A little something about babies 1 and 2

Baby 1, also known as Meghan, is our lovely daughter. On Monday night, her soccer team that I coach had a scrimmage with another local team. We had a slow start, but in the end our team won 5-4. Meg scored one of those goals. Earlier in the game, while she was goalie, she had a meltdown. Meg tends to take any criticism or correction or coaching as a report card on her life, defining who she is. Because of this, she has a really hard time with responsibility, even with accidents. During these incidents, I am sad for her, mad that she can't accept simple responsibility, and (ashamedly) embarrassed when others are watching. We try to remember to talk to her about this stuff when she is nowhere near it and not during the event, which never works. Things are slowly changing.

But, this isn't all my baby is about. And Monday night, she showed how much more. It takes us 15-20 minutes to drive home after soccer. Usually this is a great time for us to chat and catch up on the day and our plans. Because she was in a great mood (who isn't after scoring a goal), I brought up responsibility for our actions and the consequences, even if they are unintended. The talk went so well that we even talked about choosing our battles, another issue. Because we also discussed a friend of hers, we ended up talking about Girl Scouts and Encampment in the Spring, and she asked the big question, "Mommy, will you be going this year?" Some background: Meg has gone for the last two years, accompanied by me. I knew that she wasn't going to like the truth, and I had been hoping that this question wouldn't come up for a while.

Of course, I told her that I probably wouldn't be able to go because I would have to feed the baby. I was a little more graphic and tried to let her know that I wasn't choosing the baby over her, but that I am the baby's bottle. My baby cried that she didn't want to go without me. I wanted to cry with her. It took the next ten minutes to calm her down by peppering the conversation with some joking and a dose of reality: at camp, she is rarely with me. I also let her know that I would come and get her if she was sick. Sigh. Hard night, right?

No. While walking on the deck to the front door, Meg said the sweetest thing, "Mommy, maybe I'll want to stay home and not leave the baby." And, if that's what she decides, it's ok with me.

That would be a great place to end, but I also mentioned Baby 2 in my title, and I can't leave my sweet Jakey out. To know Jake is to know Blues Clues -- intimately -- line by line. His favorite of late is actually an episode of Blue's Room (and now the theme song is stuck in my head again). In it, the characters decide to act out their version of Little Red Riding Hood. Blue is Red, of course, and Joe is the Big Bad Wolf. Red is bringing banana bread to her grandma, and the wolf loves banana bread. Jake's favorite line? "Take (the) banana bread," emphasized with fists grabbing that imaginary bread to his chest. A rather loud wolf howl follows. Describing it does not do justice to how cute he is. Brian has recorded him and made it the ringtone for when I call his cell.

Now Meg is reading in bed, and Jake wanted "bwanket" which is bed with us. And, I am the last one up which means it is time to go to bed ... after I take my bp med, take my bp, take the rest of my meds, close down for the night, etc.

Sleep well, and if you have babies, enjoy them and the details of your lives with them.

Is baby3 a boy or a girl?

We had another appointment with the perinatalogist for a limited scan. I'm not sure what that means, but we saw baby3 again, looking cute and active. The tech focused on the cervix length which was 5 cm. 3 is good and 2.5 okay. 5? Awesome. She also measured my many fibroids. Some of them are as big as or bigger than baby3. We asked to be told the gender if she could tell, but even after an abdominal and vaginal scan (yeah, I know), she wasn't sure. Baby3 likes to sit crosslegged and block the view. The tech thinks she may have found evidence of a boy but no solid evidence. So, we still don't know. Our next appointment with the Ob/Gyn is Wednesday the 22nd and with the perinatalogist on the 27th. Maybe then we will know. Today we were a bit disappointed about not finding out the gender but thrilled with the other results.

On the gender note, we are almost prepared to name this special child. We have narrowed the names down to just a few but aren't sharing them until we bestow baby3 with a name. We've put a lot of thought into our choices and are excited give our baby this gift.

Not much else is going on. Mom was visiting last week and left Sunday afternoon. Her visits are always wonderful and restful. I wish that I didn't have to work so much while she was here, but I have to save my vacation days for our trip in California over Thanksgiving. Meghan especially loves her time with her Gima. Oh, we also rearranged our living room furniture to open up our space more. We love it. It was just time for a change.

