Making Progress

This week was very productive on the "Get Ready for Henry" front. I got a few more things ordered that we need before his arrival (like cloth diapers because, yes, we're crazy and we're going to cloth diaper this kiddo, thankyouverymuch). I started our doula search (because, yes, I'm crazy and I'm going to try for a drug-free birth, thankyouverymuch). Our friends Dauphin and Kelly dropped off some of the things they no longer needed for their own bambino (like a swing and a bassinet and some bottles), which struck things off of my "to buy" list (so grateful!). But the biggest strides came this weekend when Richard and my mom came up to Austin to help us tackle the room that for the last ten years has been our office but will soon need to be the nursery/guest room.

When they arrived on Saturday morning, the room looked like this:

Not exactly newborn baby friendly. Although I guess he could just sleep in the car seat perched on top of the office chair. All of the books scattered on the floor and on top of the bed were destined for Half Price Books but that still left a couple of hundred more books in that room that needed to find new homes in our house. And, actually, by the time they arrived Brian had already boxed up all the books that were going away and loaded them into our car (he took them in on Sunday morning and we, surprisingly, got $250 for them. More than I expected). So, we could at least see the top of the bed.

Brian got to work switching around some bookshelves in our living room and finding places for the books that were to stay while my mom, Richard, and I trekked up to IKEA to pick up a bed and mattress for Oliver and a dresser for the nursery. Oliver has been sleeping in what was his crib (I converted it into a toddler bed last March) but we needed to boot him out of there so Henry could have the crib. Luckily, Oliver was really excited about the prospect of his "big boy bed" so ditching the crib wasn't traumatic in the least. I'm not sure my doctor would be too thrilled with the fact that I walked around IKEA for a few hours but it felt really good to get out of the house and be able to help with the baby preparations in some way other than gestating.

When we got home, Richard, Brian, and Liz got to work assembling Oliver's bed (a process that took about three times longer than I thought it would so the poor kid couldn't get to bed until ten. Oops!) and I camped out on the couch with Oliver, watching Dinosaur Train and recovering from the most physical activity I had had in almost eight weeks. 

On Sunday, my mom and I tackled the closet in what will be Henry's room, which took forever. It's a tiny closet but I had managed to cram a whole bunch of crap into it. I stopped to take a nap with Oliver (the best thing about his big boy bed, is there's room for me, too!) but spent pretty much the entire day deciding what to toss, what to keep (and where to put it if we were going to keep it) and what to sell from that closet. But by the end of the day, we had been successful in cleaning out the room and it now looks like this:

You'll have to forgive the colors in the photos above. I took them with my iPad. I promise the room isn't green-tinged. Anyway. The room is finally ready for paint. Well, that's not technically true. The room is finally ready for some minor repairs to be done to the walls and door and then it is ready for paint. But it's miles ahead of where it was on Friday. We're so thankful for Mom and Richard's (and Liz's) help this weekend!

Very Superstitious

I'm not usually a superstitious person. I don't fear Friday the 13th or avoid black cats or freak out if a mirror breaks. But ever since my stay in the hospital I've found myself struggling with an irrational fear of doing anything to get ready for Henry's arrival. I haven't wanted to buy any of the numerous things we need, plan the nursery, or get any of Oliver's old stuff out of the attic. I've been paralyzed with the fear that if I start making steps towards getting ready for the baby, then the baby might show up. And considering we hadn't done anything to get ready for him before I went into the hospital we are really facing a time crunch at this point.

So, I finally decided to try my best to shake this fear this week. I started small - buying Henry's car seat - and I'm trying to work up to bigger purchases and projects. And now I find my superstitious fear replaced by anxiety that there's no way this will all get done in the next seven and a half weeks. But I've made a list and am determined to start chipping away at it but I'm sure this song will still be running through my head.

Good News!

Brian and I went in this morning for another ultrasound to check my placenta and an appointment with Dr. Reich. Last time I had an ultrasound my placenta was 1.2 cm away from my cervix - still considered low-lying and still a concern with regards to the possibility of future bleeding. A low-lying placenta that close to the cervix would also mean that Henry would have to be delivered via c-section. While a c-section wouldn't be the end of the world, in the last few weeks I've found myself really nervous about the possibility. Major abdominal surgery is no joke and since I've been doing nothing but sitting around for the last six weeks (and with eight more to go), I was getting really concerned about how long it was going to take my body to recover from a c-section. (Truth be told I'm nervous about how long it will take me to recover from a vaginal birth at this point).

