, higher than the risk of death in a breech birth, higher than the risk of miscarriage from an amnio.
I have struggled since the beginning with the nebulous intuition that things are not going to turn out well for this pregnancy. For the most part, I've just dismissed it as paranoia, but it keeps getting harder to ignore. Now, I can't even imagine making actual preparations for the baby. The thought of picking out a crib and furnishing the nursery, knowing that there's a 1% chance we'd have to take it back down, makes me ill.
Also not reassuring were my quad screen results, which came back at 1:100 for Trisomy 18. (That is, 1 of 100 women with those levels will have a baby with T18.) My OB said she still would "absolutely not" recommend an amnio, given that we didn't observe any of the other T18 anomalies. However, 1 of 275 women with nothing other than CPCs will have a T18 baby, so the quad screen has actually raised our risk profile.
Dr. Pro wants to wait and do a Level II ultrasound at 26 weeks, to look in more detail for the other T18 anomalies (echogenic bowel, clubbed feet, ventricular septal defects, and so forth), which are easier to spot after the baby gets bigger anyway. However, six more weeks is a long time to wait, when there's a 1 in 100 chance that your baby will die. 1% is actually a pretty significant chance, higher than the risk of uterine rupture in a VBAC, higher than the risk of death in a breech birth, higher than the risk of miscarriage from an amnio.
I have struggled since the beginning with the nebulous intuition that things are not going to turn out well for this pregnancy. For the most part, I've just dismissed it as paranoia, but it keeps getting harder to ignore. Now, I can't even imagine making actual preparations for the baby. The thought of picking out a crib and furnishing the nursery, knowing that there's a 1% chance we'd have to take it back down, makes me ill.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
One in
Yesterday morning was our "official" ultrasound, the 18-week anatomy scan. We saw the gender two weeks ago at my mom's office (the perks of being the daughter of your RE's nurse!), so we were just expecting to confirm that it really was a boy, and to find out if his legs really were as long as we think they are.
Yes, he's still a boy, and yes, his little baby legs are measuring over a week ahead of the rest of him.
He also has bilateral choroid plexus cysts in his brain.
The cysts aren’t dangerous in themselves, and aren’t associated with any sort of developmental delays. None of them are especially large, although he has more than one in each hemisphere, and chances are good that they’ll spontaneously disappear before he’s born anyway. However, they’re a soft marker for chromosomal disorders, especially trisomy 18, which is vaguely similar to Down’s but is usually fatal before birth or in infancy.
No other soft markers were seen on ultrasound, which is good (although the whole scan took less than 20 minutes, so I’m not sure exactly how closely they looked for some of the subtler signs). Pubmed is all over the place on what exactly the odds are that a baby with isolated CPCs has Trisomy 18, but it seems to be something like 1:275, depending on things like maternal age and abnormal quad screen results.
I had not planned on having a quad screen done, because I didn’t want to wind up having an amnio, with its associated risk of miscarriage. However, since the torment-yourself-with-potential-false-positives part of the program is already taken care of, I signed the form for the quad screen bloodwork yesterday. If it comes back suspicious, we’ll have the amnio ASAP, because it’s very important to me to know *for sure*, regardless of my feelings about termination (which I don’t especially feel like discussing now). I don’t know when the quad screen bloodwork will be back -- I’m supposed to see the doctor again in two weeks, though I will probably call and ask about the results well before that.
My husband keeps insisting that 1:275 is really low odds, and that it’s useless to worry about this now, but I don’t think those are so low at all. Someone has to be in those numbers -- to be exact, about 150 someones this year across the US -- and I’ve been the one-in-a-large-number on more than one occasion. It most likely won’t happen to us, but there is a real and non-zero possibility that it will, and we just have to wait and find out.
Everything else was okay-ish at the doctor’s visit -- cervix looked OK on ultrasound, although they didn’t measure length or anything. We started 17-alphahydroxyprogesterone shots just in case, as a preventative measure for preterm labor, and Dr. Pro wants to follow me more closely from now on, every two weeks. We’ll start talking about nifepidine or terbutaline in a few more weeks, especially if my cervix starts looking iffy.
I hate that I am having to worry about all this -- I just want to be happy and paint the damn nursery.
Yes, he's still a boy, and yes, his little baby legs are measuring over a week ahead of the rest of him.
He also has bilateral choroid plexus cysts in his brain.
The cysts aren’t dangerous in themselves, and aren’t associated with any sort of developmental delays. None of them are especially large, although he has more than one in each hemisphere, and chances are good that they’ll spontaneously disappear before he’s born anyway. However, they’re a soft marker for chromosomal disorders, especially trisomy 18, which is vaguely similar to Down’s but is usually fatal before birth or in infancy.
No other soft markers were seen on ultrasound, which is good (although the whole scan took less than 20 minutes, so I’m not sure exactly how closely they looked for some of the subtler signs). Pubmed is all over the place on what exactly the odds are that a baby with isolated CPCs has Trisomy 18, but it seems to be something like 1:275, depending on things like maternal age and abnormal quad screen results.
I had not planned on having a quad screen done, because I didn’t want to wind up having an amnio, with its associated risk of miscarriage. However, since the torment-yourself-with-potential-false-positives part of the program is already taken care of, I signed the form for the quad screen bloodwork yesterday. If it comes back suspicious, we’ll have the amnio ASAP, because it’s very important to me to know *for sure*, regardless of my feelings about termination (which I don’t especially feel like discussing now). I don’t know when the quad screen bloodwork will be back -- I’m supposed to see the doctor again in two weeks, though I will probably call and ask about the results well before that.
My husband keeps insisting that 1:275 is really low odds, and that it’s useless to worry about this now, but I don’t think those are so low at all. Someone has to be in those numbers -- to be exact, about 150 someones this year across the US -- and I’ve been the one-in-a-large-number on more than one occasion. It most likely won’t happen to us, but there is a real and non-zero possibility that it will, and we just have to wait and find out.
Everything else was okay-ish at the doctor’s visit -- cervix looked OK on ultrasound, although they didn’t measure length or anything. We started 17-alphahydroxyprogesterone shots just in case, as a preventative measure for preterm labor, and Dr. Pro wants to follow me more closely from now on, every two weeks. We’ll start talking about nifepidine or terbutaline in a few more weeks, especially if my cervix starts looking iffy.
I hate that I am having to worry about all this -- I just want to be happy and paint the damn nursery.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
My baby will not be named...
Amelia
Bella
Cecilia
Diana
Elaine
Frances
Gabrielle
Harriet
Isabella
Julia
Kristin
Laurel
Marjorie
Nina
Ophelia
Penelope
Quinna
Rose
Sophie
Tabitha
Una
Virginia
Willow
Xena
Yvette
Zoe
Nope, we've known what to name this one for six or seven years.
Andrew Leon, our son.
Bella
Cecilia
Diana
Elaine
Frances
Gabrielle
Harriet
Isabella
Julia
Kristin
Laurel
Marjorie
Nina
Ophelia
Penelope
Quinna
Rose
Sophie
Tabitha
Una
Virginia
Willow
Xena
Yvette
Zoe
Nope, we've known what to name this one for six or seven years.
Andrew Leon, our son.
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