week 2

we had some milestones this week. if we were still Prego Tuesday Sept 23 would have been 39 wk 3 days for Poppy (aka Owen Samuel). the gestational age at which Lucy died. We knew from the start that we would never again carry to 39 wk 3 days. but some how it still was a scary day to make it through. I am not sure how to explain it. i know he is already born but i was still worried.

 Today OSD turn 2 wks his physiology is developing into an infant. I can't remember all the timeline but neonates are not "infants" so to speak they are still fetuses for a time. i think it is like 4 wks more a less.

Part of me was holding my breath until we hit that magical number of 39wk 3days... like if we made it past that then all the worry would disappear. not so much, still worried but i get that the worry doesn't go away.

I know i haven't posted his birth story yet but he came on his own with just the tiniest bit of help after i had already gone into labor on my own. I was not induced.  I am one of those "lucky" women who's children take pity on her and come a little early on their own. 

*sigh* i just wish that 39 wk 3 days wasn't always going to be a gestational age i fear.

37weeks

Friday's NST was great.

2.5 hours of Braxton Hick contraction that night... fun fun fun.

SAT Officially Full term- 37wks

Sun not to exciting

Monday on self imposed bed rest to rest up for possible thursday induction

today Tuesday 

BPP great!

Exam reveals i am now 2cm 50% effaced. yeah for progress!

and Dr. H (awesome OB #2) stripped my membrane to help things along.. Effective i have been having a few contractions since we left. yeah baby!

Amnio: tomorrow afternoon Rockstar Dr. D will being doing the procedure

results by 9pm. *hint check back here around 10pm EST if you can't wait for an update.

Induction: thursday 8am

fingers crossed and many tears have been shed this week. on a personal note i am terrified.

36w3d

last week BBP was good and NST was hard work I spent almost an hour chasing this bittty monster all round my uterus.  then it got hiccups which i have to say sound like the hiccups you and i get out side... WILD! i tell you just wild.

BPP today was good.
weight: aprox. 6 lbs 13 oz

Amnio date: YUP 8 days away!

Induction date: only if i don't go on my own... cause the good news is I am 1cm 50% effaced...

funny moment today...
Dr H to us: hey we may not need to induce your 1cm & 50%  and i can feel the baby's head... 

me: Yeah baby! i thought this baby dropped this weekend i could feel the difference

watson: HUH? really? already? 

So place your bets folks get them in now... will i or won't I?

Tomorrow Nana comes! yeah Nana!

we bought something for the baby and 35 wk update

I/we put a ban on purchasing anything baby until this baby came home... but Old Navy had/is having a sale today so i got up early and bought a few things (online not about the brave the mall PG and crabby) because if the sale. all unisex or passiable for unisex and all what i would call "staples" of anyones wardrobe... *sigh* let's hope i didn't jinx us.

this is what i bought.


I bought 2 pair of jeans 6-12 mos & 12- 18mos they were only 7 bucks



i also bought this romper

and 3 pair of these white socks -- i wish  had bought the "natural" cotton instead but whatever...

their socks.

i also got myself a pair of post Pregnancy jeans... hope i guessed the right size for myself.

Update: i weigh 172lbs again PHEW! told you the scale lied last friday! NST was perfect, belly is measuring on target BP was 110/70 (almost always is) sugars are good.

next appt is Tuesday PM. BPP & prenatal visit with an OB that hasn't seen me before... little scary but he has meet me and he was trained by DR. H so let's hope he is good.  if not just one visit with him then DR. H & Dr. Angel are back as is DR. D my perinatalogist.

we are officially 35 wks today. so 2-3 more weeks and if all goes well we'll bring home a baby... or maybe this is a tiny monster.... EEEEEKKKKK!

budda belly at 33wks6ds

had our "first" office NST today was super fast the baby was reactive and good fetal HR.

WOOHOOT! yeah baby!  

I linked to a short explanation of a an NST above, but here is another version little more for you non high risk, or unfamiliar readers. maybe next week i get someone to snap a picture of me hooked up to the monitor.

so the 2 belt one at the top of my belly nearest the fundus ( the apex of your uterus while carrying a fetus) is placed there to monitor if i am having contractions. the 2nd is place lower on my belly to monitor the baby's heart rate i am also give a little button. that i push every time i feel the baby move.

all these things get printed out on a graph like sheet like this:

the black dots indicate where the mom feels movement  and hits the button; the rest is HR etc. what they look for specifically is that the baby's heart rate accelerates when it moves just like yours dies when you exercise or move. this means the baby is "reactive" and indicates good fetal environment.

so the whole time i am doing this test 20 ins they aim for 4 accelerations with a PEAK acel that exceed 2 or 3 squares on the graph paper if i remember correctly... changes with gestation age of the baby. anyway so they turn up the sound and you push a button and listen to the sweet swoosh swoosh sound of the baby's heart beat. kind of cool.

in other news: oddly enough the scale said i gain 1.5lbs since tuesday but i think it was lying i was in a different exam room on a different scale-- evil turd scale is what i will call it from here out. so i am now officially 174 LBS! evil turd scale not nice!

anyway this is what my belly looked like today.

this belly look HUGE in profile but when i look down on it not so much.
I have been told it is very pointy and strangers are telling me all the time it look very forward what ever that means. all i know is that i am beginning to feel like i have been pregnant for something close to forever. i know watson is feeling it too, but in a different way. i haven't had work since i was 4 month  along and that is starting to become pretty evident when you see how hard watson is working to make up for my lack of work.  

