28 Week Update on Our Little "Lady" Bug

Thursday was our 28 week appointment.  To be precise, I was 28w 5d on the day of the appointment.  Everything is looking great as this point.  Here are some details:

• I did my 1 hour glucose test two weeks ago.  Both the fasting blood glucose and 1-hour glucose levels were well within the range of normal.
• Hemoglobin level from 2 weeks ago were good, so no issues with iron.
• No protein detected in my urine dip in the office today, and the urinalysis from 2 weeks ago was good (and protein in the 24 hour collection that I did at the end of the first trimester 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.
• Got my Rhogam shot two weeks ago.
• My blood pressure is still really good!
• Belly measurements were exactly where they should be for 28 weeks
• Bug's heart rate was measured in the 140s in the morning and 130s in the afternoon.
• Bug's estimated weight was 2 lbs, 15 oz...which puts her in the 62nd percentile for overall growth.  (Jenna was estimated to be 2 lbs, 11 oz. and in the 61st percentile at exactly 28 weeks, so I would say that we are right on target!) 
• 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. 
• The most disappointing news of the day is that Bug is still situated in a frank breech position with her butt snuggled down in my pelvis.  She was like this at 20 weeks and has not shown any desire to move or turn. 

Bug still does not have a name.  At the rate we're going on names, she might be 10 years old before we come up with something that we can agree on.  Other than that, things are going well overall, but this pregnancy has been a completely different experience that our pregnancy with Jenna.  The midwife that we more or less 'found a home with' during our pregnancy with Jenna left at the end of last summer to return to school for her PhD.  The midwife that delivered Jenna also left to take a job much closer to home.  A new physician also joined the practice after Jenna was born, and there are quite a few new nurses in the office.  We have been in the office for appointment 5 or 6 times now, and I've left feeling pretty frustrated after at least 4 of those appointments.  I'm back to feeling like we are just a number since most of the people we've encountered don't know us like the 2 midwives who left the practice knew us.  I have had to reiterate the 36 week stillbirth story to at least 3 different nurses who couldn't be bothered to read my chart. 

We met the second of the new midwives during our last appointment 4 weeks ago, and we weren't impressed.  She was more or less in and out before we could blink our eyes.  Our first appointment with the other new midwife was a while ago, and since then our encounters with her have not left me feeling overly warm or fuzzy.  And... there is apparently no communication or common opinion between the providers in our OB office and the MFM providers about when I am supposed to start NST and biophysical ultrasounds and how often they are supposed to be performed.  As a result, I had to schedule an extra appointment with my primary OB doc so he can make a decision about this.  With Gracie, we started NST twice each week with weekly biophysical ultrasounds (even though we tried to keep the ultrasounds limited to every two weeks, they turned out to be weekly) around 32 weeks due to my preexisting hypertension diagnosis.  With Jenna, we started the same routine around the same time, due to our history with Gracie and my history of hypertension.  So, when the midwife told me this week that we would be starting weekly NST, I was surprised.  As long as things continue to go well, I honestly don't care whether we do them once or twice a week; I just want to know for sure what the plan is...

After much discussion, we have decided that we will try to ride out the remainder of the pregnancy with the only midwife who has been in the practice for both of our previous pregnancies.  She is the midwife that we saw one week before Gracie died, and simply because of that there has been some negative association since then.  But she knows us and knows our history and we're not just a number to her.  Our next regular appointment is scheduled with her, so we'll see how it goes, I guess.

In the meantime, I am investigating various options for turning this little bug around and getting her head down where it belongs.  In addition to the 'basic' things like positioning, ice on my belly, music and warmth near my pelvis, I am looking at seeing an acupuncturist for moxibustion and/or seeing a chiropractor (gasp!) for the Webster technique.  If anyone reading here has had 'success' with any of these techniques, I would LOVE to hear about it!!!

Refiguring

I received a call from our Maternal Fetal Medicine group on Monday.  The woman I talked to was very nice, chipper, perky...the whole nine yards.  She called in reference to my first trimester screen.  Specifically, she called to verify whether or not we had a child with Down Syndrome.  I'm probably the only person who will answer that question with "we don't know for sure."  I mean, how many people don't know whether or not their kids have Down Syndrome.  I explained to her that Gracie was stillborn and that Down Syndrome was heavily suspected for multiple reasons by our OB doc, as well as by the MFM doc that I consulted with between pregnancies.  She asked if chomosomal analysis had been done, and I told her that it had not.  She, of course, asked why it had not been done.  I told her that, as much as we were able to determine with lots of backtracking, there was dropped communication between parties in the hospital regarding the fact that our insurance would pay for the analysis, and that my placental tissue was ultimately never sent out from the lab.  She sounded stunned by this information.

