32 Week Appointment

Yesterday was our 32 week appointment - the schedule included non-stress test, level II ultrasound and short visit with MFM doc, midwife follow-up.  (And just for reference, today is the one day anniversary of Gracie's last day alive in my belly...)  The appointment was not bad, but it wasn't as good as some of our previous appointments.  I left the office feeling frustrated.


Important information from the day

• Trace protein levels detected in my urine - not going to worry unless the same thing turns up on Tuesday.  Blood pressure was a little higher than it was last time, but nothing to be concerned with.  I have now gained 25 pounds since our 9 week appointment.
• NST was ultimately considered reactive, but it took an hour for it to be deemed as such.  Bean was moving a lot and I had to constantly chase her around with the heart rate sensor, but there were times that she was moving that the monitor was just not detecting a heart beat at all, simple because she was moving so much.  Because of that, nothing (such as the heart rate elevations that the NST specifically looks for) was recorded during those heavy periods of baby movement.  I am hoping that the rest of the NSTs go better than this, but given our overall record with NSTs, I am not holding my breath. 
• Results of the ultrasound...  A formal biophysical profile was not performed, but the US tech specifically mentioned that Bean was doing everything that she would have needed to do the BPP...I assume that this means she would have scored 8/8, since she pointed everything out to us and it was good.  Jellybean was an active girl yesterday.  I think she was still unhappy about the hour of NST monitoring.  She came in at the 51st percentile for overall growth with an estimated weight of 4 lbs, 3 oz...this is exactly how much Gracie weighed when she was born.  Kind of weird, especially considering that this appointment was so close to Gracie's anniversary.  Given this placement on the growth curve, it puts the collection of growth estimates all over the place.  The girl that did yesterday's ultrasound is the one that estimated her to be in the 39th percentile 8 weeks ago; a different technician did the measurements 4 weeks ago that gave the estimate of 61st percentile.  I am inclined to think that the 51st percentile is a little closer to accurate at this point. (It's that whole intra/inter-rater reliability thing for those of you who have been forced to take research classes at some point...)
• We will continue with NST 2x/week and the ultrasound to complete the biophysical profile1x/week.  We will have a formal midwife appointment 1x/week, but will also usually have one pop in when we are there just for the NST.  
• We will see MFM again in 4 weeks, and unless anything changes, that will likely be the last MFM appointment for Bean.
• And of course, a picture or two.  The first picture made me laugh as soon as I saw it.  It immediately assured me that Bean is, in fact, our daughter.  (After looking closely, I am pretty sure that it's her index finger, but you get the point...)

