24.5 weeks & Belly Pic

I think I am growing, so Valorie had to compare with a beach ball.
I have noticed I'm starting to get the "pregnancy face" Ahhh the joys.

We went to a Margaritaville Birthday party last night that Valorie threw for her boyfriend Travis. We had a good time, but after being on my feet for 2 days in a row, I sure felt the effects this morning. My darn ankles disappeared. LOL


Not much else is new, just waiting for all our Doctor appointments this week and hoping we get some good news. Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers you guys keep sending. We appeciate it so much!

24 weeks!

How far along? 24 weeks
Maternity clothes? Gotta love them, miss some of my old outfits though
Stretch marks? Not yet, thankfully
Sleep: I need to go buy a snoogle pillow. And waking up to pee every 45 mins doesn't allow me to sleep very good
Best moment this week: Getting some decent news from the Doctors
Movement: He LOVES to kick my bladder constantly, u/s tech even confirmed this. He moves all the time when I am relaxed.
Food cravings: Nothing lately, wonder if the craving thing is over for now
Gender: It's a BOY!
Labor Signs: Defintely NO, stay that way!
Belly Button in or out? It's starting to make an apperance
What I miss: Not having a constant worry and anxiety
What I am looking forward to: All of next weeks Dr appointments, I want to make sure he's still growing and we get an answer on his heart too.
Weekly Wisdom: Drink lots of water.. LOTS AND LOTS! It's helping keep my AF up.
Milestones: He is age of viability, meaning if he were born today his chances went way up on survival. I am now not allowed to travel far from home since he can come early and have a fighting chance.

Nothing much else is new. We're still working on the nursery and I just got a text from Chris who is giving in to the white crib after talking to his boss at work who talked him out of the dark crib because they got it and regret it. SWEEEET!

I will post a belly pic sometime this week (sorry Mom). We tried to take one tonight but they all came out shaky, guess that's what happens when you ask Marie to take a pic with my iPhone.

Noelle my bestest friend is flying in this week to visit her grandparents who live 3 hours away. So she is coming to hang out with me for a few days. I am so excited!!! She will be a good distraction to make this week go by fast, and then we only have a few more days until we go see the cardiologist.

Keep the prayers coming. We hope next week brings more good news. I will be the happiest mom on the planet!

Nothing new

Nothing new has really gone on in the past week, which is actually a good thing. I went back to work on Wed night and for once I was happy to be back working. It was nice to see everyone and have them all comment on my growing belly, which by the way keeps getting bigger. Hopefully it means this lil booger is growing too. Oh and...this baby still has NO NAME...so keep the suggestions coming.

We went to Babies R Us to start our registry tonight. It's semi overwhelming so we only did some major stuff and I'll add the small things later after we decide what bottles, pacifiers and ect. that we want. My family still plans on having a baby shower June 20th..hopefully this baby boy decides to wait longer than 27 weeks to make his apperance.

Yes Mom, I promise to add a belly picture and his last ultrasound picture sometime this weekend. I tried taking a belly picture tonight, but I didn't look too hot after the Florida rain shower. We have another ultrasound next Monday so Ill have her give us another video of it so I can share it again.

Alright, I'm off to research more baby stuff.

Some Good News

First off, THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts, for all the prayers, thoughts and cupcakes (thanks Ash) sent our way. They truly seem to be working, so keep them up.

We were suppose to have 2 Drs appointments this morning, on with our normal OB and one with the fetal specialist. Our baby is still growing, measuring about 21 weeks, so 2 weeks behind, but he IS still growing. He still has a strong heartbeat and was moving all over the place. The u/s tech said she only notices a enlarged left atrium with his heart so she said the cardiologist will take a deeper look into that. BUT, she did say she does not notice any major structure defects such as Transposition of the great arteries or Tetralogy of Fallot.... So that's a good thing.

We then went to meet with one of our favorite OB's from our practice, she said the good thing is he is growing and hasn't given up yet. She tried to call down to the fetal specialist to get my results but they would not give them to her so I was going to have to wait until 12:15 to get the darn results. She did say she is going to recommend seeing a different perinatologist in Sarasota due to my awful experience at the one we went to. She also said patients are very happy witht he one in Sarasota.

