I think my last post was at 14 weeks. I'm officially 31 weeks and one day now so I don't think that makes me a very consistent blogger...lol. So let's see if I can catch you up on the last 17 weeks or so.
Who am I kidding? I can barely remember yesterday much less that far in the past these days. Hmm...well around 16 weeks we had a 3D ultrasound done to determine the sex and found out it was a boy. (Which we totally suspected, by the way! :)) My scheduled ultrasound at the doctor wasn't until 20 weeks and we were ridiculously impatient. So at the 20 week appointment it was confirmed that we did indeed have another little man on the way, and they also told me I was a week farther along than we'd thought. Which put me at 21 weeks. (That's why none of my updates on FB are correct...lol)
At 29 weeks I had the glucose test, which I was almost certain I would fail, but I actually passed. The doctor had been concerned that I had developed Gestational Diabetes late in the last pregnancy and that it went undetected so she purposely tested me late this time just to be sure. Passing it was definitely unexpected but I'm glad! I guess this just means that I have large babies!
The last few weeks have been really hard for me, which is very different from my last pregnancy. I've been feeling a lot of discomfort around my incision site and had a couple of days where I felt contractions that were pretty painful. They weren't regular but I definitely felt them, so I told my doc a couple of days later and she decided to go ahead and start seeing me once every two weeks. She says she isn't going to let me go past 39 weeks but she also made the comment that "alot could happen between now and then..."
My family came to visit last week and just left yesterday, and although I didn't feel like I had been overdoing it, my body thought otherwise. I've been exhausted and feeling a LOT of pressure and discomfort the last few days, so I'm glad I have a check-up tomorrow to make sure everything is okay. I just don't remember feeling like this at this point in my last pregnancy. Hopefully me taking it easy the next few days will help.
So I think that's about it! I'm planning to tour the two hospitals I can deliver at this weekend and hopefully decide on what feels like the best option for us. I thought I had decided but the virtual tours have made me question my decision, so hopefully we will figure it out this weekend. :) I'll try to be better at updating the blog for those of you who read it, but it's almost time to have the baby at this point! Lol...maybe my next blog attempt will be more successful! :)
Monday, July 11, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
A Prayer/Advice Request (Caution: this contains somewhat graphic material so beware if you are a male or female without children who is grossed out by the idea of birth or mentally twleve years old)
I forgot to mention this in my last post, but as most of you know I had a c-section last time. For those of you who don't know the story I'll fill you in a little so you'll understand my predicament a little better.
Hayden was a massive baby. I started measuring three weeks too large around 29 weeks and by the time my due date got here I was not dilated at all. I did lose my mucous plug but that's about all my body did in preparation for this baby by 40 weeks. So since he was so large, and I knew he would only get larger I asked them to induce me the next week if he hadn't come by then. I REALLY wanted a vaginal birth and was afraid the larger he got the more unlikely it would be to happen for me. I went into the hospital 5 days later and they started a med overnight to try and make me dilate. It didn't work, so in the morning they broke my water, and even then it didn't work. Then they started me on pitocin. I waited as long as I could before asking for the epidural, and at first it was a gradual pain, but then they turned the pitocin up and it hit me like a ton of bricks. All I could do was cry without blinking and stare at my iv stand until I had the fluid I needed to get the epidural. Someone said to just look at Steve and concentrate on him but HE was crying too so that only made it worse! Lol...by the way, if I didn't know how much he loved me before that day, I certainly had no question after. He was amazing...so sweet and supportive. Just wanted to share that. :) So anyway, I finally dilated all the way to 10 not long after all of this, and I started to push. At this point everyone that saw my belly loudly exclaimed that I had a ten pound baby in there...like I didn't know that already. So the looks I got when I decided to push were a little questionable, but I really wanted a vaginal birth as I said before, so I went with it. My midwife didn't even turn off my epidural, nor did she remove my catheter, and since I had seen her in the delivery room with two other friends previously with whom she did turn the epidurals off when it was time to push I knew she had her doubts about this. The one thing I feel good about is that I did move him with my pushes! This reassures me that I knew which muscles to use so if there is a next time I would hope I wouldn't have any issues in that department. At this point the doctor on call came in and stood at the back of the room with my midwife, talking about me like I wasn't in the room as they usually do. He looked very concerned and told her that if I kept pushing and something went wrong that he couldn't use any tools to help get the baby