Gulf Shores Adventure: Day 3

We hid the clock from Jenna’s line-of-sight and surprisingly she slept until almost 9, so our day had a later start than we expected (though Aaron and I were quite happy to get to sleep in!). We went down for breakfast. It was very crowded, but we all found something to eat and a place to sit. Jenna lucked out as all of their food except cereal and yogurt were too accessible to everyone for our comfort, so we let her pick whatever kind of cereal she wanted; “colorful cheerios” was her choice.

After breakfast we decided to drive around a bit to see if we could find any attractions that sounded fun. We drove through Orange Beach and down the short well into Gulf Shores and beyond. Mostly we saw lots of condos, but the farther we drove the more beach houses we saw. They sure looked like nice places to live, though I’m not sure that any were permanent residences. I didn’t get any pictures, but most of the houses were named and many were painted with bright beachy colors. We came to the end of the road and turned around and decided to drive the other direction from our hotel, where we saw many more condos and found out that Florida was only a couple miles away. I knew it was close, but thought it was 15 miles or so. So, Jenna was able to add Florida to her list of states. We turned around and headed back to Alabama. The main attractions in Gulf Shores are on a road that runs perpendicular to the beach, so we headed down that road to see what we could see. We were thinking mini-golf sounded fun, but Jenna said she really doesn’t like it and we didn’t want to fight her because it was obvious that she wasn’t interested because all she wanted to do was get back to the hotel to swim and visit the beach. So, we decided to find a place for lunch. We had a coupon for a restaurant that was on the canal. The online reviews were good, so we found it. But, it turned out to be a hole-in-the-wall type place, which just isn’t our thing, so we moved on to Plan B, which was a beach shack near our hotel called Bahama Bob’s. We showed up and knew we had found the right place. We were seated in a nice outdoor booth with an ocean view and were greeted by a sweet middle-aged waitress with such a thick Alabama drawl that we had trouble understanding each other!

The food was a bit pricey for a beach shack, but everything was so delicious that we didn’t mind. Aaron and Jenna both ordered burgers(at a seafood shack!!) and I ordered coconut shrimp. It was definitely some of the best coconut shrimp I’ve ever had and Aaron said that his burger was amazing (so perhaps it wasn’t such a faux pas to order a burger at a seafood joint).

 

Jenna was mostly interested in her milk…

After we were stuffed, we decided to go to a surf shop to find some T-shirts. We didn’t care much for the prices, so we didn’t get any shirts, but we did let Jenna pick out a souvenir.  In typical 3 year old fashion, she found the container filled with colorful rocks and set to filling up her small bag that proudly claimed to be from Gulf Shores. I always hate paying for rocks, but I definitely love how they can stimulate imagination like nothing else. Just on the remainder of our trip we spent a lot of time having rock stores and taking turns buying or selling. We counted rocks, talked about all the colors, played hide and seek, and much more. As we were about to check out we noticed that they had some really good prices on kids’ swimming items, so we bought Jenna a pair of goggles  and water wings. These only made her more excited to get back to the hotel to swim, so we checked out and headed back to the room where she and Aaron promptly fell asleep! I headed out to the balcony and read, though I probably should have napped since I fell asleep that evening before 9!

After their rests, we hit the beach to build a sandcastle and bury Jenna in the sand (also something she had been looking forward to doing). She kept moving as soon as I started to take a picture of her, but I finally got this shot.

The sandcastle was all Jenna and Daddy. I sat in a beach chair and took in the sea breeze until it was time for pictures.

Jenna was most excited to go ‘Jenn zilla’ on the castle

After the beach, we went to the pool (and took no pictures!). Jenna was very excited to try her goggles. It was pretty amazing how quickly she started putting her entire head underwater, floating, and swimming. Who knew that the goggles would make such a difference! She did wear the water wings for a while, but when she got her ‘five minute warning’ that it was time to go, she told Aaron to take them off because she wanted to swim by herself. She would push off his legs and swim about 8 or 10 feet to the pool stairs (she had been doing this with the water wings).

