Appointment update

So I had my doctor's appointment today. My fluid has dropped this week. So we have to stop my medication and hope it goes back up. Taking it extra easy to keep contractions down. So far everything else is still stable. Fingers crossed.

26 weeks

So I know I was going to write every week, but I felt it was getting redundant. So here is my 26 week update. So far everything has stayed pretty stable. The medicine has kept my contractions down for the most part. I had 1 day a fews ago where I had more. I went in to the hospital and they gave me a shot that slowed everything down. Another day, I had more but was able to get then to slow down drinking lots of water.

My fluid has stay around 8.7. It needs to be above 5 to stay on my medicine. My doctor is going to do a fetal growth during my ultrasound on Monday to make sure my little guy is still growing okay.

My latest struggle has been a cold the last few days. Other than that things are going as expected.

Holding strong

So I'm 23 weeks today. I've gained about 10 lbs so far and look pregnant now, so people tell me.

My appointment this week was a little weird. Because I have to go in every week scheduling can get a little tricky. They double booked me with someone else, so I had a different ultrasound tech. She definitely didn't do things the way I've seen them in the past. She finished my cervical measurements. They were between 1.8-2.5. My doctor likes to take the average, but my specialist takes the shortest measurement. So that is a little bit shorter than the 2.2 I was the week before. 

When she went to measure my amniotic fluid, which I had to tell her needed to be done, she didn't do a very good job. Usually they will do what looks like cross hairs in each pocket of fluid giving them a volume index. She did some interesting things. Normally the tech will tell me what the number is before I meet with the doctor. I didn't even bother asking because I figured it wouldn't be accurate. When my doctor came in later, she said what I had been thinking. She didn't think the measurements were accurate, but based off the pictures there seemed to be plenty of fluid. I was a little unsure since the whole reason I'm coming in every week is to check this number. Hopefully next week, when I have someone more capable doing the ultrasound, everything will be fine. 

The medicine seems to keep my contractions under control for the most part. It worked pretty good my last pregnancy as well. So we will keep on this track until my fluid drops. I will be at 24 weeks at my next appointment, which is the first week of viability. At 23 weeks chances are between 25-30%. This jumps up to 50-70% for 24-25 weeks. Every week is a victory. 

I've been trying to keep busy with color books, reading, and netflix. Of course we still have "J" to entertain us during the day. My mom and dad have been a big help with him and things around the house. Happy eggplant week!

Pregnancy marathon begins again.

So I haven't written a blog post in over a year. I figured this was the easiest way to update people on our latest pregnancy saga. This will be partly a journal for me as well so bare with all the numbers.

For those of you not in the loop, I'm pregnant with a baby boy due December 28, 2017. I will be 22 weeks on Thursday. We found out at our 20 week ultra sound that my cervix was already shortening to 2.5 cm. Average for 24 weeks is 3.5 cm. After my doctor not saying much, I attempted to go to work that Saturday. My co-workers promptly sent me home and I told my boss I needed to figure some things out. I contacted my doctor the following Monday and got a referral to see a Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist. They called the next day and got me in on Wednesday.

Dr. Blea was amazing. He told me everything that I wanted to hear from my regular doctor. He was concerned that I was having contractions this early and wanted to monitor me. I was admitted to the hospital for observation. There are only a few medications they can give me this early on. Most of the medications we used last time can't be used until 24-25 weeks. They put me on a medication called Indocin. It can only be used for 2-3 days because of the side effects. I switched to a medication called sulindac, which I used last time. It seems to be working to slow down my contractions but doesn't get rid of them.

Part of using sulindac is the weekly ultrasound to check my amniotic fluid levels and check my cervical length. At my appointment today, my cervix was measuring 2.2 cm. It hasn't changed much in the last 2 weeks which is promising. I've been taking it pretty easy though. I had several doctors tell me that bed rest is not proven to prevent preterm labor and carries other risks. I like to use common sense, if I'm having contractions I'm going to lie down and do nothing. My doctor is concerned about my mental sanity being stuck inside all the time. I wanted to tell her that I already did this last time to 2 months and I'm a boss.