out because he was so big and that he didn't think this was a good idea. She looked concerned and I heard her tell him to give her a minute but that he might want to prepare for a section. She came over to me and told me it was my choice, but after hearing that why on earth would I say I wanted to keep pushing if it could possibly hurt my baby??? I thought I would be okay with a c-section but in reality when the decision was made I was terrified. I was shaking uncontrollably and they actually had to give me something to calm me down. By the time I finally got in there I was a little better, but still scared. They started before they even brought Stephen back and that didn't help things. As an afterthought someone said, "Hey, does she have anyone?" And then they brought him back. They told me I would only feel intense pulling and tugging when they were actually pulling the baby out, but I felt it the ENTIRE time. It was a terrible experience. I found out later that he had actually gotten stuck and that was why it was so hard to get him out. His chest was so broad that he wouldn't fit through the tiny 6" incision so the doc got pretty rough with me. As a result I had a really hard recovery and required medication for twice as long as they usually give it. They also whisked my husband away with the baby and I was all alone for what seemed like forever while they stitched me up, so that didn't help my nerves. And what do you know, he was 10lbs, 3oz! Now, I have talked to a ton of women who have had c-sections and their experiences were nowhere near as terrible as mine. Infact, most women tell me theirs went very smoothly. I know I had some extenuating circumstances so maybe that was the issue, but either way it left a very bad taste in my mouth.
So that brings us to the conversation I had with my new doctor on my first visit. I told her that I ideally would like to have a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) but that I do want to be very educated on the subject before I have made up my mind 100%. She asked me how many children I wanted, because if I just maybe only wanted one more after this a c-section would be what she would reccommend, but if I wanted multiple more children after this, she would possibly reccommend a VBAC if everything was perfectly healthy throughout the pregnancy. I told her I have no idea how many kids I want...Stephen and I have never really put a number on it, and we are both fine with that. We could have one more after this or three more, who knows? So at this point she told me what her suspicions were as to why my baby got so big last time. I told her that I failed the first glucose test and had to do the four hour one. They usually administer the test between 24 and 28 weeks, and at 29 weeks I started measuring three weeks larger. She said that at the time of the test I may have been borderline gestaional diabetic and may have developed it later in my pregnancy, after the second test. So she said that if my sugar was perfect this time around and if the baby seemed to be of average size and there were no other complications that we could serioulsy talk about a VBAC. She reassured me that if I did have to have a c-section this time around that it would be a whole different experience. She said my body wouldn't be exhausted from laboring all night and day and that the baby wouldn't be so big so there wouldn't be tons of pulling and tugging, and that all in all it would be a much better experience. One of my worries with this is if I do have another c-section, this may limit me on how many kids we can have. That's a little sad for me because I don't want too many incisions and scar tissue to be the reason we can't expand our family more if we want to later on. She said we have plenty of time to decide, so I would like to ask if any of you have any advice or knowledge on the subject or if you could just keep the matter in your prayers for me so that when the time comes I can make the decision that is best for both the baby and me. I appreciate it, and sorry for another ridiculously long post! :)
Hayden was a massive baby. I started measuring three weeks too large around 29 weeks and by the time my due date got here I was not dilated at all. I did lose my mucous plug but that's about all my body did in preparation for this baby by 40 weeks. So since he was so large, and I knew he would only get larger I asked them to induce me the next week if he hadn't come by then. I REALLY wanted a vaginal birth and was afraid the larger he got the more unlikely it would be to happen for me. I went into the hospital 5 days later and they started a med overnight to try and make me dilate. It didn't work, so in the morning they broke my water, and even then it didn't work. Then they started me on pitocin. I waited as long as I could before asking for the epidural, and at first it was a gradual pain, but then they turned the pitocin up and it hit me like a ton of bricks. All I could do was cry without blinking and stare at my iv stand until I had the fluid I needed to get the epidural. Someone said to just look at Steve and concentrate on him but HE was crying too so that only made it worse! Lol...by the way, if I didn't know how much he loved me before that day, I certainly had no question after. He was amazing...so sweet and supportive. Just wanted to share that. :) So anyway, I finally dilated all the way to 10 not long after all of this, and I started to push. At this point everyone that saw my