Well, I'm officially in Utah for the duration of the pregnancy. Yeah, yeah I know I was supposed to be 2 weeks ago, but last week the I was able to go home for about 5 days. Yes, I did ask permission first. My dr said as long as my contractions were alright then I could make the decision but she didn't want to know.
Knowing that this would probably be the last chance I got to go home, I took advantage of it and went home.
It was great to be home with Bill and Ethan for a few more days. I think I needed a little more time to be alright with staying in Utah. This time, coming down was very different. I'm okay with being here and know it is in the best interest of me and the babe.
It also helps that I have Ethan for the next week due to the Harvest break.
Had my appointments today and all is going well.
He cooperated this morning with all the testing so they were able to get good shots in the ultrasound and the NST test only took 20 min, which is the regular amount of time.
His heart looks great, no hydrops anywhere, the c-pam is staying the same size. However it is getting harder to measure it as he is getting bigger. He decided to move into a transverse position instead of being head down, which is fine since he has a swimming pool to move around in.
Everything looks the same for me, keep monitoring contractions and baby movement.
Because all the appointments were on time I was able to go over into the NICU and take a tour. It was nice to be able to see where he will be and what will take place. When they tell you that they will take the babe (once born) and pass him through a window into the NICU to be assessed they aren't kidding. It looked like a nice drive through window, with the surgical room on one side and the NICU on the other.
I was able to meet two of the nurses and I have one more that I need to meet. She happens to be neighbors with my sister-in-law, but took a shift over in delivery when I was there. It will be nice to at least recognize some of the staff while we are there.
Here's to another week of growing!
I have pictures from the ultrasound that I will post as soon as I can get them scanned.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
a slight change in wheels
Since one or both of us will be heading to Utah every other week until after the lil' guy is born we decided it was a good time to do some swapping on the automotive side.
Unfortunately that meant selling our truck.
We have had this truck for 6 years and it has been wonderful, but we really needed something with a little less gas consumption. I stayed down in Utah for a week to see what I could find that would work for us.. Do you know how hard it is to find a car that will fit 3 car seats in the back seat??? And I mean a booster seat (the smallest one manufactured according to Walmart) James' car set and a infant carrier. You wouldn't think it would be that hard, but oh no! it is! 2 days and several cars later we had only found one option. Luckily for us there was one available.
With out further adieu.. Our new 2006 Ford Five Hundred
We have had this truck for 6 years and it has been wonderful, but we really needed something with a little less gas consumption. I stayed down in Utah for a week to see what I could find that would work for us.. Do you know how hard it is to find a car that will fit 3 car seats in the back seat??? And I mean a booster seat (the smallest one manufactured according to Walmart) James' car set and a infant carrier. You wouldn't think it would be that hard, but oh no! it is! 2 days and several cars later we had only found one option. Luckily for us there was one available.
With out further adieu.. Our new 2006 Ford Five Hundred
Update
Here are the happenings of the past 2 weeks..
My appointment last Monday in Utah went great. The c-pam has stopped growing, it is the same size it was 3 weeks ago. This means so much is the same but so much is beginning to change. As he continues to grow, the growth will start to give more room for all his insides including his right lung and his esophagus. Which means he will be able to swallow more fluid. My fluid level has also stayed the same which means he is definitely getting more fluid circulating through his little body.