That's all for now.

12 years strong

Sunday was our 12th anniversary. With mom visiting, we were able to have a marvelous date. Now our dates are all about being together, not about what we do. So, don't laugh too much at our destinations.

First we went to the Honda dealer to look at the Odysseys, not that we can afford one. Our wonderful Element only seats four, not enough for us any more. We don't want to trade in our new car, and our old minivan is ... well ... a disaster. Back to the Odysseys, they are soooooo nice. Of course, the model we saw was completely cush. Next we went to the Toyota dealer to look at the Siennas. The high end ones weren't open so we had to ask to look at one. Comparing the high end version of one to the low end version of the other? Won't work. Nope. Ah, to have an extra $30-40k around the house or in a bank account.

Next we went to BJ's brewhouse and grill for yummy food. Brian had a couple of beers while I enjoyed their root beer. What a treat. The appetizers are unique and delicious, the entree ecstasy. We were too full for desert this time. Football was on the big screen TVs. We talked and laughed like we always do when we can have some time for just the two of us.

After all of that food, we drove over to Babies R Us to look around at the new baby stuff. It's amazing the advances in 7 years. We stopped at Starbucks for some decaf drinks, Best Buy to walk some more. We finished by going to Toys R Us to buy Meghan the Padme (from Star Wars 1-3) costume that she wants to wear on Halloween. Then, a nice drive home in the rain.

I love my amazing husband. All women should be so blessed.

We have movement

I woke up at 1 am to, well, you know. After returning to bed and trying to find a comfortable position, I felt the baby move. Of course, I couldn't go back to sleep since I wanted to feel the baby again. So exciting. I can't wait for more movement and stronger movement so that Brian and Meghan can feel the baby as well.

My friend who received the abnormal results went back to the doctor yesterday and so far everything is fine. Thanks for your prayers.

I thought that I had one more thing to say ... pregnancy brain.

A couple of things

Today the doctor's office called to let us know that the quad screen blood test came back normal. Now are chances of the baby having Downs Syndrome are 1 in 900 (a little higher but I can't remember the exact number), Trisomy 13 1 in 1900 (see previous parantheses), and Trisomy 18 also 1 in 1900 (guess). I don't know the fourth one and don't feel like looking it up. Time for bed, you know.

One thing that I forgot from the ultrasound. The tech kept measuring a bunch of fibroids, too many for me to count, and one that's three inches in diameter -- bigger than the baby. Brian raised the alarm. Our baby will be born with an unusual fear of balls. We'll have to fish the baby out of the ball bin howling. No ball sports, except maybe dodgeball. The tech loved it. I just wish that I could better convey the humor of it all.

Yep, time for bed. Lots of work waiting for me tomorrow and the rest of the week ... well, actually, month.

Buenas noches, mis amigos.

Sweet Relief

This morning at 7:35 I finished my 24-hour urine test. The results from this test will give the docs a baseline so that they can detect pre-eclampsia since I am being treated for high blood pressure. Hypertension is only a symptom of pre-eclampsia, or toxemia.

Ah, you cannot imagine the joy, I mean drudgery, of capturing your urine every time you go over a 24-hour period and pouring it into a jug. Oh, wait, that's not the fun. The fun part is that the jugs with contents, of course, must be refrigerated until you take them to the lab where, once again, blood is drawn.

Oops, wrong again. The fun part is during the night when every 1-2 hours, you have to go capture the pee, wander down the hallway to the fridge in a stupor, ram your foot into the purple and pink castle that keeps appearing on the floor, bring the jug to the bathroom, carefully pour now, tighten the lid, wipe down the jugs and counter, take the just back to the fridge, return to bed, and hope and pray that sleep will come before another urge to pee.

Yes, the sweet relief refers to completing the test.

Have I mentioned round ligament pain? I'm sure that I have. Ow!!! It's like having a muscle cramp in your pelvic region. And, it tends to be worse at night and first thing in the morning. I don't know what this kid is trying to prepare my pelvis for but it's a bit frightening when my hips and legs feel like a giant is pulling them apart like a wishbone on Thanksgiving. How big is this little one going to be? Meg was only 5lb 3oz, and Jake was 3lbs 2oz. The docs tell me I'll definitely be having a c-section. I need the baby and my body to understand that they don't need to go to all of this extra work. The usual exit will not be in use.