She said her main concern is getting this baby to the right point for delivery. She said typically with heart defects they want the baby to grow and stay in the womb as long as possible so that way the baby is strong enough to handle surgeries and interventions. BUT, since our little man is so tiny, she said they have to be ready to deliver him early because sometimes they do better outside the womb as far as growing and feeding. So she said with the NEW perinatologist & pediatric cardiologist they will calaborate a delivery plan. She said I will most likely be starting steroid shots for the babies lung maturity soon. My ultrasounds are now every 2 weeks to monitor his size and growth, so hopefully he keeps growing.

We then ran down to the fetal specialist and begged them to give me the results to the amnio early so we didn't have to wait until 12:15. We had no plans on ever going to this Dr again so no reason to go to the appointment today, even our OB agreed. They had no problem and the nurse came to give us the results...

NORMAL!
EVERYTHING CHROMOSOMAL LOOKS NORMAL!

So we ran upstairs to show Dr F, and she was soooo excited and she said our main focus now is the heart and a delivery plan. I'm so happy to be under some of the best caring OB's. I have full faith in thier work and trust everything they do.

I can not even tell you how happy Chris and I were when we left Healthpark today. I feel like a HUGE weight was lifted off our shoulders. We are so thankful for everyones prayers, they really seem to be working. Our baby is a fighter and I know he will be our little miracle.

I'm off to take a much deserved nap and will post his ultrasound picture later.

Growing? New Bump Picture

Do you think I'm growing?I swear I think this baby has gone through a growth spurt in the last few days.

I've been in Ohio all weekend visiting my Mom, Dad & Sisters. I'm so happy my Dr said it was okay to go on this one last trip because I really needed to come home. It was a great weekend. I swear I have grown over this weekend. I have increased my protein & fluids and hopefully it's helping. This baby has been kicking the crap out of me and I am NOT going to complain. It's always a good day when I wake up and he's kicking me reminding me he's still fighting.

I was finally able to meet one of my awesome friends,
Ashley(ashnicole311) who is also pregnant who lives close to my parents in Ohio. (Our babies are going to get married one day, ya know we will have a full arranged marriage, lol) We went baby shopping together all day yesterday with my mom and found a whole bunch of goods for both our nurseries. I found the best curtains so I cant wait to go home and get them up.
So we also took the famous bump picture together, but don't mind our awful hair as it was a rainy crappy day.

It's going to be a busy week. I fly home early tomorrow morning. I hopefully will be able to return to work On Tuesday. It's going to be a long day on Tuesday, we have a normal OB appointment/ultrasound and a few hours later we have to go back to the specialist. Hopefully we find out our little boy has gone through a growth spurt. We also hope to get the results from 2nd part of our amniocentesis. ((Cross your fingers & pray that they are normal)) Then if it's all good news, I'm back to work that night. The pediatric cardiologist called and we have an appointment with him on June 3rd. I was hoping it would be sooner but at least I get to go see him.

More answers

We had another Dr's appointment today but today it was with our normal OB and not the specialist. It was a last minute appointment they called and asked if I wanted to come in to discuss what has happened in the past week. So of course we didn't turn that down. The only Dr they could get me into was one I haven't seen yet, so she had to go over my whole chart and start from the beginning.

We were finally able to get a more clear picture on what is going on with our baby. She believes his size is due to the unknown heart defect we were earlier informed of. She did go over some of the structure of the defect which made sense why he would be small, the heart is not supplying enough oxygen to the tissues to grow appropriately. She said her main concern is getting our baby big enough and viable to under-go surgery. She also said our goal is to make it to 32 weeks and then deliver. She said he will most likely need intervention but until we know what it is exactly we are in a waiting game. She is referring me to a pediatric cardiologist for a 2nd opinion on top of the fetal maternal specialist. She wants a pediatric cardiologist to do an echo of the heart because he is only going to look at the heart and not all the chromosomal mess that FMS is looking at. She assured me that she is sending me to a WONDERFUL cardiologist.