Last Friday I ended up at EIRMC (er-mac) the hospital in Idaho Falls. But first let me give you the chronological order of how things went; Thursday night I came home from a baby shower and blamed Bill for giving me his back pain. I laid on the floor and tried to stretch it any way I could think of. It felt a little better and I fell asleep on the couch. Woke up to a jolt of pain in my back and decided it was time to go into bed. Several jolts later I was laying there thinking "Hmm... I wonder if this could be back labor.." Then fell back to sleep. Woke up late, rushed around getting the boys, mainly Ethan, ready. Made it to the bus stop with just a min to spare. Cleaned up breakfast thinking "man I wish I could stretch my back out.. this hurts" then sat on the couch and relaxed as my contractions were getting a little too frequent. Once they slowed down James and I headed out to the post office. On my way I thought maybe I should call the nurse and see what the difference is between back pain and back labor. The nurse was great and wanted to rule out any type of infection before making me drive all the way to Idaho Falls to be seen, so off we went to the clinic in Driggs. At this point my back was really hurting. I'm sure it didn't help that I had a 25 lb 18 mo old sleeping on my shoulder, but whats a mom to do? In the clinic my blood pressure was high 140/100 and my test came back negative for any type of infection, however it did show protein and glucose. Tess, the doctor I saw, came in and said" I'm sorry you don't have an infection, we are sending you to Idaho Falls to see your OB." How often do you hear a Dr say "Sorry you don't have an infection!" Back to the story, I call Bill and let him know what they said. He met me at home ready to head down. An hour later we were at my OB's office. The pain in my back was blaring at this point. It obviously showed on my face because one of the front staff checked me in and put us in a room. Then she went and told the nurse I looked like I was in labor so she put us in a room. HA!! The PA came in and went through all the normal stuff. Tested me again to make sure there wasn't any blood in my urine, in case of kidney stones. There wasn't, so she checked to make sure I wasn't dilating and they sent us on our way to Labor and Delivery for some meds. The Labor and Delivery nurse was awesome. The pain on the other hand was excruciating. I couldn't even stand up straight. After they got the monitors on and called my OB to see what she wanted them to do. She came back in with a shot and an IV. She said they hadn't received the orders yet but my contractions were about 4 min apart so they were giving me the meds right then. Luckily it worked and they all but went away. They let us go after I drained my IV bag and had only had 2 contractions in 1.5 hours. The pain in my back was back to what it had felt like the night before and I was able to ride home in a little more comfort. By Saturday evening I didn't have any pain in my back. For those of you that have had back labor I'm so so sorry and I empathize with you. I would never wish that upon anyone.
We go in on Thursday for the next ultrasound. I will have an update hopefully by the weekend.
My appointment last Monday in Utah went great. The c-pam has stopped growing, it is the same size it was 3 weeks ago. This means so much is the same but so much is beginning to change. As he continues to grow, the growth will start to give more room for all his insides including his right lung and his esophagus. Which means he will be able to swallow more fluid. My fluid level has also stayed the same which means he is definitely getting more fluid circulating through his little body.
Last Friday I ended up at EIRMC (er-mac) the hospital in Idaho Falls. But first let me give you the chronological order of how things went; Thursday night I came home from a baby shower and blamed Bill for giving me his back pain. I laid on the floor and tried to stretch it any way I could think of. It felt a little better and I fell asleep on the couch. Woke up to a jolt of pain in my back and decided it was time to go into bed. Several jolts later I was laying there thinking "Hmm... I wonder if this could be back labor.." Then fell back to sleep. Woke up late, rushed around getting the boys, mainly Ethan, ready. Made it to the bus stop with just a min to spare. Cleaned up breakfast thinking "man I wish I could stretch my back out.. this hurts" then sat on the couch and relaxed as my contractions were getting a little too frequent. Once they slowed down James and I headed out to the post office. On my way I thought maybe I should call the nurse and see what the difference is between back pain and back labor. The nurse was great and wanted to rule out any type of infection before making me drive all the way to Idaho Falls to be seen, so off we went to the clinic in Driggs. At this point my back was really hurting. I'm sure it didn't help that I had a 25 lb 18 mo old sleeping on my shoulder, but whats a mom to do? In the clinic my blood pressure was high 140/100 and my test came back negative for any type of infection, however it did show protein and glucose. Tess, the doctor I saw, came in and said" I'm sorry you don't have an infection, we are sending you to Idaho Falls to see your OB." How often do you hear a Dr say "Sorry you don't have an infection!" Back to the story, I call Bill and let him know what they said. He met me at home ready to head down. An hour later we were at my OB's office. The pain in my back was blaring at this point. It obviously showed on my face because one of the front staff checked me in and put us in a room. Then she went and told the nurse I looked like I was in labor so she put us in a room. HA!! The PA came in and went through all the normal stuff. Tested me again to make sure there wasn't any blood in my urine, in case of kidney stones. There wasn't, so she checked to make sure I wasn't dilating and they sent us on our way to Labor and Delivery for some meds. The Labor and Delivery nurse was awesome. The pain on the other hand was excruciating. I couldn't even stand up straight. After they got the monitors on and called my OB to see what she wanted them to do. She came back in with a shot and an IV. She said they hadn't received the orders yet but my contractions were about 4 min apart so they were giving me the meds right then. Luckily it worked and they all but went away. They let us go after I drained my IV bag and had only had 2 contractions in 1.5 hours. The pain in my back was back to what it had felt like the night before and I was able to ride home in a little more comfort. By Saturday evening I didn't have any pain in my back. For those of you that have had back labor I'm so so sorry and I empathize with you. I would never wish that upon anyone.
We go in on Thursday for the next ultrasound. I will have an update hopefully by the weekend.
Communication..