Not sure what we would do without him. 

tomorrow we take the belly to boston. i have never been. but my sister and her hubby are there for the day and what better excuse to see my Sis Nik & her hub Don then that the baby wants chowda and lots of it! (that would be clam CHOWDER for you non- new englanders) so off we go.

32w3d

no picture this week. our very sonogenic baby pulled a celebrity vs. paparazzi move and showed us a whole lot of back...

and when the sonographer tried to snap a picture of the face up went its chubby hand to block the shot....

OH yeah! eat that hollywood. Who's your baby!


so here is the short list
baby is fine doing well--except for the ego.
still no weight gain on my part holding fast at 1/3 the birth weight of a pachyderm calf. what, you have no idea how much a elephant baby weighs! unheard of.... it weighs about a half ton so that would make me... you guessed it 172 lbs.
I am nervous wreck and just want the baby born soon.

I have the best team of OB docs a gal could want.. 2 Maternal fetal specialists, one of these is also the head/director of the OB/GYN dept at the hospital, and then there are my OBs Dr. Angel and Dr. H that are the men that held us up they day the world stopped spinning. they are amazing and great at actually listening to their high maintenance patient. the newest member of our team and the sole female OB is another DR. H. and she is awesome too..

I spoke with DR. Angel by email today and he has assured me that he will be there for our delivery (despite his promotion and subsequent busy schedule in another wing)

meanwhile watson and i have been entertaining ourselves with the poppy's recent pastime of kicking me and doing back flips that if you watched you might think it was looking for an escape hatch.

31w3d Shut up this is soo awesome!

I am only posting one Picture today because this is wicked awesome.

Fingers of hand near nose , nose and the creases of the nostrils & closed eyes mouth open... and Shut up the baby was smiling. maybe not in this sono but i was at one point smiling.

we also saw a foot today that looked HUGE! but what do we know about big feet. prenatal re-cap: amnio date is bouncing around some which makes me nervous. baby had it's growth take and it is 4lbs 2 oz. I weigh the same as 1 cubic foot of limestone (if you aren't a measurement maniac that is 172lbs!)

AS for the GD- it still sucks but i am doing well on the diet as boring as it is i am managing.

one amazing set of pictures

a few weeks back i went to TX for a few days. watson was away bidding farewell and speedy journey to his grandma. So off i went to TX at the very last minute to get some love from my nieces A, E & C, blog manic SIL Holly and my bother Joey gifted with mad crazy photog skills.

Sunday was 7/6/08 was Watsy's Birthday and my bra'da offered to take some pictures which have become watson Birthday gift.
(Coincidentally 7/6 is also J&H's anniversary, H has let me borrow my brother 2x in the last year on days that were really important to her. AUG 31 of last year my brother was her in NY helping us bid farewell an speedy journey to our precious girl Lucy, it was H's birthday she was in TX with her girls... i'll never forget that she gave us such a wonderful gift by letting J be here and understanding that her brthday would always have special significance in our lives.)

here you go.. a sneak peek at 172 lbs of glorious Prego me featuring poppyseed.
massive hair a gift from back to back pregnancies

A popular little hand signal amogst us mom's baking rainbows.

Watson "loves" this face a make when i am getting my picture taken.i am so glad joey was able to capture it with such a softness.
ME and the girls
JDD and me
I love this next picture poor E just wanted to be done taking pictures... and this was one of my favs.

this is actually a candid. but i have to tell you it is one of my favorites. this is A niece #1 beautiful, intelligent, and very very loving and sweet.


i don't have an actual picture of it but at one point everyone had theri hand o my belly because PS was moving around and everyone wanted to get a piece of the action... so in my mind that is a great Picture you have to use your imagination. ok stop slacking and get back to work!

update: 30wk 4 days

we had a huge scare last week 7/14 and it kept me from posting... the baby had gotten it's self into a very comfy breech position and i could not feel it moving for about 5 hours.

I went to L&D for a BPP and NST.

meanwhile W was away at camp and it kicked both of our anxieties into over drive.

so Tuesday 7/15 at my appt i asked if i could go away Dr. H said go be where he is it will help. and it did.
i spent the rest of the week with W in CT at camp. i did some swimming and pottery and visiting. i managed to catch a summer cold... YUCK.

yesterday we had our regular appts.
baby is doing fine... growing and moving i haven't gained any weight in 3 wks now so if you are keeping count... i am still holding fast @ 172 lbs.

i will post pictures another day the bed is calling my name.