Boy, I'm sounding awfully snarky today.

On another note, if you pray, please pray for two of my dear friends who are struggling in their pregnancies. One is hanging in there on bedrest and the other just received abnormal results from a test and won't see the doc until Monday or Tuesday. Both of these dear ladies need peace and relief. Thank you.

I promised

Here is as complete a report as I can give on Monday's appointment marathon:

Brian and I left the house at 9 am to make it to our 9:30 appointment at the perinatalogist in Bellevue. Because of traffic, Brian dropped me off at the entrance so that we wouldn't be late. Once there, I bought the special DVD for recording the ultrasound, of course. First we met with the genetic counselor. It's hard not to give in to fear during this part of the appointment. All of the risks and tests are gone over in detail, with pictures. We also discussed our family trees and any anomalies in that.

Then, we move to the nurse's office to go over our complete history, health and pregnancies. Nothing too exciting here except the nurse was intrigued by my crazy medical history. We let her know that my neuro surgeon cleared me after my subdural hematoma debacle.

Next the fun began ... ultrasound! By this point, I really needed to use the bathroom, but because the measurements that they were about to take were very important, I was not allowed to visit the facilities. The tech needed to take three measurements of the nuchal translucency. This measurement of the skinfold and fluid on the back of the neck can help determine the risk of downs syndrome. Usually a thickness of 3 or more is an indicator. Baby3's measurements were 1.4 or 1.5. This reduces the risk from 1 in 49 to 1 in 700. Woo hoo! We also were able to see both arms and hands, legs and feet, umbilical blood flow, and that lovely beating heart. Oh, before I forget again, we also were able see baby3 moving around and holding hands up to the face. I also had to cough a few times to get the babe in position for a good measurement. Delightful doesn't quite cover it.

We also saw numerous fibroids, one about 3 inches in diameter and several around the right uterus. I have mentioned that before, haven't I? If not, here it is. I have uterine didelphys or a double uterus. Meg was born out of the left side, Jake the right. I had the tube on the right side tied so that we could avoid another pregnancy like Jake's, but we needed to confirm that this pregnancy is on the left. This ultrasound did that. Give me another Woo hoo! The tech said that they will be keeping an on the fibroids, but we don't need to be concerned as long as they don't interfere with the left side. So far, they don't. Another Woo, with another hoo!

As you know, we also had a 4D ultrasound done which was amazing. Technology is such a fantastic thing. I love being able to see an actual baby. Today was also the first day that I felt baby3 might be a boy. Girl always felt right before. I was trying to figure out why my instinct changed when it hit me last night while looking at the 4D image. As weird as it may sound, the baby looks like Jake did as a baby, big head and belly with scrawny limbs.

I'll post the video when I can.

After all of that fun, we went out to lunch since we had to wait for the doc to return from a procedure. We found a great little Italian restaurant in Belle Square called Luciano's. YUM!!!!! Delicious food. Intimate setting. An amazing date.

And, back to the doc office for our meeting with the specialist. We love this doc. He has been with us through Meg's and Jake's pregnancies, but because I was moved to Seattle during Jake's, he never found out how everything went. It was great fun updating him on Jake's story. Then, more history. Blood pressure stuff. More risk stuff. And, the "bucket." Be sure to read that with a British accent. :) The bucket is to collect my urine over a 24-hour period so that they have a good reading on my baseline protein and creatine. So, can you guess what I'm doing today? Fun, huh? No leaving the house so that I don't have to carry my bucket with me.

Doc decided that we will be visiting with him every two weeks for a limited scan and check. We may even find out the gender soon.

Next? Blood. Two tubes to check for more risk factors. We will receive those results in a week.

We had 20 minutes before my appointment with my gynecologist so we went over to Merry Go Round, a cute but pricey baby store nearby. The gyne appointment went smoothly, basically just a check in.

Brian also played pack mule all day, carrying around our laptops in case we had some time to work. Never happened. Oh, well.

I may have forgotten something and I don't feel like editing. Sorry. I hope it's not too hard to understand.