This news brought us hope. We have a very long road ahead of us and she said we will be taking it one week at a time. She also said we might not even deliver him at our hospital, she said she might have to send us to another state to see the right team of Doctors to take care of him. So our goal is to fatten him up, make him grow and keep him tugging along as long as we can so that way when he is born he can survive such a surgery. I am still considered very high risk due to him having a poor heart and still at high risk for him not making it to delivery.

Please keep the prayers coming, we appreciate any and all that our sent our way.

On another note, Chris swears my belly has really grown the past few days. So hopefully he got the hint to start growing bigger. He has been very active the past 2 days, so maybe he's getting his exercise and he's catching up on size a little bit.

First bridge crossed!!

We just got a call from our specialist, the preliminary results came back.... NORMAL!!! It was so good to hear the word "normal" come out of her mouth. We still get more results back hopefully next Tuesday, but these were some of the major chromosomal defects that came back first.

We still have to keep praying for even better results next Tuesday. We are hoping and praying he keeps growing and getting bigger, maybe he's just a late bloomer.

The heart is still an issue and won't be addressed until after next Tuesday's results. So we still have a very long road ahead of us.

Keep the prayers coming, he's a fighter and know he will make it through this bump in the road.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to everyone. I wish I could say my "first' Mother's Day was spent under better terms and not so much worry and anxiety but we're still praying for the best tomorrow. But the best Mother's Day present was a kick from our son this morning, just a sign he's still fighting in there.

Chris woke up and made me my favorite breakfast, chocolate chip pancakes, yum!! My mom wanted to make sure we did what I wanted to do, I laughed because it's always been the other way around. I honestly didn't feel like going out so instead we rented movies and sat around in our pajamas.

Tomorrow is the day were suppose to get a call from the Dr letting us know preliminary results from the amniocentesis. It's going to be a long night full of worry. Chris has been giving nightly pep talks to him telling him to drop and give him 50 (push-ups). I'm hoping he listens and gets a growth spurt to show the Dr he's just a little procrastinator and doesn't have a chromosomal abnormality. The heart problem can be addressed but I just want to get through this first bridge.

Thank you everyone for all the thoughts and prayers sent our way. We also appreciate all the prayer requests & prayer chains sent to your churches. We just have to keep thinking miracles happen everyday. I hope our baby is one of them and proves our Dr wrong.

Again, Happy Mother's Day.

It CAN get worse, but maybe better

Just got home from the hospital, yes, we had to go back. I noticed I had felt NO movement from him since last night. I had a strong cramp/contraction this morning and I was worried since he would not move all day. I went ahead and called the OB who made me hang up and call Fetal Maternal right away. They wanted to to come in right away to check for a heart beat.

The worst 30 minute drive ever.

He is still in there with a beating heart...152 bpm. Thank God! The Dr we saw yesterday came back in to talk to us and semi answered a few questions.

She is preparing us for the worst but wanting us to hope for the best. She kept stressing how important being around Chris and my family right now. She said she can see that I have accepted our situation but I need to let my heart accept it and thats the hard part.

So I went ahead and asked:

Is there a possibility he can be born healthy, maybe get a growth spurt sometime soon and the results come back negative? Yes, miracles happen every day she explained. But on the other hand she went on to say I am at a very very high risk for him to pass while still inside me sometime soon or in a few weeks.

Is he growing or did he stop growing? She said it looks like he stopped growing at 18 weeks, but she isn't sure if he is still growing slowly and she will know more when she can do another ultrasound on the 19th.

What is going on with the heart? She thinks she sees something but doesn't want to cross that bridge until we know what the amnio results. I think she knows I know too much about medical stuff and maybe she doesnt want to get me worried about something that we might not even get to that bridge.

Lastly I asked about my low amniotic fluid, I know mine was under 8.5 3 days ago, and the tech told me I was 11.6 yesterday. I was so excited that all the water I drank helped. The Dr said the u/s tech was being very generous with that number and mine is still very low. Damn Damn Damn.

So we left there knowing the next 2 days (weekend) will be the longest weekend EVER. The Dr expects to have preliminary results on Monday afternoon. So hopefully we will know what path will soon to be crossed by then.

He looks so perfect, a perfect little boy. I never ever thought we would be faced with such news. But he has a story that we are in the process of trying to figure out.