Before I went in today I tried to do a little research about how far my placenta would have to be away from my cervix to no longer be considered low-lying. I found numerous places listing anything from 1.5 to 3 cm so I went in with no real idea what number we were even looking for here. We got into the scan and the technician set out immediately to measure the distance. She marked my placenta and then my cervix, drew a line between the two and the computer spit out the distance ... 1.98 cm. Not bad and a definite improvement over the 1.2 it had been but I was a little crestfallen that it wasn't closer to 3. After getting that measurement the tech moved on to check on Henry's growth. He's looking great and measuring right on track (they estimated that he's about 4 1/2 pounds right now) and his heartrate is perfect. He is also head down and I now know for a fact that the thing that keeps stretching out the upper left quadrant of my abdomen is his butt.

We headed up to our appointment with the doctor and after a bit of a wait were finally in to see her. She came in with the films and immediately said: "Good news!" Apparently, in her practice a placenta that is 2 cm away from the cervix is no longer considered low-lying. While I am still (barely) under that number she feels confident that in the next 8 weeks the placenta will move even further away and it will not be low-lying when I deliver. This means two very exciting things: 1. I will most likely get to try for a vaginal birth (which means I can start looking into a doula and get serious about trying for a drug-free birth), 2. I no longer have to be on the strictest bed rest.

She told me that if I felt up to it, that I could try running an errand now and then. That I could drive and leave the house for an hour to an hour and a half at a time. Most patients probably would be happy with that and go on their merry way. But I wanted more. I looked at her and said: "Can I go to work for an hour and a half?" She looked at me like I was crazy but after I explained to her that I was starting to buy books for summer and had numerous rep appointments scheduled (just about one a week from here until my due date) and that those appointments only take me about an hour, she said I could try going back to work for a little bit at a time.

She said that I could try going into the store for an hour a day for the rest of this week and if it goes well then I can try going for an hour twice a day after that. But if I start bleeding again, I'll be back in the hospital until the baby comes. She doesn't want me lifting anything and I'm not to do any exercising. This amount of time at the store was more than I could have hoped for and honestly more than I need or feel comfortable doing at this point (for now I am going to stick to just going in when I have appointments scheduled) but I was so excited to hear that I could go back to the store. There's nothing like being told you can't go to work to make you understand your true feelings about your job. Turns out, I LOVE my job and I was missing the store like crazy.

So, around ten this morning she told me I could go back to the store for a bit. Where was I at 10:30? At the store, of course. I made Brian drive me from the appointment straight to my office. I have an appointment tomorrow and wanted to make sure my office wasn't too much of a disaster area (it was) and plus I was really excited. Everyone at the store was really surprised (and happy) to see me - including my boss who tried to send me home pretty much as soon as I got there. It felt great to be back there and the store looked awesome.

After I cleared off the top of my desk as much as possible, Brian and I headed to a celebratory lunch at Kome and then back home. I immediately crashed and took a two and a half hour nap. Being out and about is exhausting. I am going to be very careful to make sure I'm not overdoing it but being told I don't have to be confined to the house for the next eight weeks feels like nothing short of a miracle.

2012 - Year in Review

Since I let this blog lay idle for most of 2012 (and pretty much all of 2011), much of our life has gone undocumented. So, to rectify that, I'm going to take some inspiration from Laurie's blog and do a quick month by month recap of the last year in as far as I can remember what we did from month to month.

January - 

January was all about Oliver's health. We ended up in the ER due to wheezing (twice) and finally after a month of trying to figure out what to do about his breathing struggles he got a prescription for an oral steroid that he has been taking by nebulizer twice a day ever since (the prescription is for a full year so we are nearing the end of the treatments). We've only had one wheezing episode since we started the treatment so I think it's working.

February -

Brian and I ran in the Color Run here in Austin with Lindsey and Dauphin. A run self-proclaimed as the "happiest 5K on the planet" or some such nonsense.  A massive rain the night before the race left the race course a muddy, hilly mess. And they ran out of color so it was more like a forced march through mud than the happiest anything. And to top it all off, I was the only fool in our group to complete the entire course. Everyone else cheated. Awesome.

