The Joys of Pregnancy - final edition

Well I have to say that while this is the final installment of my "Joys of Pregnancy" series, it is also the first one for this pregnancy.  I did quite a few with Jaydon, only a couple with Lucy and now just this one with baby #3.  

I will say I am sooooo ready to be done!  I am huge again (as always), everywhere I go most people wonder if it isn't twins and for the past two months I would get the any day now questions.  It is funny how I know some people would get upset by those statements, for me I just take it as a source of pride that I can get this huge and still keep it all together :-)

The new baby is set to arrive (by scheduled c-section) Sunday at 8am.  We are looking forward to meeting our new little one and are excited to find out if we have another son or daughter.  We decided this time to be surprised since we found out with both Jaydon and Lucy and felt pretty good about having everything we needed for either gender.  Jaydon wants a brother and Lucy wants a sister, Jeremy and I would be pleased with either, we have some reasons we would like a boy and other reasons we would like a girl so ultimately we just can't wait to meet our new one.

38.5 weeks with baby #3

38.5 weeks with Lucy

40 weeks with Jaydon

Stay tuned for news of the new little one.  I will have Jeremy do his traditional guest posting with the baby info and new pics on Sunday morning.  Stay tuned to hear about our growing family.

King Felix Night

Grandpa and Nana treated us to an awesome evening watching the Mariners!  We got to sit in the King's Court and we all had a blast, Jaydon in particular was over the moon to be at a game and get spoiled!

Oh Jeremy, how many photos of that face do we have :-)

My sister and I are due two months apart, the bummer for me is that she is due the end of August and I have to wait til the mid-end of Oct.  This was the obligatory belly photo.

Think Jaydon loved his cotton candy!?!

He got to go in the play area for a bit with dad before the game started

Jaydon and Jeremy found the King's throne! 

We had such a wonderful time and it was a really great atmosphere at the game, plus we got the W!

Well its official...

...my body does not want to have babies! It makes good babies but can't seem to get them out on its own. After 2 dr. appointments today and an ultrasound we are scheduled for a c-section Monday morning. My fluid is still in the too high range, the baby is measuring approx 9lb 10oz, she is in oblique position (head on base of one side of rib cage and butt on base of other) and we are no where near going into labor because her head won't push into my cervix to tell my body to start. So, I am disappointed that I don't get to even try for a VBAC, I still haven't even gotten to go into labor on my own and I will get to have major surgery four days before my sister gets married. Awesome! We will let you all know as soon after she arrives what her stats are and try to post a couple pics.

More updates

Well, this sucks. I met with my midwife yesterday and with the massive amounts of fluid I have and the fact that my baby can just swim around and not really engage her head down to actually tell my body to start labor and the fact that my sister is getting married in 8 days is leading to all kinds of complications. I was supposed to go in and see my actual OB today to talk about our options, then of course this morning I get the call that she is out sick and I can see someone else. Well I signed up for the appointment but the someone else doesn't really know my situation and probably isn't as likely to let me keep trying to wait and have a vaginal birth with the fluids. Not to mention they are pretty concerned about me traveling so soon with a new born after I give birth for my sisters wedding and all this other drama. I have held it together pretty well but dang, can't I just have a body that does this birth thing the normal way! It is a pretty frustrating time not to mention a bit concerning. I do know that currently baby girl and I are both still in great health, she just gets to swim around in her own little ocean all day as my midwife put it. My fundal height (not the most accurate measure but supposed to roughly equate to how far along in your pregnancy you are) is now at 50, I love being the size of a 50 week pregnant woman instead of just a 40 week pregnant woman. Grrrr! Thanks for listening to the rant.

Baby Girl update

Ok, so I carry my pregnancies waaaay out there! With Jaydon I was huge and people would certainly give me looks but my midwives didn't seem to think it was all that big a deal because we were otherwise healthy (until past his due date and the whole blood pressure, induction, bandl's ring, c-section fiasco that ensued). So my midwives wouldn't really do regular fundal height measurements (the size of the belly), which meant I didn't reallly think all that much of being so big.

Hower, this time, as I continue to carry sooooo big it just is painful, my midwife and dr. are paying a bit more attention to my size and were a little concerned by it. When at 36 weeks I measured 42 they had me do an ultrasound and I carry a lot of extra fluid. I had to go back for more glucose testing (all normal) and another ultrasound - still high fluid levels. Then when I was 38.5 weeks pregnant my fundal height measurement was 47 weeks (if you don't count where the little girl was shoving her bottom out slightly to the side of my belly because that measure was 49 weeks). So, I am the size of someone who is 47 weeks pregnant, which to be that large while parenting a toddler (who has been refusing to nap) and try and carry on like normal is so challenging.