28 w 3d, gestational Diabetes

so.. here is the baby for the week.

looking at you.. this was really amazing while our sonographer was trying to get this picture it was like the baby was smiling and looking right at us.



this is profile a little hard to make out but you can see an eye, nose and mouth, again the knee is near the nose... must be a circus performer...
 so the crap news is a failed my GD tests.  i had a feeling since the early day that something was off with my sugar this Pregnancy, i have been craving sugar way more than i normally do. 

so now i am on a restricted carb and calorie diet ( a word that should never be associated with pregnancy as far as i am concerned) and doing finger sticks 4 times a day.  the worst of it is that it is like day 3 and i feel hungry all the time, and my sugar number seem either low to me or high to me nothing seems to really match my goal numbers.  but i am not a DR and i have never had to deal with this before.

anyway i am trying to finesse my meal plan and see if i can hit my goals better.

27w3d & great grandmothers

today we are 27 weeks 3 days.

the Poppy is breech at the moment or at least it was this morning. look poppy can kiss it's knees...we saw the poppy practice breathing today. chest raise and fall. opening and closing the mouth. good work baby!

Watson found out just afterward that his grandmother died during the night last night. in her 80's she had lived a long life, but there are just no words to explain what he must be feeling at the moment.

Arghh me maety if you love...

...being a prego pirate!

behold a vast n mighty mate she be but a mean and nasty hook has she...
















whats thar in her belly so large a wee 2nd mate smiling at ye


Ahoy ye land lubrs, thar she blows... floating out to sea? nay adrift in the fair isle of pool is she












ok i borrowed the little "argh me matey' from my favorite camp, but i have to admit that for the first time in my life i was dressed as a pirate for a gig on sunday and it made for some fun and a good laugh. the sono is from this morning and the pool shot is from my "vacation" day a week or so ago. enjoy!

25w 5days: Fetal echo cardiogram & prenatal check up!

we had the fetal echo cardiogram today and the cardiologist say the poppyseed is very echogenic and that poppy's heart looks great. no visible congenial heart defects.

he also said it is very unlikely that Lucy's stillbirth was casued by a congenial heart defect.

also had a prenatal check up... baby still looking good and measuring well. gained a few lbs.

we also have the plan for delivery... we have a new amnio date End of Aug and potential delivery date.

today was also our last offical APPT with super DR. D. Next month we will become a Chef Resident so in 3 wks we start seeing our new OB DR. H.

beginning next week tues i start weekly sono, Bio-physical profiles, NST & umbilical dopler to check blood flow (all you girl that lost your babies to cord issues remember this one write it down and ask your MFM/ Peri to order them for you during you next PGs) i will also have weekly office visits with the Peri another Dr. D or DR. W. and every 3rd week with DR. H.

pics are from today after the echo... profile and looking right at you!

22wks 5 days

Yesterday we had a check up everything is going well. sitll not in the mood to post a pic yet not sure why... maybe soon.

in 3 weeks we go back for Fetal echo-cardiogram, another Pre-natal check and a glaucous challenge (#2 for me this Pregnancy) it will also most likely be our last Pre- natal check up wiht Dr. D because he is becoming a Chief Resident in July (yeah Dr. D) he still plans to deliver us, but he will not have OB clinic hours. :0( we knew this was coming... we are very happy for him but it is a little scary.

We choose our new OB Dr. H because:

• he was there with us when we lost Lucy he was the attending OB on call that morning and was the one that told us and was about as caring as we could have hoped for.
• when i spoke to him last ( early on in this PG i had a Q and called L&D he is always there it seems) i said will you take me as you patient when Dr. D can't see me anymore and he said of course!
• he knows our case history and is willing to work with our nervousness
  

I will still Email/call Dr. D so if he thinks he is off the hook now not a chance! he has been told he will be delivering us --unless we pop really early in august in which case i'll let him off the hook because he is getting married and on honeymoon so i guess that is a good excuse.

the baby is moving a lot more now, and by grocers standards is about the size of a spaghetti squash. if you ever wondered why poppyseed, it is because wats and i knew really early on that we were Pregers with little monster baby. i was barley 4.5wks (that is a gestational age of aprox 2.5 wks it is embryonic thousands of cells but very tiny) and the little email we get each week told us the baby was the size of a poppyseed and the name stuck.

so here we are 22wk almost 23 wk (i actually lost count weird huh) in a week the baby will be come what is medically know as a "viable" gestational age-- why does this matter you ask, it matters because now if something goes wrong instead of "nature" taking it's course they will intervene at all costs to save the baby. but this monster is going to stick it out at least 14 more weeks then we'll talk (right baby?!? i am still the boss of you so, you stay put! you got it!)

not much else going on... i weigh a ton (give or take 832lbs) and maybe in a week i'll make a baby pool for those of you that want to guess length, weight and gender. but only if you behave and only if you haven't peeked at the envelope on the fridge!