She then went on to say that she was calling my OB office to have them refigure the results of the first trimester screen since they apparently ran the screen with us listed as definitively having a child with Down Syndrome.  She stressed that they needed to have accurate screen results, and followed that up with "keep in mind that your blood work is still really abnormal."  I told her that she didn't really need to bother with refiguring the results, as we weren't going to do an amnio or CVS, regardless of the new results.  I told her that we were going to see them for a level 2 ultrasound at 20 weeks, regardless of the results of the first trimester screen, because of our history and that that had been decided before the first trimester screen was even done.  I emphasized that the results of the first trimester screen were not supposed to have even been forwarded to them, since it was a moot point.  The conversation went in circles from here for about 5 more minutes before she finally told me that we shouldn't bother doing the first trimester screen in subsequent pregnancies if we weren't planning to do an amnio or other definitive testing to diagnose abnormalities prenatally. 

The whole conversation left me scratching my head and feeling a little disconcerted.  I was kind of bothered by her final 'instruction' to not do the first trimester screen in the future if we weren't going to do any further diagnostics.  It is our right to do the screen, for whatever reasons we choose to do it.  It is our right to decline invasive diagnostic testing based on the results of the screen (which were, apparently, skewed in this particular case) for whatever reason we choose to decline them.  It is our right to have a level 2 ultrasound during subsequent pregnancies, based simply on the fact that we have a history of fatal placental insufficiency and IUGR.  It is our right to not really care about the refigured results of the screen.  Why can't they just leave well enough alone?

Hoping that the remainder of the pregnancy does not go this way.....

And Then There Was a Bug....

We are happy to announce, providing that all goes as expected between now and July, that we will welcome another baby into our family.  My official estimated due date is July 21, but if this baby is anything like Jenna, I expect to welcome it about a week early.

We have another month to wait to find out if this little bug is a boy or a girl, but my prediction is boy, as much of my early pregnancy 'symptoms' were much different than with both girls.  Other than my own illnesses over the last month, the pregnancy itself is going well so far.  Although we expected a 'concerning' result, we elected to do the first trimester screen again this time.  With Gracie, our predicted probability for Down Syndrome was 1:47, and with Jenna the probability increased to 1:39.  Since I am another 2 years older than I was during pregnancy with Jenna, I anticipated that the probability this time would come back around 1:20.  I was wrong.  Our probability for Down Syndrome with this baby is 1:11 - based on the screen.  We will not do an amnio, but we due to our history with Gracie and due to the results of the first trimester screen, we will have level 2 ultrasounds at least at 20 weeks and 30 weeks, with the possibility of additional ultrasounds in between.  The biggest concern going into the first ultrasound at 20 weeks is the baby's heart structure, as kiddos with Down Syndrome have a high incidence of structural heart defects.  If there are issues with the structure of the heart, we will assume that Bug has Down Syndrome; if there are no issues with the structure of the heart, we won't know for sure until birth.

In terms of our providers, this pregnancy has been a bit rough.  There has been a large change in staff at our OB office.  The midwife that we have worked closely with over the last two pregnancies left to go back to school, and the midwife that delivered Jenna left to take a job much closer to home.  They were our first and second choice for providers, hands down.  A third midwife that we are very familiar with, but didn't work much with, has also left the practice.  So, out of the 4 midwives that were there when Jenna was born, only 1 remains.  There are two new midwives, and also a new OB/GYN, who we have heard good things about.   (There are also a bunch of new, young nurses)  We have had 3 appointments so far... the first was with 'our' doctor, the second was with one of the new midwives, and the third was with the new doc.  The appointment with our doc, as expected, was fine.  The appointment with the new midwife was very, very positive.  She took quite a bit of time to review our history and talk with us about our expectations and anticipations for this pregnancy.  We got a basic plan laid, and we left feeling really good about things.  The appointment with the new doc kind of sucked.  She was running 45 minutes behind (at 8:30 in the morning), and was in and out in literally 2 minutes.  She very quickly told us the results of the first trimester screen, and when we mentioned that we had dealt with high probabilities before, she quit talking about it aside from saying that we would definitively stick with the plan for the level 2 ultrasound.  She listened to Bug's heartbeat (barely long enough to count it) and that was it.  We have heard lots of good things about her, so I was really disappointed with that.  Hopefully, it was only a matter of trying to get caught up, but still.....   I think that we will likely stick with the new midwife that we have already met for most of our care, going with the 'if it's not broken don't fix it' theory.  Overall, though, the experience with the providers' office has been much different.  When we got pregnant with Jenna, they fell over themselves trying to treat us as well as they possibly could because of our history.  Not this time.  Not even close.  I don't expect them to treat me like I write their paychecks, but it would be nice to not have to repeat for every nurse that checks me in (except for a few of the 'old faithfuls') that we have one live baby and one dead baby.  It's in my chart.... in plenty of locations... including the paper that I just filled out at the beginning of this pregnancy, which is in the front of my chart....