After swimming, we went back to the room and as I mentioned, I fell asleep before 9. I think Jenna fell asleep around the same time. Aaron tried to stay awake until after 10 and I believe he got sucked into various Discovery Channel reality shows.

Baby Update

Yikes, it has been a long time since I gave a baby update, so I’ll try to sum up the last few months.

I had good, solid nausea 24-7 until I was between 16 and 17 weeks.

Then, I got sick. First it was the flu or food poisoning and I was ill for 3 days. Then I felt good for a few days (actually the first few days without morning sickness) and then got really sick with some sort of virus that morphed into a sinus infection. I didn’t get out of bed for 11 days and felt too sick to do much of anything for over two weeks. I had a lingering cough that kept me up at night over over a month.

About the time that the coughing subsided, we were scheduled for the anatomy scan. We were excited to see mister man again and decided that we felt comfortable bringing Jenna to the appointment. We explained to her what we would see and watched a YouTube video, so she didn’t have too high of expectations. Good thing because the perinatalogist zoomed through all of the checkpoints and didn’t talk to us much. I was ok with it because I was mostly interested to find out that he was healthy, but it was a bit of a bummer because he didn’t get any good pics for us (he was zoomed in and while he did save us a few pics, you can’t tell what they are). Still, Jenna enjoyed seeing her baby brother and so did we! Everything looked perfect except that the placenta was still low-lying, so they scheduled another u/s in four weeks to make sure that it raised.

Not a whole lot happened between ultrasounds (20 and 24 weeks), although I started feeling much stronger movement around 23 weeks. I had hoped this was a good sign and the placenta had moved and sure enough it did. We didn’t bring Jenna to the next u/s and wouldn’t you know it, we got an awesome peri that went very slow and showed us all the non-health related things that were interesting to us. The best part was that the baby was holding his feet by his face. It was so cute and the tipping point that finally let me relax a bit and start to enjoy this pregnancy. But, it also made me so impatient to meet him!

I guess something interesting did happen between 20 and 24 weeks – I had a kidney stone. This isn’t my first one, but it has been almost a decade. Of course the pain isn’t something you forget, but it did take me about 20 minutes to figure out that it was kidney stones. The pain started up inside my left ribcage, which is not where my kidney is normally located. I’d forgotten that things were likely quite displaced due to pregnancy. Once I realized what was happening, we headed to the ER. I went in by myself because I refused to let Jenna in the ER (Children’s Mercy doesn’t even let their oncology patients into the waiting room, we get escorted directly to a special room for immuno-compromised kids). Mom met Aaron just a few minutes later and took Jenna home with her and Aaron met me inside. Since I was only 22 weeks or so, I didn’t even think that I needed to go to Labor and Delivery, but the ER triage nurse dumped me in a wheel chair and took me there immediately. Once in L&D they checked on the baby (no distress and good heartbeat), then put my info in the system and called my OB. There were two others in the L&D triage area and they were both potentially in labor, so I guess they got first priority because it was over an hour before I got a pain killer and trust me, I was in more pain than they were (I’ve been in labor, I know!). By the time I got a pain reliever I was throwing up every 10 to 15 minutes. Good news, the pain killer helped take the pain down a notch, bad news, it didn’t take the pain away (before when I’ve had kidney stones they’ve been able to give me something that takes the pain away immediately) AND it made me throw up more often. After an hour or so they decided to admit me for the night and to change my pain med. So, we moved to a very nice room (bonus for getting kidney stones while pregnant I guess) and started me on the other pain med. It was the type that you can self dispense, but was limited to every 10 minutes. The pain decreased significantly after about 3 doses, but then I would fall asleep and the pain med would wear off, so I would wake up and have to get through 3 doses before I felt better again. It was a vicious cycle all night long, but they didn’t want to give me an oral med yet and there weren’t many other options. After shift change the next morning they agreed to try an oral med and it was great. It helped me feel better immediately and made me feel pretty euphoric. Once they could see the pain was controlled, they discharged us. I guess I’ve failed to mention that this was Mother’s Day. My mom brought Jenna home, but I was so out of it that I don’t much remember anything about the evening. :( I did end up passing the stone early the next morning and felt great and didn’t need any pain meds again!