Afterwards my shoes looked like this:

which ended up being good news since it meant I was forced to go buy new shoes. Buying new shoes (and drinking too much wine one night while texting back and forth with Lindsey) led us to setting the goal to run a half marathon in Chicago in June. We even registered that night. 

At the end of February, I went to get what I thought would be a quick trim and ended up having all my hair cut off, a look that I quickly fell in in love with. 

March - 

At the beginning of March we went to the Zilker Kite Festival with Dauphin, Kelly, and Lindsey. We packed a huge picnic, brought a few kites (including the flying pants), and had a blast. It's such a fun event and the weather was perfect.

I got serious about my training for the half marathon - running the Cap10K towards the end of the month. I finished in 54:52. Not bad for my first "real" race.

April - 

We celebrated the knucklehead's third birthday with friends and family at our house. There were bubbles, cascarones, and freeze tag. Oliver had a blast. 

Brian continued to do an awesome job at UT Press and moved from his position as Assistant to the Director to Editorial Assistant, excited to get in on the editorial side of things. 

May -

May brought another health scare from Oliver. He started limping one day and wouldn't stop. A check with Dr. Google freaked me out enough to get us to the doctor ASAP. They ran a full blood test and did X-Rays trying to rule things out, including leukemia. Waiting for the test results was the longest day of my life. Turned out it was a strep infection, in his hip. Didn't even know that was possible but we were so grateful that it ended up being something easily treatable. It ended up being his first of two strep infections of the month (which brought us to a total of three for the year). 

June - 

June was our vacation month. At the beginning of the month, Oliver and I piled into my mother's minivan with her and my stepfather and we all set out on a road trip to Chicago. We had a blast on the road. Oliver did great. 

We were headed to Chicago for the half-marathon. On the morning of June 9th, Lindsey, her mom, and I all completed our very first half marathon. It was an awesome feeling and I was really proud of my time.

It was the culmination of  year of hard work that took me from looking like this:

to looking like this:

The day after Oliver and I got back from Chicago, Oliver, Brian, and I headed out to New Mexico to visit with Brian's parents and his little brother, Brad, and his wife, Gina. We had a great long weekend hanging out with family, exploring Los Alamos and feeding some alpacas.

It was a fun and busy month and at the very end of it we got some exciting and welcome news:

And, yes, Brian found out we were expecting another baby when I texted him the picture above with a message that said: This is a pregnancy test. Come home soon. 

Ah, technology.

July - 

July was a blur of exhaustion, nausea and nerves brought on by the first trimester of my pregnancy. Towards the end of the month we had our first doctor appointment and saw the flickering of the little bean's heartbeat.

August -

Two awesome celebrations marked the beginning of August - my grandparents 70th wedding anniversary and Kelly's baby shower. Both were so much fun.

The middle of August saw the arrival of my friend and co-worker, Meghan's, baby boy, Nikhil, which meant the beginning of her maternity leave. Having her out in the middle of bookfair season kept me crazy busy at work for the next eight weeks.

September - 

Oliver moved from the Dragonfly to the Sunshine room at school at the beginning of September. He has two great teachers - Rihab and Terri - and he has loved being in the new room since the switch (he still gets to see lots of his previous teacher, Chelsey, which helps). The Sunshine classroom is closer to a preschool type curriculum and he's thrived in that environment.

On September 19th, Dauphin and Kelly's little girl, Claire, made her debut. She was a tiny 5 lbs, 2 oz but absolutely perfect. Oliver loved meeting her and is still obsessed with "Baby Claire."

We celebrated Brian's birthday by driving to Lockhart with Lindsey for BBQ. 

October - 

October was a hellish month at work for me. I had two trips to make - one to Philadelphia and one to Portland - and two women's conferences, Texas Book Festival and some other things I had to take care of for Meghan's maternity leave. The good news was that the month passed super quickly which brought us to the big ultrasound that told us that we are having another little boy. Ended the month working 17 straight days and was really glad to see October come to an end.

November - 

We celebrated Thanksgiving down in San Antonio with my folks. It was a nice relaxing long weekend before the ground came out from under us the next week. A few days after we got back was when I ended up in the hospital and on bed rest.

December - 

I spent the month trying to adjust to bed rest. Despite the change of venue we had an amazing Christmas celebration with our family.