Aside from that, it's been pretty uneventful so far.  First couple rounds of blood are out of the way and the first 24 hour urine collection is underway...  Just counting down the days now until we find out if this little bug is a Mister Bug or a Lady Bug.

Keep reading below for an update on Jenna...

Catching Up...Almost 17 months

Man, it's been a looonnggg time since I posted here.  I came to the blog today to look up something from my pregnancy with Jenna and almost fell over when I saw that I hadn't posted anything since July.  I have been so busy that I haven't really had much time for reading other blogs, and my own have sadly been a bit neglected, but I figured that I better do a little updating here for those that still read and and are not FB friends. 

Jenna is almost 17 months old now!  She is a very, very busy girl.  It's been so long that it's hard to know what to write, but here is a fun list of facts...

• She started walking just a few days after the 11 month mark.  It's been all downhill from there!  
• She has 12 teeth now.
• There are a few words that she has used only one or two times (uh-oh, poop, mama, no), and one word that she uses all the time (up), but for the most part, she's not saying a whole lot yet.  She is using 11 signs spontaneously, though, which helps quite a bit with knowing what she wants.
• She loves music and loves to dance.
• Thankfully, she loves to eat.
• She loves bath time and will ask for a bath at random times during the day.

 \

Here are a few photos from the last 7 months.... 

 SUMMER TRIP TO LAKE ONTARIO

 Bath time at the camper  :-)

FIRST BIRTHDAY PARTY

ONE-YEAR PHOTO SESSION

 

 

PICKING OUR PUMPKINS

 OCTOBER FAMILY REUNION

Jenna and her cousin Lila, who is 18 hours younger

 

 Testing the water in the lake

OCTOBER SNOW!!!

HELPING AROUND THE HOUSE

CHRISTMAS!!!

 

 DOING CPR...

  Jenna accompanied us to CPR certification a couple weeks ago.  She watched with much interest for about an hour as we worked with the adult mannequins; when we got out the infants, she quickly stole one and carried it around like a doll.  Then she stole a mask, and before we knew it, she had done this all by herself!   

 

10 Months

It has, again, been so long since I have updated here…primarily because of time constraints.  Here is a little update on things in our corner of the world.  

Congratulations to Christy for the arrival of her beautiful daughter, Olivia!  

June was a busy month and we did quite a bit of weekend traveling.  We went to Washington D.C. to visit my cousin and his wife.  Their daughter was due about 3 weeks before Jenna, and was born just 17 short hours after Jenna was born.  It was our first visit since the girls were born, and it was pretty awesome.  It was so fun to see the girls interact with each other.  Jenna, being every bit her father’s daughter, immediately tried to tackle her cousin.  Our big outing was a trip to the zoo.  The girls looked at a few things, but for the most part, it was pretty much still beyond them.  It was pretty hot, so we didn’t stay more than a couple hours.  We’re hoping to try again next fall for their second birthdays, at which point they should be completely wrapped up in everything going on there, and it should be much cooler than it was in June. 

 

The following weekend we went to Queens (and spend more time on waiting to cross the G.W. Bridge than I have ever spent waiting to cross the bridge) for a first birthday party.  Jenna got to meet a few new friends and was re-introduced to a couple friends that she had already met.

Outside of these two trips, life is life.  Things are busy, and Jenna makes herself even busier.  She has been pulling to stand at the couch for about a month and at all of her floor toys for a couple weeks longer than that, and she finally started crawling about 3 weeks ago.  Now she crawls everywhere and chases the dogs and cats, and she is starting to stand in front of her tall floor toys without support for 5-10 seconds while she manipulates a toy in her hand.  With her new mobility, we had to set up super fun baby jail in the living room.  We leave it open when we can directly supervise her and she moves in and out of it at will.  She cruises along the edge and stands at the gate when she’s had enough time in lock-down.  I’m sure it will only be another week or two before she manages to open the gate (that it took me about 20 minutes to figure out and manage to open).