Now on to my frustrations from the day

• The NST ran into my MFM appointment time.  I was assured that someone was going to go to the other side of the office (literally 40-50' down the hallway to the other end of the SAME office) and let MFM know that I was going to be a few minutes late in coming over to see them.  My appointment was for 3:30, which is their last appointment slot of the day.  When that appointment is done, they pack up and drive an hour back to their main office.  When we walked up to their 'reception' area at 3:44, we got all kinds of attitude from the girl sitting there because we were late.  While we were waiting right outside of the ultrasound room, she went in to tell the US tech that we were there.  The tech said something along the lines of 'Yeah, I heard, but I already started tearing everything apart, so they're going to have to wait a few minutes while I put it back together.'  In the meantime, the doc walked into the same room and said "what do you know...3:44 and about 50 seconds."  To me, that means that at 3:45, they decline to see you because you are too late for your appointment.  I was kind of pissed that they were talking the way they were when we were right outside of the room and could hear them very clearly, so I spoke up and said "Excuse me, did anyone from OB/GYN Assoc tell you that we were going to be a few minutes late?  I've been in the office since 2:30 and hooked up to a NST since 2:45.  They told me about half an hour ago that they were going to come over and tell you that I would be late."  "No.  Nobody said a word to us...did you hear that girls?  She's been in the office since 2:30..."  Not that big a deal, but the whole thing just kind of pissed me off, especially since they could have just unhooked me from the (at that point) non-reactive NST and had MFM throw in a biophysical profile when they did the US. The attitude that we got for being late kind of pissed me off, too, primarily because we all run late at some point...whether it is as a provider or patient, we have all run late at one time or another. 
• We met the new midwife yesterday. Instead of just seeing me in the scheduled slot after the MFM appointment, she kind of squeezed me in while I was hooked up to the NST.  It was a bit chaotic, so it was hard to form an impression of her yesterday.  We see her again on Tuesday, so perhaps it will be a little less chaotic and we can actually chat with her for a few minutes.  The one thing that I was not crazy about was how she did my fundal height measurement.  I felt that it was really sloppy considering our history of IUGR caused death.  She measured me while I was in the recliner, hooked up to the NST; she measured OVER the stuff strapped to my belly and never felt for my pubic bone, which is the starting point.  Minor detail, but something that could turn out to be important in the long run.  The midwife that we usually see has spoken quite highly of her, so I am hoping to leave Tuesday's appointment with a better impression. 
• I am frustrated, that after being pregnant for 15 of the last 20 months and having a stillborn child thrown into that mix, that I still leave the OB office feeling like very few people actually listen to the words that come out of my mouth.  Specifically, I am talking about care providers.  Not all of them, but many of them.  I know they hear me speaking, because they nod their heads and smile and then give me some stupid cookie cutter answer.  But here's the deal...I am not an idiot.  I am an educated health professional.  I have read and read and read about pregnancy and childbirth, even before I was pregnant.  I don't call the OB's office in a panic every other day because the baby kicked 18 times yesterday but only 14 times today.  I only call when my baby is dead.  Literally.  So I get frustrated when my providers ask me a question and then don't want to hear my answer because it is different than the cookie cutter answer they were waiting for.  I get frustrated when they say "Do you have any questions or concerns at this point?" and then become annoyed when I do have a question or concern...and then they follow up the obvious annoyance with a standard cookie cutter answer.  It's happened several times in the last 12 weeks with various providers, and it's really starting to piss me off.  It's part of the reason that I pushed for less 'big medicine' and a smaller circle of providers that I know will listen to what I am saying, give me a reasonable answer, and tell me when I am legitimately being an idiot...instead of always acting like I am an idiot for actually having something to ask when they open up the floor for questions or concerns. 

So that's it for this week...a little update, a couple pics and a little ranting and venting.  Will probably post a brief update again next week...

Belly Casting

I want to purchase my belly cast/mold kit in the next week or so.  I have looked at so many of them over and over.  Wondering if any of you who have done belly casts before might have suggestions on which brand to purchase???

30 Week Appointment and a Long Weekend

Last Friday morning (Jul 16th) was our 30 week midwife appointment.  For a simple appointment, with no other 'procedures' scheduled, it took a long time.  I spent just over 90 minutes in the office...but we got a lot accomplished.

In short, all is well with the Bean.  I have gained 21 pounds since my first appointment at 9 weeks (about 28 pounds over pre-pregnancy weight according to my bathroom scale).  My blood pressure is still really low, which is fantastic news for someone with chronic hypertension!  Beana's heart rate was in the high 130s, and several times during counting, Jellybean had very noticeable heart rate accelerations.  Again, a very good thing.  Belly measurement was right on target.  We reviewed the report from the last Maternal Fetal Medicine appointment (since I saw MFM after midwifing last time, instead of before), and she confirmed that Bean is measuring in the 61st percentile.  Again...very reassuring, since we were starting on the downward slope to IUGR at this point with Gracie. 

So, as things stand now, I am scheduled to see MFM again on July 29th, as well as the new midwife.  We have added a non-stress test to the string of appointments for that day.  After that, I will go twice a week for non-stress tests; one of those appointments each week will also include an ultrasound and a midwife check.   These appointments are scheduled out through August 20th, with the anticipation that I will see MFM again on August 26th, unless they decide otherwise next week.

After the appointment, we hit the road for Beana's first trip to NYC.  We visited with friends from college and did some 'touristy' things in the city...we did a Yankee game, the Rockefeller Center observation deck, the Brooklyn Bridge, Little Italy, the Bodies Exhibit  (This exhibit is set up in various cities across the country...if you have the chance to catch it anywhere, I highly recommend it!  I will put a disclaimer here for all BLM and BLD...there is a section of the display that is nothing but pregnancy related.  Jeff and I both had to use the bathroom about half way through, and we had to go through the rest of the exhibit still in front of us to get there.  We turned a corner and stopped dead in our tracks, as we found ourselves face to face with a non-living baby on display in front of us.  Not something we were expecting to see.  When we finally got back to that room on our way through the remainder of the exhibit, we were both able to go through all of it without too much problem...but I know that it is not something that every BLM or BLD would want to walk into unexpectedly.  Despite this unexpected part of the exhibit, I recommend the exhibit as a whole!).  When I was pregnant with Gracie, Jeff and I somehow managed to not have our picture taken together, so we never really had a 'family' photo; we also managed to not do one together after she was born.  So I made sure that we got a 'family' photo of the two of us with Beana while we were being touristy.