The bummer is that I have gotten my hopes up to have an early delivery when it just seems like my original due date was probably the accurate one to begin with and I shouldn't have even been that excited for this last week and a half. One night last week I had contractions 5 minutes apart for an hour and a half and they lasted around a minute each so I was thinking we might be getting close but now I am back to thinking that if Jaydon was a couple days late and my due date isn't until Sunday the 25th I might as well just anticipate an arrival after this weekend. And plus, if I post this and complain about not delivering I can always just tempt the fates and maybe labor will start soon:)

So, I know I had referred some of you to our blog to get updates, and I promise, when we actually head to the hospital I will do a post and let you know, for now just know we are hanging out and nothing exciting is going on. Other than still trying to figure out how to get through each day being the size of a house! It is all a bit new to us because we didn't really expect Jaydon to be early, I wasn't even ready for him to come until about 5 days before he was due and then we didn't get to go into labor on our own anyway both Jeremy and I are a little unsure what to really expect from this one. I guess time will tell - of course the sooner the better in my world, I do still have to find time to buy a dress for my sister's wedding in 11 days.

Joys of Pregnancy

In general I will say this was a much easier pregnancy for me than Jaydon. In fact I think this may be my first "Joys of Pregnancy" post this time. However, as we near the end and I just seem to carry very large looking babies it is no longer so much fun. Add to that Jeremy has traveled almost every other week since January 1st and I have a very active toddler to take care of all day it is definitely getting to the painful and ready to be done stage.

Sleep is somewhat non-existent and I am seriously hoping that this little girl decides to come early (my official due date is the 25th), Jaydon came 3 days after his due date. I did have to go have two ultrasounds after measuring so big and scaring the midwife a little with the potential size. The ultrasound showed that I carry high to abnormal high levels of fluid around the baby which puts me at higher risk for some cord complications if my water were to break but for the most part we are both very healthy and doing well. She was measuring pretty big so the new date that the ultrasound would peg her at is the 16th. Now, I don't want to get my hopes up but boy does that sound a lot better than the 25th. Especially with my sisters wedding on the 30th and 31st.

I am lucky that I have not had the pregnancy granulomas develop this time and didn't have to go to the dentist to have them cut out multiple times :-). I do have some of the pelvic separation pain and back pain and general being GINORMOUS hurts pain but I guess that is to be expected. So for now, come on baby girl - let's get this show on the road.

38.5 weeks pregnant with #2

40 weeks pregnant with Jaydon

D and C

The joys of this pregnancy/post-partum time continue for me. We are blessed with a healthy baby boy but my stuff has been weird. First the blasted granulomas, then the spike in blood pressure - induction - c-section delivery and now we get to follow that up with a D and C surgery yesterday to remove part of the placenta that was still stuck in my uterus. Of course that is so rare with a c-section but due to the bandl's ring not all of it was removed initially. What fun! I also am getting to enjoy some lovely post-partum skin irritations that are all over my body. Sorry for sharing what is probably more than some people wanted to know. Thank goodness for a healthy baby boy.

Update from the hospital

We arrived and were started on pitocin at about 5:15pm. After 10 hours and not enough progress to do anything we decided to stop it for four hours and try and get some rest. With my blood pressure being high they also had me on Magnesium (great combo of drugs pitocin to bring on labor and magnesium has also been used to stop labor). I also had to have a antihypertensive drug because my blood pressure. Then to actually get some rest after the 10 hours of pitocin I had a pain med. So we now have a couple good hours of sleep under our belt and started the pitocin again at 7:45 this morning, so far only mild contractions and no real progress but by golly we hope to bring this baby boy into the world sometime today!

Heading to the hospital

Well at my check-up appointment I for the first time in the whole pregnancy had high blood pressure and then some protein in my urine so while everything was looking good (80% effaced, 2cm dilation, -1 station) we are being sent to the hospital. First for some monitoring and a med to just soften the cervix to see if we go into labor and then if needed we will be induced. My midwife said by the time she sees me tomorrow morning when she takes over on call we will either already have our little guy in our hands or she will help deliver him in the am. We will try and post more later but our computer doesn't get wifi so I don't know when we will be able to get anything on here.