Today was our appointment with the Maternal Fetal Specialist due to his size. I can honestly say I went into this appointment with a VERY positive attitude. I thought we would go in, get all the measurements and find out he has IUGR (Intra uterine growth retardation) I was ready for that news, sure our baby was small and he might deliver a few weeks early, but everything would be okay.

The Dr came in and started of by saying we have a very very sick baby on our hands and we have a lot of discussing to do.

The bigger problem is the baby also has a chromosomal defect and has pretty much stopped growing about 3 weeks ago. There is still a heartbeat and everything, so, he's still alive, he looks so perfect...he just isn't growing anymore. At this point, the doctor doesn't know what type of defect he has. She said its either a lethal defect or a good (viable) defect. In which there is still a defect but the baby will hopefully survive to term.

They did an amnio and preliminary results will come back on Monday. These results will show whether the defect is on a "bad gene", meaning the baby won't survive...or that the defect is on a "good gene" and he will suruive...just with many complications. In about 10 days we will have a more definite answer and know what path to start taking.

On top of that, our baby has a very sick heart. He has a mis structured heart. The Dr said the heart defect is not in relation to the size of the baby. Typically babies with a heart defect grow at a normal size until about 3rd trimester. She said something about overlapping aortas and something else, but we were both not in the right state of mind to even remember much of what she said. She also does not know if the heart defect is due to the chromosome or unrealted.

We are in shock, complete shock. It feels so numb. We won't have any defined answers for over a week but in the mean time she told me to take time off with Chris and be together and grieve over the information we recieved.

We have a long long road ahead of us as she explained. A lot of things are going to happen in the next few weeks. We are scared to death. This baby was planned and we will make sure we do everything in our power to fight for him.

I wish I had more answers but I don't. I can't even explain how hard it is to look at a perfectly structured moving baby on the ultrasound machine but then to get hit with this news that he is so sick. We are asking for a lot and a lot of prayers right now.

(I might edit this more later when I have time to think and explain more)

I know I'm not the best catholic out there, but I do hold true to my religion and have to have a lot of faith in it right now.

I just said my first Novena. A Novena is a prayer said for 9 consecutive days to a particular saint asking for an intention. Or intention is to have strength for Chris and I and for our precious little boy to have a healthy outcome.

The power of prayer can be so powerful, my grandma had 7 stillborns, the 5 viable pregnancies she had (my mom and 4 uncles and aunts, were the ones she did Novenas for. I have full faith in God to help us get through this, even though it seems so impossible right now. I prayed for a healthy outcome for our little baby. Im in tears again, I hate this.

Please say prayers for our family, we are so grateful for all the ones being said already. We love you all and I never realized how much support we have out there.

Prayers Please

So today was our follow up appointment to the last we had 3 weeks ago where my Dr told us about the baby measuring very small in the 8th percentile. She said it could be b/c of a few reasons. She also thought the baby was still due for a growth spurt and wanted me to come back in 3 weeks to re-evaluate. (Last appointment post is a few posts down)

Well, it didn't go too well. I was pretty confident going into the appointment because the lab had called back early last week to say my blood draws were all negative. And since the baby had really started kicking this week I wasn't too worried going into today's appointment.

The ultrasound went okay, he was turned with his back to us as usual and she did some measurements but still couldnt get the heart. So she sent me walking for 30 minuets to get him to move. That didnt work. Then I thought it would help to put my iphone to my belly with Bob Marley on to get him moving- it worked, the u/s tech couldnt believe it.

So the resuts...
Baby is now measuring 5th percentile vs 3 weeks ago at the 8th percentile
He is only in the 3rd percentile for weight
Dr is sending me to Fetal Maternal Monitoring...tomorrow at 315 to do a whole bunch more ultrasounds, and measure heart

Possible Reasons for his small size:
Chromosomal Abnormailty
Placental issue and he isnt getting enough perfusion to help him grow
Low amniotic fluid causing baby to curl up due to pressure on the baby (my amniotic fluid is
even lower than last appointment)
Heart defect (will evaluate tomorrow)

He said the positive thing is everything else in my scan looks normal and blood draws are normal, but he said tomorrows appointment will give us a better look. Then I go back to get another u/s with my OB and follow up appointment again in 2 weeks.