So now down to the nitty gritty.  I know that some of you reading here have already been through the rainbow baby process, and that several of you are walking this road with me right now.  But I have to say that this is one of the most difficult things that I have ever done.  It goes without saying that going through L&D to give birth to a dead baby is hard, and it goes without saying that burying your child is hard, but not everyone expects this process to be as difficult as it is.  Some days aren't bad...they are normal days.  I have thoughts about Gracie, but I don't link them to this pregnancy.  Some days are a little rougher, and dead baby thoughts creep in amongst the pregnancy thoughts every chance they get. 

Some days I feel like I cannot get it together...  I am eating well, but my diet was impeccable with Gracie, and I wanted it to be the same this time around.  I feel like this baby is sucking the life right out of me; I am sleeping more soundly at night than I did with Gracie (Gracie practiced for her Stomp audition at night; Beana thankfully does her practicing during the day), yet I am still exhausted.  Some nights I skip dinner and go to bed as soon as I get home...skipping dinner is not helping physically or mentally.  I am behind on my Hypnobabies home study - I wanted to be all the way through it by now so I could be working on the self-hypnosis.  I am going to need all the practice I can get for the self-hypnosis, as relaxation and anything even remotely related is not something that comes easily for me.  There are things that we did not have ready for Gracie, as we thought we had a few more weeks.  I am getting to the point that I feel like I should have that stuff ready to go now, but I keep procrastinating.  My list keeps getting longer and longer...car seat and stroller (which we have had for almost 15 months, yet the box is still unopened) rewashing blankets and other non-clothing items that are on the shelves under the changing table, purchasing some cloth diapering stuff, purchasing some of the other 'essential' baby gear that we have not gotten yet, packing a hospital bag...you get the point.  Part of the problem is just old fashioned procrastination.  I think a bigger part of the problem is not wanting to jinx myself, and I honestly think another large part of the problem is that my brain does not fully comprehend that pregnancy is supposed to end with actually bringing a baby home.  


But, all of this aside, we are moving forward one day at a time.  We are trying to live in the good right now and hoping that it is enough to balance everything out from one day to the next...and we are very much looking forward to the day in the not-so-distant-future that we bring our daughter home to love and raise...

A Smattering of Thoughts

(I found myself typing and typing this afternoon, only to get to the end and realize how long this post was.  There aren't too many of you reading here at this point, and I don't expect many of you to get all the way through this post.  It just really helped to get it all out somewhere...it's been sitting on my chest, and that isn't overly productive for me.  If you don't make it all the way through, make sure to check out the pic at the bottom...it's kind of amusing.)

Lost Baby Emotions Mingling with Rainbow Emotions

If you have been to Gracie's blog in the last couple of days, you know that I had a pretty lousy week.  I cannot pin the lousy week on any one thing, but I am pretty sure that 'Jellybean emotions' were a contributing factor.  Hormones and 'Jellybean emotions' seem to have started on an upswing in recent weeks - I can't wait to see how much they start to fluctuate in the coming weeks. 

I have found myself intentionally trying to avoid conversation about Jellybean and this pregnancy as a whole, which is getting harder to do as I get larger.  I am in the middle of the first round of summer services for most of my school caseload, which comes after a several-week-long break from school/services.  The very nice teachers and aides that I see on a weekly basis during the year all ask the same questions when I go into their rooms.  I know that they mean well, but answering the same questions over and over gets a little overwhelming sometimes....  How are you feeling?  (Same as a few weeks ago.  Tired, but otherwise fine...)  How are you handling this heat?  (Probably the same as everyone else...wonderfully, as long as I stay in the A/C.)  How is everything looking with the baby?  (Okay at this point...)  Oh, that's fantastic!!  (Yes, it is fantastic, but things looked fine at this point with Gracie, so we are just taking things one day at a time.)  Do we know what it is yet?  (Yep...it's still a baby...but if you're asking about gender, it's another girl.)    I feel ungrateful for not wanting to answer their questions, but I just really don't want to talk about it anymore.  Sometimes I feel like if I cut everyone off from all information, I won't have to talk about anything if something goes wrong. I know that that is completely backwards logic, because there will be a million questions from everyone if something goes wrong again, regardless of how much people did or didn't know along the way.