The joys of pregnancy...#4

Waiting... I have been ready for quite awhile, let's get this show on the road. However, now we have reached the time when Jeremy has a couple big work things on Wed and Thurs so it almost seems as though we should wait until that is completed for his sake. For mine, now could not be soon enough.

Also, the fact that my mouth really doesn't like pregnancy hormones and here I am the day before my due date driving 70 miles to my dentist to have her remove my pregnancy granulomas yet again. I thought it could wait and that it wasn't so bad until the one on the top row of my teeth inside seemed to rupture whenever I ate, brushed, flossed or even just thought about food. So now I am back home with a very tender mouth after having both cauterized and removed once again. I also learned that the next time I am pregnant I get the joy of needing a cleaning every month to try and keep these suckers away. Nothing like all those dentist bills piling up, but hey, if it means I avoid the actual granulomas I am all for it.

The joys of pregnancy...#3

I know I already mentioned my pregnancy granuloma in the first post but I thought my adventure yesterday deserved an update. I am so fortunate to be in the one percent of women who develop these lovely beasts during pregnancy. They are growths along the gum lines that can bleed like crazy. **Warning - this is a gross post read at your own risk** My brand new toothbrush that I started using less than two months ago is having to be retired because it is stained brownish with the amount of blood I have had in my mouth while brushing.

So the one granuloma that I had removed towards the end of May came back but I thought I would just leave it until the end of the pregnancy or until it started bothering me (it was being pretty tame on the bleeding scale); however, then as I was dental flossing a couple weeks ago I noticed that a spot on the top of my mouth inside the toothline would bleed. After ignoring it for awhile and then having the bleeding get worse I stopped flossing in that one spot and then no blood. However recently I forgot and flossed there and it was like a river so I decided to call the dentist again.

I went back in yesterday and was informed that not only do I have the joy of having two granulomas (which were both surgically - very minor - removed yesterday) I can anticipate having these continue throughout the rest of pregnancy...and...even while breastfeeding. So here I was thinking I just had to get through another month and a half when I get smacked with the great news that I could have this joy continue for as long as I breastfeed. Also the chances of me getting these in a subsequent pregnancy are very high.

I was given a prescription mouthwash to help keep infections down in my mouth - you know the great thing about it? It stains your teeth brown. (Yes I can get it removed if I go back into the dentist and have them polish it all off but seriously).

So while I can count my blessings that the baby is healthy and still very active (I am supposed to count movements until I get to 10 and it should happen within about 30 minutes, at an active time of day I can get our 10 movements in less than 3 minutes). And, I have been in great health (other than the mouth) I still am anxious for this kiddo to arrive!

Joys of Pregnancy...#2

Trying to get comfortable by building a castle of pillows so I could finally lie on my stomach. This worked for a short amount of time.

I was not going to post this picture for anyone to see - ever. But after going through all this work to even figure out how to get my photos saved so that I can use them I changed my mind. At some point I may actually enjoy seeing this picture, not yet. I am glad my CNM (nurse/midwife) gave me a suggestion of using a towel or small blanket under my belly when lying down. It has helped so that the past couple of nights I have actually been able to stay in bed and only wake up 2-3 times instead of getting up contstantly and finally just moving to the couch. Oh and for those who are curious, I am cheating and editing the date of the post to more acurately reflect the day of the picture or event since I have not been great about keeping up.

The joys of pregnancy...#1

Some people mention how pregnancy is just amazing and they love every moment of it. I am beginning to think these people are crazy, or just forgot what it was really like. Between the trouble sleeping (getting comfortable), the leg cramps, the bloody gums - welcome pregnancy granuloma, and having most everyone look at me with questioning eyes asking again "when are you due," and implying that I am going to pop anyday has left me ready for this child to be born.

The good news, I enjoy feeling little Aloysius kick and move around, I am also thankful that for the most part the baby weight has gone straight to the belly versus just smooshing around every other part of my body. The bad news, I still am a week away from officially entering the third trimester! Yes, I know I get to be pregnnat through the entire hot summer (as many, many people have reminded me of). I am looking at investing a kiddie pool for the patio and signing up to be at the pool as much as possible - that is if I can get even a pregnancy swim suit to fit. I would imagine there may be a few more posts in the coming months with more about my joys of pregnancy.