So today sucks, I left in tears (again)...Im calling off of work tonight because I dont think I would be very effective with all this on my mind. It's a lot of information to take in and it's a little overwhelming. My mom is the BEST, after calling her in tears she called me back minutes later to tell me she has a plane tickets to be here tomorrow for my appointment. I feel so guilty, I didnt even ask her to come... but I guess her being a mother she is hurting just as much as I am.

So I am asking for A LOT of prayers that everything is okay and baby is just a small baby.

Goodbye Office, Hello Nursery

Our house is a DISASTER right now! We have moved all the upstairs furniture to the garage downstairs, ripped out all the carpet upstairs and tore apart the closets. All to prepare for a new carpet install tomorrow morning. So tonight we're having a slumber party on the couch downstairs..woo hoo.

We started to paint, well Chris painted pretty much everything. I did a little trim but let him do most. The color is great and we have to add one more coat of paint tomorrow morning before the carpet guys get here. The only problem we ran into is paint still got all over the ceiling, it seaped through the tape we did. It's not horrible but I hate it. I debate don just adding crown molding to it since we all ready adding the wainscotting to the bottom. But my mom promised to fix it all when shes here in June. She's the best at painting and cutting in corners.

Tonight as we were laying here, he was kicking like CRAZY so I told Chris to try to fell it. OMG, his face was priceless when he felt him. He was pretty freaking amazed. My belly even shakes when he's moving a lot, it's fun to watch.

It needs one more coat and it will be perfect!

Wow. Emotions

So here I am 3am in the morning on a night I should be getting a good nights sleep but I'm wide awake. I was having dreams of chocolate milk, and craved it. (Thank God I have some)

Last night we went to a friends wedding that I was pretty excited about, but I ended up leaving in tears. WTF!? Only a pregnant women would do this...

Yup, it started off because I felt like a damn Easter Egg in my dress. I'm still in that in between stage of clothes. I COULD fit into a few of my pre-pregnant dresses, but my darn ta-tas dont fit: AT ALL. So I have to resort to maternity dresses that I felt like I have a linebackers body in.

So I really wasn't in the mood to dance because I felt uncomfortable, but the girls dragged me on the dance floor. Come on, me turn down dancing? Yup it's a new thing...Im always dancing at weddings- but I really wasn't in the mood now. So I make the attempt and I hide in the back, lol. Then my feet found a nice puddle of water and whooop I fall on my butt. Im sure not many people saw it, and if I was acting normal I would have laughed it off. But no, I leave the dance floor and ended up in tears. WTF!?

Then everything else made me cry, we ended up leaving...we had plan on leaving a little early since Chris was up all night and day working but still. I felt so freakin emotional. I was crying for any reason I could think of mostly dealing with me not acting like myself because I felt so uncomfortable. Ohhh and I only half way done with this pregnancy, 19 more weeks and I know it will only get worse.

On a happier note, my baby shower has a date! June 20th! It's a little early but my whole family is in town for my brothers graduation that weekend so we're going to do it so my mom and sisters don't miss out on this. I don't want them trying to fly down and waste a ton of money in airfare just to do it a month later. Im really excited! All I know is my Mom, Aunt Mary and of course Val is planning it and it will probably be a brunch. We have to have it a litle earlier in the day than normal because my brother graduation is that night & we can't do it Sunday because its Fathers Day.

So I should be sleeping now because I have a long day ahead of me. Operation Nursery starts tomorrow...here's our agenda...
1. Clean up both rooms & closets -This will take forever
2. Sean is coming over to help Chris move ALL furniture downstairs (Glad I dont have to do any of that)
3. Rip out all carpet (Ill watch this too)
4. Try to get Nursery painted and hopefully our bedroom too (doubt our bedroom will get done)
5. Drive old furniture over to Moms new house
6. Go out to dinner with Senior and Aunt Bev from Atlanta (Im sure Ill fall asleep at dinner by then)

Then SLEEEEEEP!
Im done rambling, Im going to go entertain my self with more HGTV.