I also need a haircut - possibly a whole new do - and some highlights in the worst way imaginable.  For some reason, the salon is one place that I have been avoiding like it's my job.  Probably because I just don't want to talk, and that's pretty much what goes on when you go to get your hair done - lots of talking.  I have been to my regular salon once since Gracie died.  I went in, sat down and the first words out of my stylist's mouth were "So, I hope you brought pictures!!"  She had no idea, and I didn't expect her to know; once we were over the hump, it was fine.  But I know that if I walk in there now with a pregnant belly there will be more obligatory question and answer time.  A friend's step-daughter just opened a salon here in town, and I went there once a few months ago, but it doesn't matter where you go, you still have to chat...otherwise it's even more awkward. :-/

A few times a week I drive past a memorial (headstone) retailer in the next town over.  For the last month or so they have had a beautiful stone sitting in front of their showroom that continues to catch my eye.  It is a very pretty angel kneeling next to a heart.  I look at it every time I drive past it, and I have actually caught myself thinking that if we need another stone, that this is the one I would like to have.  Holy shit!!!  I have already picked out a marker!  I really must figure out how to do this rest of this pregnancy without my subconscious planning for the worst case scenario.  I will not need a marker - I am going to bring home a very live Jellybean!!!  I will NOT need a marker this time!!  Go away thoughts!!!

At some point, before we are done having children, I will figure out how to balance all of these thoughts and emotions...

Life Out of Control

I think that another part of my problem this week was the fact that my life feels like it is spinning faster and faster out of control.  More accurately, I just really feel like I have no control over anything going on around me and I can't seem to make anything stand still.  

Despite the fact that I have been making a concerted effort to slow my schedule down, it just seems to get busier and busier...and I seem to get 'behinder and behinder'.  :-/   When we were pregnant with Gracie, everything was centered around the pregnancy.  I mean everything.  Birthing class, sleep, food prep, lots of 'prenatal exercise and stretching'...you name it, we did it the name of pregnancy.  What a difference a year makes.  I don't have any other clinicians working for me until next month, so it's up to me to get it all done in the office...Jeff is working a part time job that adds 20-30 hours a week to his schedule...  Now I feel like I cannot find any time to sleep, I can't find time to cook, we cannot find time to set aside to do our HypnobabiesKegel exercises a day. 

The food thing actually goes quite a bit further than not finding time to cook.  A few years ago I decided that it was time to start cutting some of the junk from our diets and giving some serious thought to the long term consequences of the food on our plates.  Jeff has been wonderfully supportive with this.  Admittedly, it is not something that he would do on his own, but he acknowledges and agrees with the need to do it, and he has been much better with it than I though he would.  It was a long, arduous process, but we transitioned from pseudohealthy eating to actual healthy eating.  (I will, however, admit that I still think that potato chips and french fries should be a their own food group.)  We live in a rural area, where lots of people choose to live with their heads either buried in the sand or shoved up their asses; many of them choose to be uneducated about the things going on around them (and I'm not talking formal education) and do things just because that's how they've always been done.  The choices and decisions that we started making about food and nutrition are not considered to be in the popular majority around here.  Because of this, some of our options were limited and we took quite a bit of grief for the changes that we implemented; people did not understand or care about why we were making these changes, and it made it difficult sometimes.  But we did it, and felt worlds better as a result. 