We had such a great year and we are looking forward to seeing what 2013 has to bring! And we are so grateful that despite all of the pregnancy complications we've dealt with in this last month, that Henry continues to thrive in utero and will be a 2013 baby! 

30 Weeks

I had an appointment with Dr. Reich the day after Christmas. It was just a quick appointment to check in on Henry. The doctor measured me and listened to Henry's hearbeat. I'm measuring right on track (although she did say that I'm carrying long - that is Henry's out of room moving up and needs to start moving out soon. Doubtful that will happen, though, since I never really carried Oliver very far out from my body either) and Henry's heartbeat is perfect. While she was listening to him, he moved and his heartrate accelerated. She said that's the sign of a baby with an intact central nervous system. That seems like really good news. 

Once again Dr. Reich seemed really pleased and surprised that I have continued to be "crazy stable" (as she put it). In two weeks I go back for another ultrasound to check the placement of the placenta. She said that if it has moved by then that we can talk about loosening some of my restrictions as far as bed rest is concerned. I won't be taken completely off of bed rest, though, because she's not sure that the bleeding was caused by the low-lying placenta. I've given up hope that I will get back to work before the baby is born but would love to hear that I can do a little more walking or something. The good thing about these appointments is that they remind me how serious of a complication we are dealing with here. As the weeks go by and nothing happens it's hard for my mind not to wander to thoughts of: "Is this bed rest thing really necessary?" Going to see the doctor and seeing how seriously she is taking this and how concerned she is with happened reminds me that I'm doing exactly what needs to be done. 

We were getting ready to leave when Brian remembered to ask her about my three hour glucose tolerance test. It had been over a week since I'd taken it and I hadn't heard the results. Truth be told I was glad I didn't get the results before Christmas. I didn't want to hear that I needed to drastically change my diet right before my mom arrived with German Chocolate Cake. Dr. Reich walked us out to her computer to see if she had the results. I passed! With flying colors apparently. Wasn't even close. Guess I was just having an "off" day during my one hour test. Brian and I high-fived and I said: "Yes! I'm going home to have some cake!" Dr. Reich said I did so well on the test, I should add some ice cream. I love my doctor. So glad not to have to tackle another major lifestyle change.

Christmas 2012

When I was put on bed rest at the beginning of December it put our Christmas plans in jeopardy. We always go to San Antonio to spend Christmas at my mom's house. My grandmother and uncle were planning to come down there and Greg was coming from Kentucky. But the doctor insisted that I not leave town during Christmas. She wanted me close to the hospital and close to her if anything went wrong. So with only four weeks to spare my mom set out to move the entire Christmas celebration to Austin. No small feat considering our house is by no means big enough to host six adults and one three year old.

Mom found a vacation rental house on homeaway.com that was close by our house, had four bedrooms, two living rooms and a full kitchen. It was also available and reasonably priced. So she emailed the owner to see if she'd allow us to put up a Christmas tree I the house during our stay (you can't have Christmas morning without a Christmas tree). The owner agreed so we had a place where we could all be together.

On the 23rd everyone made their way to Austin. Mom, Richard, Greg, and Oliver (who had been spending the weekend with my parents) from San Antonio and my grandmother from Midland (my uncle had been dealing with his own health problems and wasn't able to join us). We gathered at our house until the 3:30 check in time at which point Operation Christmas was in full swing. We spent the afternoon and evening decorating the tree, eating Vietnamese food from Sunflower and enjoying each other's company. The house was perfect with tons of room for us all to spread out and a nice big backyard for Oliver to play in.

We spent Christmas Eve hanging out at the house (obviously). Oliver and I took a nice long nap together in the afternoon. That evening we introduced Oliver to the movie Polar Express. He loved it (as we knew he would. He's been on quite the train kick lately). He opened his Christmas pj's and a new book (Pete the Cat Saves Christmas. It was quite a proud moment for us since he opened it and then exclaimed: Yes! A new book!). He dictated a letter for me to write to Santa and set out some cookies and snacks for the big guy and his reindeer and the headed to bed.

Oliver, Brian, and I were all in the same room Christmas Eve so as soon as Oliver woke up Christmas morning, it fell to Brian and I to keep him occupied until after seven when he could go downstairs. The first thing he wanted to do when he woke up was see if Santa had eaten the snacks he left so keeping him in the rooms was a bit of a challenge but we managed. When it was time he headed downstairs and was amazed to see that his snacks had, in fact, been eaten and that Santa had left him a note. And then the present frenzy began. Oliver was obviously very good this year - Santa took good care of him.