On our drive to Utah that fateful August day, we had a lot of time to think and talk about everything. Enevitably you get to a point where there isn't much to say and all you do is sit and think.
This is never good, it allows your emotions to take control and your thoughts tend to snowball out of control.
When Bill was on the phone I was struggling with this and decided to pray instead of just think. After I calmed down a bit I looked out my window and was astonished at what I saw in the sky.
Yup, that was our angel. Giving me comfort and letting me know everything was in His hands.
Isn't that incredible? I'm forever grateful for the way Heavenly Father communicates to us when we are in need.
This is never good, it allows your emotions to take control and your thoughts tend to snowball out of control.
When Bill was on the phone I was struggling with this and decided to pray instead of just think. After I calmed down a bit I looked out my window and was astonished at what I saw in the sky.
Yup, that was our angel. Giving me comfort and letting me know everything was in His hands.
Isn't that incredible? I'm forever grateful for the way Heavenly Father communicates to us when we are in need.
Faith, Prayer and Miracles
August 2, 2011
I got up early in order to make it to the 8:30 ultrasound appointment in Idaho Falls. Unfortunately Bill was unable to make it to this appointment so I asked my good friend Nancy to come with me.
The lil' guy was looking great. He was cooperating and moving just the right way in order for Leslie (the u/s tech) to get the right shots she needed too. Unfortunately that all crumbled to dust when we looked at his heart. He had fluid on the side of his heart.
When you have had 1 or more ultrasounds a week for 5 weeks now, you get pretty used to looking at your child. You know what you’re looking at and what you’re looking for. When she moved over to his heart, my heart stopped. I saw the pocket of fluid before she even said anything.
She took measurements of the pocket and stepped out to call Dr. Ball with the MFM group. When she came back in, she took more pictures and waited for Dr. Ball to call back. In the mean time I called Bill and let him know what was going on and that it looked like we would be heading to Salt Lake as soon as I got back.
Dr. Ball's instructions were exactly that, go straight to the University Hospital and see Dr. Byrne. They also prepared me that there was a good chance we would be delivering him today and even though he was small there was still a good chance of survival with the doctors and teams at the U and at Primary’s.
So instead of spending the whole day in Idaho Falls checking items off my "to do" list, Nancy and I went to Walmart for my pills and headed home.
At this point I was a little foggy in knowing what to do or calling anyone so Bill took over and started letting people know and getting things planned out.
During the drive home, our wonderful friend Cathy came over to the house and got the boys all packed up as well as my bag all packed. Which I'm sure was a feet since looking back on the phone calls I dont know that I actually gave a straight answer as to what to pack.
When I got home we were pretty much ready to go. Bryan and Cathy so generously kept Ethan for a couple days until they headed down to Utah as well.
Bill, James and I all headed down to Utah with no idea about what was going to happen when we got there. I'm pretty sure we made record time getting down there and Bills parents met us at the University Hospital so they could take James back with them.
As things would go, we got there just after the Ultrasound Center closed and Dr. Byrne had just left. Still knowing the situation, they checked us in and put us in a room where they could monitor the lil' guy. After a little bit they had a team of doctors come in with a portable ultrasound machine to see what was going on.
They started the ultrasound and I could not believe what I was seeing. Where there had been a large pocket of fluid that morning was now just a sliver of fluid that you wouldn't even see unless you knew what to look for. It almost made me second guess what we had seen that morning but I knew what I had seen and I knew the miracle that had happened.
We learned a lot about C-CAMs and C-PAM's that night. Those doctors were very knowledgeable and explained things so we understood more of what was going on. After they got done with the ultrasound they conferred with each other and decided they didn't see any reason to keep him overnight and sent us home with appointments to come back the next day.
We were in shock, we basically went down thinking we may be having this baby today and ended up leaving the hospital that night. The miracle we witnessed was just incredible. Had we been able to get down before everyone went home things could have gone very differently. A testament to the power of prayer, faith and blessings.
The next couple days were a whirlwind of ultrasounds, heart echos, Dr. appointments and information. We were able to meet Dr. Byrne, who will be the delivering Dr., and review everything with her. She shocked us both when she said her goal was to get us to 37 weeks before he would be born and that I could stay in Idaho as long as I came down to Utah every other week for an ultrasound at the U/S Center and had an ultrasound on the off weeks in Idaho Falls.
Driving home Friday was one of the best days I have had thus far. I could not believe the change in our situation from one day to the next.
We are eternally grateful for all the prayers and faith that were sent our way and to our Heavenly Father who answered those prayers and gave us miracles.
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