Over the last year, stress and time constraints have taken a front seat and our natural/organic eating has started to slide.  Jeff has really fallen off of the wagon, especially when eating without me.  It is sometimes a matter of circumstance, sometimes a matter of just not caring about anything anymore.  Funny how the spark in life can be snuffed out for so long by one life changing event....    :-(     It's not the end of the world, by any means, but I feel like all of the effort we put into it has gone down the drain.  It's something that will have positive health benefits for both of us, as well as our children, and that is important to me.  We are trying to get turned around and headed in the right direction again, but lack of parallel thinking on the part of our families (and others around us) has made this difficult; they invite us for dinner and/or bring us food, to which we cannot really say no, but it's not what we would be putting on our plates if we were doing the cooking.  For now, I continue to look for ways to explain our choice(s) about food to the family in a way they will understand and respect, I am trying to get our food selection/purchasing back under control, and I am trying to ignore my constant compulsive twitching as we work to get this back on track.  :-)  

Childbirth, the Marvels of Modern Medicine, and Sheep

I think another reason for my meltdown this week revolves around modern medicine.  There are lots of ways to look at it, I suppose.  Technology and the expansion of medical knowledge is supposed to make life better...'better living through chemistry' as they say...but I definitely don't buy into the theory that all advancements and developing trends in medicine can be viewed as advancements.  Again, a thought that falls outside of the mainstream, which buys me more grief from many people around me. 

We are firm believers that, while modern medicine can offer amazing things to the minority of women who truly need medical support to get through pregnancy and/or childbirth, for the most part women can give birth to healthy babies without significant medical intervention (they have been doing it for centuries).  We believe that many women don't do enough to educate themselves about pregnancy and childbirth and do not make their own decisions, and in the end, many allow themselves to be turned into 'sheep' by the medical community.  This said, when we were pregnant with Gracie, Jeff and I decided early on that we wanted a natural pregnancy and birthing process.  Very specifically, we were not interested in induction, labor augmentation or pain medication/epidural.  This is not a decision that we made lightly; it was made after much research, reading, thought and discussion.  Definitely not a mainstream decision, and definitely a decision that bought us quite a bit of grief from a lot of people.  Luckily, the midwife who delivered Gracie (luck of the draw with that) was quite supportive of our plan; the other midwives were not overly exuberant about the fact that we had a birth plan and that we were vocal about not wanting medication.  Unfortunately, in the end it did not matter. 

Now that we are getting closer to Jellybean's arrival, we have begun to review and revamp our game plan.  Not a fun process.  Every decision makes my brain jump back and forth from one side of the field to the other.  Overall, the plan is still natural child birth.  People continue to question this, and now they apparently feel that they are justified in telling us that we are nuts, simply because Gracie died.  The fact that we prepared for natural childbirth did not kill her; she died before labor was ever induced.  We have been told by our midwife that it is not likely that they will 'let' me go beyond my due date with Jellybean.  This bothers me, primarily because Gracie also did not 'overbake'.  

But here's the catch with the whole plan... I still believe that I can give birth to a healthy baby without all of the bells and whistles, but I am scared to death to do so.  I am so petrified of lightning striking twice.  So far, I have gone against my beliefs and agreed to ultrasounds every 4 weeks since 20 weeks.  I am not really in a position to decline the ultrasounds until we can see for sure that Jellybean is growing appropriately and not showing any indication of IUGR.  At our midwife appointment this week we will lay out a game plan with the midwife for the next 10 weeks.  We will decide about the frequency of NST and regular (level 1) ultrasounds (as part of the biophysical profile testing).  Part of me wants to consider scheduling an induction if this baby doesn't come on her own by a certain point, but the rest of me is so totally opposed to it.  There (hopefully) is plenty of time for me to hash all of this out with myself and have further discussion with at least our primary midwife about this.  For now, though, my brain keeps going back and forth about all of it.  I guess only time will tell...until then, the sheep costume is out of the package and hanging in the closet.  :-(

Last, But Not Least

I will end on a funny note, well a funny picture.  Our nephew just graduated from high school and has enlisted in the Navy.  He will leave for basic training in Chicago on 7/21.  Last night was graduation/going away party. Although my husband and his brothers never need an excuse to drink beer, the party gave them a fantastic excuse to get together and guzzle.  Toward the end of the evening, they decided that we (myself included) should hike up our shirts and compare belly size.  So here is the first public Jellybean belly pick.

Just a Random Post

Two posts in two days...not something that is likely to happen on Jellybean's blog until she arrives safe and sound...or at least that is the plan.  But, I just posted on Gracie's blog and wanted to pop over here for a moment.  I want to wish you all a good holiday weekend...I hope that is is safe and enjoyable for you all. 