My amniotic fluid level was 13, which is in the normal range. They want it to stay above 5. If we get close to 5 then I'll have to stop my medication. When I was pregnant with Jack, every time I went off the medication my contractions picked up and my cervix shortened. I told the doctor I was shooting for 25 weeks at this point. She said 28 would be better. I explained that while I would like to stay pregnant as long as possible I need to at least get to the point where the baby is viable for my piece of mind.

I will try to put a weekly update on here. I should be having my appointments on Tuesdays. Feel free to check back if you are interested.

Almost a year

I didn't realize how long it had actually been since I posted anything. It has almost been a whole year. Some much has gone on. Lots of ups and downs.

1. We finally got Gavin's mystery disease diagnosed. He has Parsonage Turner Syndrome. Essentially, the nerves in both of Gavin's arms got attacked by a cold virus he had. It is pretty rare and has a two year recovery process. Gavin has gone through a lot of pain and has been unable to do a lot of things he loves. He is almost a year out at this point and while his nerves are healing he still fatigues very quickly.

2. Again fun for Gavin. Gavin had a perilymphatic fistula (hole from the middle to the inner ear) on his mission. It took 18 months of his mission to figure out and he then had surgery to correct it. The summer before I met Gavin he started having problems with vertigo again, but he is pretty good at covering it up. Last summer he was scheduled to have surgery on his ear but we weren't sure what was wrong with his arms (see above story) and didn't want to risk putting him under. So on March 17th Gavin went into surgery. It was just an out-patient surgery so we figured we would be back home that night and I'd go to work the next day.

Gavin ended up throwing up as they were taking his breathing tube out. He then threw up again when I was brought down to recovery to see him. They threw every anti-nausea medication they could think of at him and finally gave him ativan (a sedative) and he went to sleep for a couple hours. Needless to say, they kept him over night for observation. I have the best in-laws. Gavin's mom stopped by the hospital and kept me company. Gavin doesn't remember much from that night. Then Kelson and Jill kept Jack with them over night. Kelson was kind enough to bring me my pillow, retainer and such, plus dinner. The next week Gavin was still pretty nauseous and in a lot of pain. He couldn't sit up for very long. Gavin's sister Holly and her boys came and stayed with us over spring break. The two oldest helped do projects. Holly and the younger boys entertained Jack. It was such a blessing having them here.

Gavin is still on the mend and we aren't sure if the surgery was a success and he blew blood vessels in both his eyes, is still in a lot of pain, has blood draining for his ear and still gets pretty nauseous at times. Here's to praying it will all heal okay.

3. We ended up getting Jack a helmet due to his plagiocephaly (flat head). Jack didn't like to turn his head to the left and got a very flat spot on the back of his head on the right side. Due to Jack being a premie we were able to get the cost covered through the infant toddler program. He had to wear his helmet 23 hours a day. I can't even remember how long he wore it. It seemed like an eternity, but was probably more like 4-5 months. It turned out pretty well.

Halloween

4. Gavin got an internship with a teacher from his program. She loves his writing and has him doing research for her grant proposal. He will finish up his bachelor's degree in December and the plan is to start graduate school next summer.

5. I'm still working at the hospital. I've been a charge therapists, which is a step down from our team lead position. I care a special phone number with me and it is my job to put out fires during the day. It started doing it a couple days a week, but for the past several months I've been in charge everyday I work. It has been stressful as the hospital has been full for the past 5 months or so. I'm getting a little bit of a break these days.

6. Jack is getting so big. He just has his 15 month check up today. He got bored while we were waiting for the doctor to come in  and discovered he could climb in the cup boards under the sink. He was very upset when I took him out when the doctor came in.

He is just shy of 30 inches tall, at 29.75 inches. Adjusted he is 25th percentile, not adjusted he is 10th
He weighs 19 lbs 1.5 oz. Adjusted 10th percentile, not a 5th percentile.
Head circumference 18 inches. Adjusted 25th percentile, not adjusted 10th percentile.