belly loudly exclaimed that I had a ten pound baby in there...like I didn't know that already. So the looks I got when I decided to push were a little questionable, but I really wanted a vaginal birth as I said before, so I went with it. My midwife didn't even turn off my epidural, nor did she remove my catheter, and since I had seen her in the delivery room with two other friends previously with whom she did turn the epidurals off when it was time to push I knew she had her doubts about this. The one thing I feel good about is that I did move him with my pushes! This reassures me that I knew which muscles to use so if there is a next time I would hope I wouldn't have any issues in that department. At this point the doctor on call came in and stood at the back of the room with my midwife, talking about me like I wasn't in the room as they usually do. He looked very concerned and told her that if I kept pushing and something went wrong that he couldn't use any tools to help get the baby out because he was so big and that he didn't think this was a good idea. She looked concerned and I heard her tell him to give her a minute but that he might want to prepare for a section. She came over to me and told me it was my choice, but after hearing that why on earth would I say I wanted to keep pushing if it could possibly hurt my baby??? I thought I would be okay with a c-section but in reality when the decision was made I was terrified. I was shaking uncontrollably and they actually had to give me something to calm me down. By the time I finally got in there I was a little better, but still scared. They started before they even brought Stephen back and that didn't help things. As an afterthought someone said, "Hey, does she have anyone?" And then they brought him back. They told me I would only feel intense pulling and tugging when they were actually pulling the baby out, but I felt it the ENTIRE time. It was a terrible experience. I found out later that he had actually gotten stuck and that was why it was so hard to get him out. His chest was so broad that he wouldn't fit through the tiny 6" incision so the doc got pretty rough with me. As a result I had a really hard recovery and required medication for twice as long as they usually give it. They also whisked my husband away with the baby and I was all alone for what seemed like forever while they stitched me up, so that didn't help my nerves. And what do you know, he was 10lbs, 3oz! Now, I have talked to a ton of women who have had c-sections and their experiences were nowhere near as terrible as mine. Infact, most women tell me theirs went very smoothly. I know I had some extenuating circumstances so maybe that was the issue, but either way it left a very bad taste in my mouth.
So that brings us to the conversation I had with my new doctor on my first visit. I told her that I ideally would like to have a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) but that I do want to be very educated on the subject before I have made up my mind 100%. She asked me how many children I wanted, because if I just maybe only wanted one more after this a c-section would be what she would reccommend, but if I wanted multiple more children after this, she would possibly reccommend a VBAC if everything was perfectly healthy throughout the pregnancy. I told her I have no idea how many kids I want...Stephen and I have never really put a number on it, and we are both fine with that. We could have one more after this or three more, who knows? So at this point she told me what her suspicions were as to why my baby got so big last time. I told her that I failed the first glucose test and had to do the four hour one. They usually administer the test between 24 and 28 weeks, and at 29 weeks I started measuring three weeks larger. She said that at the time of the test I may have been borderline gestaional diabetic and may have developed it later in my pregnancy, after the second test. So she said that if my sugar was perfect this time around and if the baby seemed to be of average size and there were no other complications that we could serioulsy talk about a VBAC. She reassured me that if I did have to have a c-section this time around that it would be a whole different experience. She said my body wouldn't be exhausted from laboring all night and day and that the baby wouldn't be so big so there wouldn't be tons of pulling and tugging, and that all in all it would be a much better experience. One of my worries with this is if I do have another c-section, this may limit me on how many kids we can have. That's a little sad for me because I don't want too many incisions and scar tissue to be the reason we can't expand our family more if we want to later on. She said we have plenty of time to decide, so I would like to ask if any of you have any advice or knowledge on the subject or if you could just keep the matter in your prayers for me so that when the time comes I can make the decision that is best for both the baby and me. I appreciate it, and sorry for another ridiculously long post! :)
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The First Fourteen Weeks
At the suggestion of some dear friends I have decided to blog throughout my pregnancy! I think it's a great way to stay in better touch with close friends and family and I really do enjoy writing, so here we are! :) Keep in mind that I love to talk, so posts may sometimes be slightly long winded...lol, but I hope you enjoy them anyway!