I am not sure if it's connected to the very loud noise of last night's fireworks that woke her from her nap or something else, but for the last 11 hours Beana has apparently been quite unhappy with the arrangement of things in her living quarters (a.k.a. my uterus).  I am pretty sure that she has been moving furniture or ripping out walls or something of the like.  I was starting to wonder if the velocity of her movement was going to pick up any time soon, as everything has been pretty gentle and mild.  She has arrived.  :-)    But that's not really what I wanted to post about...I just posted it since I was here.  :-)

I had another very random run-in with the "Are you over it yet?" lady today.  There is no question for anyone who knows me that I am definitely pregnant, yet she felt compelled to ask if we were expecting again.  Then she felt the need to reach out and rub my belly without permission.  I wanted to punch her.  She asked how things were going and then proceeded to assure me that if we were getting 'extra monitoring and special treatment' that we would undoubtedly have a different outcome this time.  Again...wanted to punch her.  Thought about educating her about this entire rainbow process and the general lack of guarantees in life, but decided that I really wanted to not be talking to her and all of this would just extend the conversation. Thankfully, she was on a mission and the conversation was limited to less than 5 minutes...but she made sure to assure me that she would be watching my husband's FB announcements for good pregnancy news and our birth announcement.  Something for us to look forward to.  :-/

When I was pregnant with Gracie, I am pretty sure that no one touched my belly without permission.  This lady is the 2nd person to do it in the last 24 hours...and the other person was a complete stranger.  I just simply cannot imagine walking up to someone I have never seen or met before and laying hands on their belly.  Weird.

28 Weeks

Thursday was my 28 week appointment for Beana.  It was a pretty busy day.  I had to return a 24 hour urine collection, do my 1-hour glucose test and some other blood work, see the midwife, do another level II ultrasound and see the MFM doc.  All of this on the 11 month anniversary of the day that her big sister made her perfectly silent entrance into the world....


The midwife that I saw on Thursday is the one who delivered Gracie.  I am quite comfortable with her, and I am able to have pretty frank conversation with her at this point.  This is the first appointment that Jeff has missed, and she asked how he has been doing.  More or less, he's still a train wreck...simply waiting for the other shoe to fall.  We talked about how we weren't really ready emotionally for this pregnancy, which is a pretty accurate summation.  Unfortunately, we waited so long to start our family that we don't have much time to wait at this point if we still want to have three living children....so forward we trudge, ready or not.  I can only hope and pray that this baby brings a tiny speck of hope, peace and healing for us. 



Everything is looking great as this point.  Here are some details:

• Fasting blood glucose was perfect; 1 hour glucose results not in before I left, but not expected to show anything surprising.
• Iron levels are fantastic
• No protein detected in my urine dip in the office and protein in the 24 hour collection was in the normal range
• Remainder of the blood work looked good - this included kidney panels, liver panels and some other random stuff that they look at a little later in pregnancy.
• Blood pressure is still good
• Belly measurements were exactly where they should be for 28 weeks
• Beana's heart rate was measured at 140 in the morning and 138 in the afternoon.
• Estimated weight of the Bean was 2 lbs, 11 oz.  This means she has doubled in size from her last estimate 4 weeks ago (1 lb, 5 oz.).  This estimated weight puts her in the 61st percentile for growth/weight.  Although it's just an estimate, it's very exciting stuff for us since she was in the 39th percentile a month ago!!!!
• Blood flow through the umbilical cord was "excellent", size and health of the placenta appeared to be "excellent" and the volume of amniotic fluid was "excellent".  Cord flow and placental size/health are again big things for us at this point.

We have been going back and forth between two due dates; it was decided that 9/23 will be our official estimated due date.  We will have another midwife appointment on Friday morning, July 16th, at which point we will finalize the plan for non-stress testing and ultrasounds beginning at 32 weeks.  We will be taking Bean on her first trip to NYC after this appointment.  :-)    Our next appointment with the Maternal Fetal Medicine docs is Thursday, July 29th.

I have been trying to discuss names with the hubby, but he's not overly interested in names at this point.  Part of that waiting for the other shoe to fall thing, I think.  I have thrown probably 300-350 names at him, and gotten 'maybe' for only 8 names...so this baby might be a year old before we can call her anything other than Beana.  Nothing else new to report at this stage of the game....for now, no news is good news.