Awesome Ultrasound, awesome day

Got to see Miss MeMe and my cervix this morning.  She has baby fat and hair! Yay!  The tech didn’t say how much she weighed, but her measurements averaged 33w1d but I am 33w4d based on LMP.  She has consistently measured a few days behind because I ovulated later than the average 14 days rule, so it’s all good.  Due date doesn’t change for a handful of days!   Defintitely still a girl! We got some awesome pictures of her cute little baby face.  The tech let us watch her yawn and stick her tongue out.  We could see her practice breathing and trying to move in her crammed space.  She has plenty of amniotic fluid and the placenta is still good.  My cervix is a comfortable 3 cm, so not too worried there either. 

I think she has my nose, but mom and husb say she’s gonna look like him.  She has his forehead and overall shape of face.  We won’t really know until she comes out.  Either way, she’s my cutie! 

Our stroller/carseat came today and it’s gorgeous!  Husb took it out of the box and we were so giddy, it almost made us late for the appointment.  Playard is in transit, being shipped from Ohio according to the tracking #.  Should be here next week.

We have a date for the Cerclage Removal….drum roll please…….Sept 15th @ 0930.  Super yay!  MeMe’s shackles are coming off and she will be free to leave the premises! So just gotta hang out these next 3 weeks.  Soooo excited! 

The only thing that made the day suck was that it’s sooo freaking hot! I thought my skin was melting!

Anatomy scan… Another milestone!

We had our Anatomy scan for the baby at 19w2d (5/19/09) and baby is doing great. Gummy bear is measuring on target and everything looks in order. The sonographer was awesome in showing us all the different structures and carefully measuring things. She was so thorough it was amazing! Our little blob at 6w5d is now a whole being with a brain, 2 kidneys, vertebrae, heart with atria and ventricles. Just amazing! We never got to this point with the twins, so this was a HUGE milestone. Now we feel like we’re halfway home. My cervix measured at 3.1 cm, so it’s steady holding for now.  The baby’s pics were reviewed by the one of the perinatologists and he came in and was like “your baby looks good! Congrats!” That’s it. We’ll take that and go with it.

We got to see a shot of gummy bear’s privates…..

 

(look, she’s one of Rainbow Brite’s homegirls!)

Go Team Pink!!! The sonographer was pretty sure about it with a clear picture. How do we know, you ask? We could see the 3 bright parallel lines that look like a bun.  No hot dog in sight. 

We told the whole family and everyone is excited. I finally got to buy a little dress for her, not someone else.  My husb has settled on her name and isn’t gonna change his mind, instead we can just add names to it.  He says “call her what you want, but that’s gonna be her name on paper.” Okay fine…my family is just gonna call her by her Ghanaian name anyway.

13 weeks of wonder…

Had my appointment with Dr. M on Monday and all is well.  Throughout this pregnancy I’ve been using the due date that the fertility clinic gave me, but all other docs want to use the one based on my LMP…so my official EDD is Oct. 11 and every Sunday starts a new week. Yay!  We couldn’t hear gummy bear with the doppler so she had to get the belly u/s and there was baby wiggling, but down kinda deep in my pelvis. HB 163, got to see the alien face again.  Baby likes to be seen, not heard. Dr. M still says no sex since she wants my cervix to keep healing and we updated her on the peri visit.  I gave Dr. M a copy of my medical records to fax to the peri. She read it real fast and came to the same conclusion as Dr. T.  Maybe the cerclage isn’t needed.  We said we wanted the progesterone shots, but Dr. M said that won’t start until 24 weeks!!! 24 freaking weeks….that’s too far away.  She wanted to get the consultation letter from Dr. T before she settles on when to start the shots. I’ve read as early as 16 weeks, not 24, yikes! So since we still hadn’t fully decided whether or not to get stitched, we insisted on getting my cervical length measured prior to making that decision.  I had a transvag u/s on Tuesday and my cervix is closed & 4 cm in length.  No indications for a cerclage, yet.  After much discussion with my mom and husb it seems like we can afford to watch and wait. 

1. One baby buys more time.  I think my uterus got over-distended with the twins.

2. I don’t have a congenitally short cervix. But if it is incompetent, at least we’ll be sure. Next check at 17 weeks.

3. The placenta is still a little low, not like previa low, so it’s better to wait for the placenta to  move up as the uterus gets bigger.  I can’t imagine putting the stitch in and cutting into the placenta. Oh HELL NO!

4. I’m taking 3 weeks off from work to rest, starting on 4/24.  Also I’m orienting a new grad nurse so she gets to do all the hard work until my vacation, which means more resting/sitting  time for me at work. Thank you God for sending her at this time! 

If I don’t hear anything from Dr. M in the next two weeks regarding the consult from Dr. T, she told me to call the office and see what’s up. But overall, so far so good in babyland.

