Friday, January 30, 2009

Disgruntled Baby

Our most recent ultrasound showed Baby continuing to grow well, but looking slightly disgruntled. Every couple of minutes, Baby would make the "crying face" and look really sad. If we could hear it, it would have been whimpering and starting to cry. :(


We're back to the doc on Monday for an amniocentesis and we're still on schedule to induce on Wednesday. :)


Take a peek at Disgruntled Baby (and his or her cheeks!!):


Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Gigantaur strikes again

I had another ultrasound today to check baby's muscle tone, breathing movements, estimated size, placental function, and fluid level. Everything checked out well except the fluid level (it was about half of what it was last week) and the baby's size. As has been the case all along, Baby measured about 4 weeks too big again. Baby measured 6lbs, 4oz last week. Today, Baby measured 7lbs, 2oz. That's just about a pound since last Wednesday and about 2lbs bigger than an average 34w5d baby. YIKES!! We've jokingly been calling the baby Gigantaur and today when the tech covered the screen so I couldn't see the size, I knew that our not-so-little one was up to something.

The tech said she'd run the fluid level by the doctor because of the rapid decrease but that it should still be in the "safe level" zone.

Next ultrasound is Monday morning and I'll see my regular OB in the afternoon that day. We should know more then. But so far, the plan is still to do the amnio on February 2nd and induce on February 4th. The early induction is scheduled because of our significantly elevated risk of placental abruption because we had that complication during Charlotte's labor. I asked my OB about it yesterday and she said that we will be prepared in the event that it reoccurs because she is meeting us at the hospital and remaining there all day until Gigantaur is born. So that makes me feel better about that aspect. I'll be happy to report a safe, healthy delivery in two weeks!!



Here's the photo. Baby was sticking out its tongue...or its face is just so fat it had no other choice!! LOL!! Tilt your head to the right--Baby is lying sideways with its eyes in shadow.



Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Spin cycle politics

Tonight at dinner, we were talking about the new president and past presidents. We told the girls that the first president was George Washington and he's on the dollar bill. Andy showed them a $1 bill and his picture. We discussed what presidents are on other bills.

The girls knew George Bush's name and now we're working on learning the new president's name.

Charlotte asked, "Who was the firs president? Was it George Washing Machine?" We all enjoyed a good laugh.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Bed Rest rears her ugly head

Last week, I started to swell. It's always my first symptom of preeclampsia and when I checked my blood pressures, they were higher. "Cankles" was given a whole new meaning on Thursday when I had rolls, yes rolls, of inflated skin on my ankles. My feet were flowing over the tops of my slippers (which aren't normally tight enough to leave indentations) and my legs looked like tree trunks. YUCK! I couldn't stop laughing at the sight of my own legs so Andy took a picture.





Friday morning, I called my OB, Dr. E, and her office suggested I page the on-call doc (my high-risk OB, Dr. B). because she had left for a delivery. I told him what what happening and he sent me to the hospital for overnight observation and tests. I had some elevated protein level in my urine but according to him, they weren't high enough to deem immediately delivery necessary. So now I'm on bed rest. Bed-to-bathroom, bathroom-to-couch, couch-to-bed. Bummer.

We only have two weeks until the amniocentesis and 16 days until the scheduled induction. I can definitely survive two weeks of bed rest. Andy has been great about making me lie down and helping with the girls, the meals, the laundry, etc. He's always been very astute in his role as Bed Rest Nazi.

I have an appointment with Dr. E tomorrow and another BPP on Wednesday so we'll get another look at our baby. At our last BPP, Baby measured almost 4 weeks too big. Since about 12 weeks, Baby has been consistently meauring large by about 3 weeks so it wasn't surprising to see Baby so large last week. Dr. E has said that if we weren't already planning an early induction, the size of the baby might have necessitated one anyway. HA!!

Additionally, I think we've decided on a girl name finally (the boy name has been decided for a long time). We've gone back and forth on the girl name and had narrowed the first name contenders to two possibilities. (We had decided on a middle name.) Andy came home from work last week and said he thought that he'd decided he liked on more than the other and since I was pretty neutral on both names (though I was leaning slightly more toward the other name), I thought we should go with his choice. He kind of caved on Charlotte's name when she was born; I think he preferred one of the others we had lined up. So it seemed pretty fair that we should go with the one he liked this time. He said that it doesn't matter anyway because he thinks it's a boy. I'm banking on girl since we seem to have a track record of XX babies.

I guess we'll find out in 16 days. In the meantime, here's a photo of Baby's face last week.