The doctor is pretty pleased with this. She took one look at me and figured he would be fine.

Jack is a pretty active little boy. He just started walking some but still uses crawling as his main mode of transportation. He is just too quick crawling to make walking worth it yet. He loves to be outside and gets pretty upset when he has to go in the house. He will talk your ear off and loves to point at things. He can say: all done, outside, mom, dad, uh-oh, wow, yeah, bye, hi. He will also mimic other words at times. He is very much a people person and flirts with anyone who will look at him. I'm excited to him to go to nursery in June. He has too much energy to be cooped up for three hours.

That is the quick and dirty version. We are excited for summer coming up and the fun trips we have planned. I'll try to be better at posting updates.

No I didn't cut my hair, it is in a braid. 

There and back again

I know that I haven't posted in a while. Life has been crazy!

A lot has happened in the past 3 months. For starters I went back to work on Jack's 3 month birthday. It was both exciting and so sad. I was blessed to get three months at home with my baby.

The week before I went back to work we were finishing up replacing the water lines in our house. Gavin had recruited some of our friends to help him and did an awesome job. They had all the lines in place and the next step was to hook the lines up to the main line. To do this we had to have the city shut off our water. We were only going to have it off for one day, so I filled up the bath tub with water so we could flush the toilet, filled up every water bottle and empty milk jug with water in the fridge and we were set to go. Gavin hooked every thing up and then had the city come turn the water back on. Every thing seemed to be great except for some mysterious water running sound that we couldn't find. We went to bed and didn't think much of it.

In the morning Gavin went out in the front yard to find a large damp area just in front of the house. The only think we could think of was that the main water line had burst. So Gavin and our friend Greg started to dig.

This what we found. Sadly, when the city turned the water back on it blew the main line due to the stupidity of former owners. They were the do it yourself type people. We have found numerous projects in our house they tried to do themselves and we get to spend all the money to fix they have done jobs. They must have had the main line burst closer to the street. Our house is on a slab and it costs money to replace the galvanized pipe into the house. So they replaced the rest of the line from the street to within 3 feet of the house with pex piping. Then they just connected it into the line going into the house. When the city turned the water back on the pressure coming out of the new line into the old galvanized pipe was too much for the it.

Gavin, being the smart man that his is, rented a mini excavator to dig a 4 foot deep trench from the street to the house. Lucky for us we have the best ward ever. We had a lot of people come over and help us.

This is the whole the drilled in the floor of my dinning room to run the new line into the house.

Finished product after the plumber came.

All said and done we had the water turned off for over a week at our house. We stayed at a hotel for two nights and then made due at the house the rest of the time. In the midst of all this craziness I went back to work. Ironically, I started my first day of work living in a hotel. It was only fitting for my first day back at work to be from a hotel as well. 

Part of going back to work was taking Jack to daycare. Not my favorite moment. I'll get more into that, but first Jack's blessing. They day before Jack's blessing Gavin and I managed to clean up our house and get all the water hooked up so that we could have over 40 people in our house. We were blessed to have a warm day so a lot off people and a lot of kids could hangout in the back yard. 

It was nice to have so many people come share in this special time with us. 

Our next adventure came after Jack had been in daycare for about a month. We were headed down to Utah to visit people and help Gavin's dad pack. Jack had been a little sick with a runny nose, but nothing crazy. When we were about 15 minutes from Kelly's house Jack started to breath really weird. We kept going figuring he had just been in the car forever and we were almost there. By the time we got up to the house Jack sounded awful. My next thought was to get him out of his car seat. We took him in the house and he just sounded so sad. I was worried that he had RSV and wasn't sure what to do. So we called my insurance company to make sure they would cover his stay if we went to Primary Children's Hospital. So we drove 30 minutes to the hospital.

We were in the ER for quite a while. They finally decided that he had croup and wanted to keep him overnight for observation. They gave him some steroids and his cough cleared right up. I wish that I would have taken a picture of the pullout bed Gavin and I slept on together. It was so small. Neither of us slept great. Jack did well during the night and we got to go home.