We still only have 2 teeth, and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of more coming any time soon.  We finally put her baby tub away and are doing baths in the regular tub, which she loves.  We go swimming a couple times a week, and she loves it!  She’s even put her face in the water (by herself) a few times and didn’t seem to mind it (nor did she seem to inhale any water!)  We’ve added a few more foods, and have started to add a few ounces of regular whole milk (mixed with breast milk) each day.  I had a pump issue, as well as a clogged duct, that led to a decrease in my supply a few weeks ago.  I am keeping up a little better now, but I’m still not producing enough on a daily basis to keep up with her.  Our freezer stash is dwindling fast, and she won’t take formula at all, so going with a little bit of whole milk mixed into the breast milk was pretty much our last option without finding a milk donor.  Luckily, we haven’t had any issues doing this. She's making the cutest noises these days; she has a specific noise that indicates that she sees an animal, and she has started cooing when she sees the birth announcements hanging on the fridge. 

All in all, things are great, and it’s so hard to believe that she will be a year old in just two months.  Some days it feels like she has been here forever, and some days it feels like she was just born yesterday.  Hoping that all is well with all of you.  As always, here are a few more pictures of my happy girl.  

A Long Overdue Update

I've been relatively neglectful of Miss Jenna's space, so it's time for an update.


Before I update on anything else, I would like to give loving and congratulatory shout outs to a few BLMs who have welcomed their rainbows in recent months.  Congratulations to Maggie, Ann, Mama G, Lori, Big Love, Jamie, Maria, Katie, Lisette, Amber, Michelle, and Laura on the arrival of Joshua, Adrian, Kaede, Luke, Allie, Landon, Astraea, Zaylie, Emma, Cailyn, Brisa and Carter.  As I type this, Michelle's rainbow, Carter, is hopefully getting very close to making his appearance. 

I would also like to give a shout out to Lori and her husband, John, for sharing their story with the world via television.  They also did a follow up interview, but I can't find the link for that now.  :-(
 

Moving on to Miss Jenna, she is growing so fast.  She will be 9 months in a couple weeks.  I am amazed on a daily basis, and consequently a little more in love with her (if that's even possible!) each day.  She's now weighing in right around 20 pounds and she has her two lower front teeth.  She is also veeerry slowly getting a little more hair.  Each day she explores new toys with absolute fascination.  She's been babbling away at/with her toys, the dogs, the cats...basically anything she can talk at.  She's sitting up and maintaining her balance for very extended periods.  She's pulling to stand at some of her toys and in her crib, and she has finally mastered pushing up into a sitting position from laying down on the floor.  No crawling yet, but she's rocking on her hands and knees like someone's paying her to do it!!  We occasionally get little bunny hops, so I am sure the crawling isn't far off.  For now, she rolls, scoots and pivots from toy to toy.  As a result of all the new mobility, we also had to drop the mattress in her crib over the weekend.  With standing up in the crib also comes chewing on the crib rails.  I'll be honest, I never even gave this a thought before she had teeth; now I'm considering splitting open a pool noodle and putting it over the crib rail to preserve the finish - and to keep scraped off flakes of the finish out of her mouth.  

She is loving her solid foods...especially avocado, blueberries and mango!  Much to our surprise, she is not at all digging bananas, though.  We have tried everything...freshly mashed, from a jar, masking them with other foods, and everything in between, but she just does not like them.  Otherwise, she gets so excited to be in her booster seat and eat!!  

She continues to have the most pleasant and even disposition, but she does occasionally have her moments.  Not too long ago we had about a solid week of horrid bedtimes.  We tried everything (bed time bath, no bedtime bath, tylenol, gripe water, etc.) to solve the problem, but for the most part we were unsuccessful in our quest and had to just ride the phase out.

We will be heading to the D.C. area in a couple weeks to visit with my cousin, his wife, and their daughter Lila.  Lila's estimated due date was 2.5 weeks ahead of Jenna's, but as it turns out, Jenna was born a mere 18 hours before Lila was born.  If Jenna had held out for induction (I am sooo glad that she didn't!), they very likely would have been born on the same day.  We haven't seen my cousin and his wife in a couple years, so that means that Jenna and Lila have not yet been properly introduced.  I am excited to see how they react to and with each other, and I am so excited to take them to the zoo! 

Here are a few pictures to close out the update...

Fighting bedtime...like it's her job

Just hangin' out

Loving bath time!

8 months today!

March for Babies!

All tuckered out from her first Easter dinner at Grammy's

Loves swimming - even more than bath time!!