We all spent the morning opening presents and watching Oliver enjoy his new toys. That afternoon Oliver and I took another nice long nap. In the afternoon he continued to play with his new stuff. We set up his new train set and he played with it for hours. Seriously. I've never seen him play at the same activity for that long. It's like the best babysitter ever. We had a lovely Christmas dinner of prime rib and twice baked potatoes and dijon braised brussels sprouts and after Oliver went to bed all the adults had fun playing Apples to Apples. It was a great Christmas and I'm so grateful for all of my mom's hard work to make sure it happened.

Bed Rest and Follow Up Appointments

Everything continued to be stable in the hospital so I was finally allowed to go home on Saturday morning, December 1st. The Friday before I was discharged, Dr. Reich came by to check on me and she spent about 45 minutes answering all of my questions. She sent me home on strict bed rest and I was confused about what that meant. Basically it means that I'm to be laying down or propped up on pillows for as much time as possible. I can get up to go to the bathroom, I can take a shower, and I can make myself a snack or a sandwich but I'm not allowed to stand up for more than 15 minutes at a time and I'm to keep my walking to a minimum. Basically, I can hang out on the couch or in bed or I can go to the doctor's office. I obviously can't lift Oliver (in fact, I can't lift anything over ten pounds) and I can't drive. And I am to come back to the hospital if I have fresh bleeding, if I start to have regular contractions, or if there is a decrease in Henry's movement.

She told me it was very likely I would go full term if I followed the bed rest instructions and that if my placenta moves up and Henry turns around before I go into labor that I will be allowed to try for a vaginal delivery (I had thought maybe this whole experience meant I was an automatic c-section). She also said that most women experience more bleeding. I'm trying not to obsess over that piece of information but it's nice to know because if it does happen again, I think knowing it was likely to happen again will keep me calmer. She also said that she got more results from my bloodwork and now thinks that what happened was bleeding from the edge of my placenta as opposed to a placental abruption. Basically she ran a test to see if there was any mixing of my blood and his and it came back negative. If there had been a placental abruption that test should have shown some mixing. So, that's good news. I asked her for advice on diet so that I could avoid gaining a billion pounds on bed rest.

The thing that struck me the most during our conversation was how surprised she seemed to be by how well Henry and I were doing. I hadn't been having contractions (they stopped on Wednesday), I had had no fresh bleeding and we were very stable. Seeing how surprised she was with how quickly things had turned around made me realize how very lucky we are - lucky the bleeding stopped, lucky Henry is so strong, and lucky to be going home at all.

Since I've been home I've been trying to get used to my new restrictions. The thought of being on bed rest for the next three months is terrifying so I'm trying to take it one day at a time. I keep reminding myself that being on bed rest until March when he's due is the best case scenario and should be what I'm hoping for, not what I'm dreading. I'm worried about how hard my bed rest is going to be on Brian - so much is going to fall on his shoulders now - but he's been amazing. My parents have helped out and his mom came down to spend this week with us which has been such a help! She's taking O to school and picking him up and cooking for us and giving Brian a break which is so nice.

I've been cleared to work from home by the doctor which is a relief since it's the Christmas season. Plus, it helps pass the days. So, I get up in the morning, do as much work as I can, and then spend the afternoon waiting for Oliver and Brian to get home.

I left the hospital almost two weeks ago and have been back to the doctor twice since then. The first visit was short. She measured me and listened to Henry's heartbeat and asked a few questions. I was measuring right on track and Henry sounded great. I went back this week for a longer appointment. I had an ultrasound to check my placenta again (it's moved but not enough. We'll check again in four weeks) and took my 1-hour gestational diabetes test (I failed and had to take the three hour yesterday. Still waiting on those results). I met with the doctor and she seems really happy with how well I'm doing so we are going to see each other every two weeks instead of every week. I complained that she was taking away my one outing and she told me I could go see a movie if I wanted to. I don't know if I will because I feel guilty about being able to do that but not go to work.

So, all things considered, we are doing well. Trying to keep busy and passing one day at a time. I'm 28 weeks now and so grateful to have reached this point.