The next Monday started our current adventure. Gavin woke up from 20 minute nap and said he felt weird. After sitting in the living room for an hour he said that he couldn't really use his arms. I checked his strength and it was significantly diminished in both arms from his shoulders to his hands. He couldn't really control them well. Then he started to get pain going through both arms. I was freaked out think of all the things it could be. None of the options were very happy. So we called some friends over to give him a blessing.

I've been grateful for all my schooling and initiative to get the testing done that we need. It has been like pulling teeth and we still don't know what is going on yet. Gavin has done an MRI, EMG, nerve conduction testing, general blood tests, steriods, CT scans, dopplers, ultra sounds and I still feel like we don't have any answers. We do know what it isn't. He doesn't have anything wrong with his spine and his nerves seem to be intact. But due to the pain that he is in constantly now he had to quit his job.

In a lot of ways we see this as a blessing. We hadn't been really impressed with Jack's daycare experience and this gives Gavin a chance to stay home with Jack, while he finishes up school. While there are a lot of ups and down in how Gavin feels during the day, he has been an amazing dad. I feel like I have a chance to give back for all the things Gavin did for me when I was on bed rest.

Some of the projects I've done for Gavin are insulating the water pipes now running through out attic, building a ramp for our shed and getting our front lawn ready for planting grass.

Here are just a few pictures of Jack being cute.

Gavin was trying to keep his hands warm. So he rolled him up like a burrito.

He is getting so big!

2 month check up

So before we go in to the check I just want to talk about the saga leading up to it. Since we brought Jack home a month ago we have been going to the pediatricians office at the hospital. We have been seeing the doctor the NICU set us up with. At first I didn't think we had an option to see someone else. Then we could get into anyone else because their schedules were full. Finally I was fed up with the doctor we were supposed to see and made sure that we changed Jack's 2 month check up to someone else.

Being a premie, Jack has a lot of extra stuff going on. I didn't think that our original doctor was really addressing any of them. When I would bring things up he brushed them off saying they would go away or that things were normal. He kept saying we would take Jack off the caffeine in two weeks but then have us set up an appointment for a month out. Best decision I ever made was not going back to that doctor. To all those new mom's out there, or mom's who still have small kids know that you never have to stick with the same doctor if you aren't getting the care you feel you or your kid's need. Even if it is just a personality conflict. It is so important that you feel comfortable communicating with your health care providers.

Now back to my original post. Jack had his 2 month checkup on Tuesday. It is crazy that it has been two months already. We hadn't been to the doctor in a couple of weeks (weird for us) and I was really curious how much weight he had gained. Plus I swore that he had grown taller. So his stats were 8 lbs 8.5 oz, 21 inches long, head circumference 14.4 inches. The doctor said he is growing great and right on track for being a premie. This was probably the longest appointment we have had so far. The doctor went over so many things with us.

He showed me a simple massage I could do for Jack's clogged tear ducts. He has had goopy eyes since we were in the NICU. When I had asked our last doctor about it he said it would go away and they were only concerned if it got red. I was so mad at him for not caring. The massage has done wonders in only just one day!

Jack has a little yeast infection in his arm pits. I'm guessing it is due to the monitor he has to wear. It keeps that area moist. We got a cream for that and are extra good at keeping it clean and dry. It seems to be clearing up nicely.

Jack's head is starting to get flat on the right side. No matter what I do he always wants his head turned that way. It doesn't matter how I put him to bed and what I try to prop his head up with he is always turned back to the right in the morning. We are going to start physical therapy soon for that. (I know what you are all saying ,"Aren't you a physical therapist?" Why yes I am, but I have never worked with babies before. Not my area of expertise.)

He is obviously behind developmentally for kids his chronological age, but still doing fine for gestational age.

The doctor had us stop his caffeine. So far his monitor hasn't gone off. If he does fine by tomorrow we can take the monitor off for good. Cross your fingers! It will be so nice to have that monitor gone.