I suppose I'll start by telling you that we decided to start "not, not trying" for baby number two in December. Lo and behold the first week of January I am waiting for, well, we all know what I was waiting for, and when it doesn't come I decide to inconspicuously go to Target in the am for "groceries." You would think that my husband and I would both be somewhat expecting a positive pregnancy test at this point, but because we weren't as meticulous about "trying" this time as we were the first time around, I guess we both thought it would take a while. So of course the minute I get to Target I go pick up a box of tests and go straight through the line and to the restroom to see if my suspicions could possibly be correct. I literally almost passed out when two little pink lines showed up on the monitor...I was shaking and tearful, and honestly could not believe it was positive! So at this point I realize there is no way I can concentrate on really buying groceries, but I have to tell my darling husband about this little revelation in a sweet way so I went back into the store to get a card and a pair of baby shoes. Let me rewind a little here to explain the shoes. As with the first baby, I was ready for a while before he was, so when he was feeling like, okay, let's stop not trying and see what happens, the way he told me was by bringing home a pair of little girl baby booties. It was sooo sweet, so I thought a cute way to tell him about the pregnancy would be by bringing home a pair of little boy baby booties "just in case it's a boy." :) So when I got home I gave him a card and put the booties on the table next to him without a word. (But of course I am smiling ridiculously from ear to ear!) The card said something like "Congratulations to the new father" and I wrote beneath it, "just incase it's a boy..." :) in reference to the booties. He just stared at it for a minute and looked up at me with this somewhat dumbfounded look and smiled and said "are you pregnant???" I said yes of course and he didn't believe me! Lol...he kept asking me if I was serious, and when I finally pulled the test out of the bag and showed it to him he grabbed me and hugged me for the longest time. I have to admit it was a bit of a tear jerking moment there...it feels pretty amazing to be building a family together, and we already love our baby boy more than we could imagine, and to have another miracle on the way that we will love just as much is just overwhelmingly wonderful. :)
Now at this point I wanted to tell the world, just like I did the first time the minute I found out I was expecting, but I decided to only tell family and a few others until after the first ultrasound at ten weeks. I didn't expect to get all choked up this time being that this is my second baby and I've been through the wonder of the first ultrasound before, but when I saw that precious baby dancing around on the screen and heard that sweet heartbeat I couldn't help but cry. I am amazed at how much I loved that baby at that very moment...long before I will hold him or her in my arms or look into his or her eyes. I can only think that becoming a parent has finally helped me to grasp in some small way how God loves us...His children...before we even exist. It's so unfathomable...how can one explain the love for one's children? I'm just in awe of it. :)
The first night of week five I woke up to extreme nausea. I proceeded to hug the toilet about 8 or 9 times that night. In the morning it was a holiday so my hubby took me to the emergency room because I couldn't stop getting sick. I thought for sure I must have a virus...but of course the doc came in and smiled at me and diagnosed me with what else but morning sickness! (By the way, why is it always funny when a woman is sick with morning sickness??? You wouldn't laugh if it was a virus would you? Just sayin...) So they gave me much needed drugs and I have survived thus far. Week 14 and I am still getting sick, but not as frequently thank goodness! I don't mind it so much because it gives me a little hint that the baby is growing as it should and that is comforting even in my discomfort.
My stomach is another interesting topic...it seems like I started showing about 15 minutes after I found out I was pregnant! Everyone says that some women show more quickly with a second baby than with the first but I still can't help feeling waaayyy larger than I should at this point. Lol...and I am just praying that no one will ask me if it's twins this time, for fear of what may be my response. (They seriously asked me that the first time...more than once!) I plan to live in sundresses this season and try to stay as comfortable as possible with my growing belly in the extreme temperatures of a Texas summer. I'm still exercising through this pregnancy and I feel much better because of it! So here is for hoping for a happy, healthy 5 1/2 more months!