 Alicia called me last night because her feet are super swollen and they found protein in her urine.  She sent me a pic of her feet and she looks like she has heart failure!  I told her if her other labs come back bad or her bp stays up, they will deliver her soon, now she’s freaking out.  She’s 35/36 weeks along, baby will be fine.

Husb and I went on a day trip to San Diego to the Natural History Museum.  They had the “Body Worlds 2″ exhibit where they preserve dead bodies and display the human form.  Kinda cool and kinda creepy at the same time.  It was AWESOME to see what the diseases I talk to my patients about really looks like up close.  There was an area  about human development and we got to see little 4 to 8 week embryos in jars.  Then they had little fetuses at different weeks of the second trimester and I was very disturbed by them.  They had a fetus that was like 14 weeks along, kinda looked like the twins, and I got goosebumps.  There was a woman standing with a 20 week old fetus still developing in her womb in perfect condition.  It makes you wonder, how did she die and did she know the baby was there?  I truly hope to never see a dead fetus EVER again.

So now is the countdown for the gender scan….place your bets!  At this point anything is great! Husb prefers a girl since he has a living son and my mom says it’s a boy since my husb has made 3 boys already. My dad hasn’t weighed in yet. I just want the baby healthy and to look like me

Live and learn, Peri visit

Referral finally went through so, first peri visit on 3/27/09.  Husb and I drove like 30 miles to a teaching hospital (UCSD)  that had perinatal and genetic services. So we talked to Dr. T.  (new chick) and discussed my pregnancy history, but first, she did a quick viability u/s.  Lil’ bit is growing fine and looks more like a baby with the skeleton glowing and squirming around in there.  My husb. calls the baby “gummy bear” so he was so excited to see his gummy bear moving on the screen.  Fiesty one…think it’s a girl.  We’ve seen baby 5 times now with a great heartbeat.  At 6 w, 8w, 9w (ER), 10w, and now @ 11w2d.  So begins the talk about my history.  I had to relive the last moments with my twins. Very painful, but necessary.  According to Dr. T. my case is not clear-cut.  I could have IC or PTL or infections that started the whole process (raging UTI at the time).  In other words, she can’t really tell so I had to get my hospital record with the pathology report for her to continue to piece the picture together.  Same shit they told me when I lost the twins.  Docs don’t really know what happened.

Apparently, with “true IC” a person may have discharge, leak or break their bag of water and the cervix is already dilated so delivery happens fairly quickly.  In my case, I leaked, broke my bag, then had contractions in the ER, but I had to be induced to go into full blown labor and that happened like 5 days later since I was like 1-2 cm dilated. Plus because it was twins, it’s even trickier because of the weight of two babies, two sacs.  But I remember feeling like there was something in my cooch the night before my water broke but I wasn’t sure.  So I’m thinking IC because baby A’s sac was bulging.  Either way, we have choices and she is not jumping on the cerclage bandwagon yet due to it’s risks, especially if it’s not really necessary.  Go figure.

1. Take progesterone shots to prevent PTL that could lead to IC.

2. Get a cerclage and take progesterone to cover for IC and PTL

3. Do nothing, watch and wait, get  my cervix checked every 2 weeks and pray it doesn’t shorten or else an emergent cerclage  is needed.

In the meantime, start getting my cervix checked for length and vaginal cultures for any infections.

Hmmmmmm.  The risks of the cerclage: rupture my membranes, screw up my cervix (even more than Dr. L’s dumb ass already did with the LEEPs), infection, andor fetal demise due to early labor.  My husb made a good point that the risks of doing it are the same as the risks of not doing it.  We’ve been through the scenario before and would like to PREVENT it. Watching and waiting freaks me out because I had seen Dr. L. less than a week before my water broke.   In the two weeks that I’m waiting for another check up, I could dilate. Dr. T. said think about it, she’ll send recommendations to Dr. M. (we see her on 4/6) and to call the office if we have more questions or make up our mind.  I want to do everything to save this baby, especially since we couldn’t save baby B last time. 

We went the hospital that I delivered the twins at and got my chart.  I should’ve done that a loooong time ago, but I just didn’t have the strength.  I also realized that stupid Dr. L. should’ve gotten my pathology report and let me know what it said, but he never did.  What the hell!  Thank goodness, I am persistent and we have a new OB.  So I read the report and learned some things.

• Baby A was a boy.  So his name should be Angelus, not Angeline.  Sorry baby.  We couldn’t tell because his skin and body parts were macerated.   So we had two boys.  If they were alive, their names would’ve been totally different. Angelus’s placenta was infected and even his umbilical cord was infected.  My poor suffering son. I almost cried reading the report.  But we had to know.
• Augustin was not infected.  Could we save him, maybe.  But the risk of the infection spreading was too high.  I always miss you both.

So the choice is ours again.  I think we’ll take door # 2 .

8w5d (3/09/09)

1st OB appointment, met with NP instead.

Ultrasound showed 20.4 mm baby measuring 8w4d with heartbeat in 170′s. YAY!

Next appointment 4/6/09, referral now being made to the perinatologist.

Thank you God.