I suppose I'll start by telling you that we decided to start "not, not trying" for baby number two in December. Lo and behold the first week of January I am waiting for, well, we all know what I was waiting for, and when it doesn't come I decide to inconspicuously go to Target in the am for "groceries." You would think that my husband and I would both be somewhat expecting a positive pregnancy test at this point, but because we weren't as meticulous about "trying" this time as we were the first time around, I guess we both thought it would take a while. So of course the minute I get to Target I go pick up a box of tests and go straight through the line and to the restroom to see if my suspicions could possibly be correct. I literally almost passed out when two little pink lines showed up on the monitor...I was shaking and tearful, and honestly could not believe it was positive! So at this point I realize there is no way I can concentrate on really buying groceries, but I have to tell my darling husband about this little revelation in a sweet way so I went back into the store to get a card and a pair of baby shoes. Let me rewind a little here to explain the shoes. As with the first baby, I was ready for a while before he was, so when he was feeling like, okay, let's stop not trying and see what happens, the way he told me was by bringing home a pair of little girl baby booties. It was sooo sweet, so I thought a cute way to tell him about the pregnancy would be by bringing home a pair of little boy baby booties "just in case it's a boy." :) So when I got home I gave him a card and put the booties on the table next to him without a word. (But of course I am smiling ridiculously from ear to ear!) The card said something like "Congratulations to the new father" and I wrote beneath it, "just incase it's a boy..." :) in reference to the booties. He just stared at it for a minute and looked up at me with this somewhat dumbfounded look and smiled and said "are you pregnant???" I said yes of course and he didn't believe me! Lol...he kept asking me if I was serious, and when I finally pulled the test out of the bag and showed it to him he grabbed me and hugged me for the longest time. I have to admit it was a bit of a tear jerking moment there...it feels pretty amazing to be building a family together, and we already love our baby boy more than we could imagine, and to have another miracle on the way that we will love just as much is just overwhelmingly wonderful. :)
Now at this point I wanted to tell the world, just like I did the first time the minute I found out I was expecting, but I decided to only tell family and a few others until after the first ultrasound at ten weeks. I didn't expect to get all choked up this time being that this is my second baby and I've been through the wonder of the first ultrasound before, but when I saw that precious baby dancing around on the screen and heard that sweet heartbeat I couldn't help but cry. I am amazed at how much I loved that baby at that very moment...long before I will hold him or her in my arms or look into his or her eyes. I can only think that becoming a parent has finally helped me to grasp in some small way how God loves us...His children...before we even exist. It's so unfathomable...how can one explain the love for one's children? I'm just in awe of it. :)
The first night of week five I woke up to extreme nausea. I proceeded to hug the toilet about 8 or 9 times that night. In the morning it was a holiday so my hubby took me to the emergency room because I couldn't stop getting sick. I thought for sure I must have a virus...but of course the doc came in and smiled at me and diagnosed me with what else but morning sickness! (By the way, why is it always funny when a woman is sick with morning sickness??? You wouldn't laugh if it was a virus would you? Just sayin...) So they gave me much needed drugs and I have survived thus far. Week 14 and I am still getting sick, but not as frequently thank goodness! I don't mind it so much because it gives me a little hint that the baby is growing as it should and that is comforting even in my discomfort.
My stomach is another interesting topic...it seems like I started showing about 15 minutes after I found out I was pregnant! Everyone says that some women show more quickly with a second baby than with the first but I still can't help feeling waaayyy larger than I should at this point. Lol...and I am just praying that no one will ask me if it's twins this time, for fear of what may be my response. (They seriously asked me that the first time...more than once!) I plan to live in sundresses this season and try to stay as comfortable as possible with my growing belly in the extreme temperatures of a Texas summer. I'm still exercising through this pregnancy and I feel much better because of it! So here is for hoping for a happy, healthy 5 1/2 more months!
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