From weeks 24 to 28 (current), I’ve felt great. LMC (Little Mister Cain) has been moving so much and is typically super active at night. I will wake up sometimes and it feels like he’s rolling around! One evening while Aaron and I were watching a movie, LMC started pushing out on my upper stomach with his foot. We could easily feel his entire foot, including toes! It was so awesome! He also likes to move right after I eat. I think he’s going to be a foodie like his dad. We went on vacation between 26 and 27 weeks. I was worried about taking a road trip at this point in pregnancy, but it wasn’t bad at all. The only thing is that on our last day, I felt him make a huge movement and it felt like his head really dropped into place. This is good and hopefully he is in a great position for delivery, but right now it just meant that I had a lot more pressure on my cervix and somehow he must be sitting on some blood vessels because as soon as I felt that movement, my feet started to swell! I’m also having a lot more difficult time breathing, so I suspect that somehow, in addition to the added pressure low, he’s pushing up into my lungs. At this point it isn’t too bad and I don’t mind a bit of discomfort if it means he’s nice and cozy.

I talked to my doctor more about induction and basically he said that he will induce at 39 weeks if my cervix is soft enough. With Jenna it wasn’t soft enough at a week passed due, but it was soft enough at 11 days, which is when I was scheduled to be induced, but went into labor on my own. Hopefully this time it will soften and we can attempt an induction if I don’t go into labor. Otherwise we will schedule a c-section sometime around my due date.

We’re still having trouble finding a name. With Jenna we didn’t even add ‘Jenna' into the running until I was a week passed due and we didn’t completely decide until after she was born. So, I guess we’re hopeful that was can agree on a name once we see him. We do at least have a (very short) list of names we both are ok with.

Gulf Shores Adventure: Days 1 and 2

Day 1

On Monday we picked up our rental car bright and early, then drove Aaron to Louisburg so he could attend his golf tournament. Jenna and I headed back home while he played golf and loaded the car and took care of any last minute cleaning. I had it in my mind that he would be ready to be picked up at 1, but 3.5 hours into his round he texted me to say that they were at the halfway point. So, it appeared that it would be closer to 3. I was anxious to get on the road, but it ended up being nice having the extra time. Brad took care of Portia and house-sat for us and he came over around noon, so it was nice for Jenna and I to get to see him. Around 2:00 Aaron said he was close to being finished, so we headed down to pick him up.

Jenna was so excited for our drive because it meant she got to watch movies in the car. The rule at our house is no movies except for very long trips, so it was a special treat. Last year she had to wear Aaron’s headphones and perhaps it was because she was 2 or perhaps because they were too big, but I had to turn around every 15 minutes to fix them for her. This year she got Hello Kitty headphones for her birthday and was quite excited to use them. Since the drive started in the heart of what is typically her naptime, I wasn’t surprised that this is what I saw in the rear view before we got out of the subdivision (I did wait to take the picture until we were at the golf course!).

I drove for the first few hours. Typically I leave the driving to Aaron (he gets carsick), but it was very hot outside and he was exhausted from being on the golf course. So he drank a bunch of water, then promptly fell asleep. He and Jenna both woke up about an hour later. She was excited and surprised to see him in the car and very surprised that we had been on the road for well over an hour. She started her movie over and then zonked out again for a couple more hours.

We got hungry for dinner around the time we crossed into Arkansas, so we stopped at Burger King, used the restroom, then waited FOREVER for our simple order. I was tired of driving and knew that Aaron would start feeling ill on those curvy Arkansas roads (it wasn’t really that curvy, but more-so than anything we drove on in KS or MO), so he took over the driving. I didn’t have to drive again for the rest of the trip, woo! We drove a couple more hours and arrived at our hotel in Pine Bluff. A swarm of mosquitoes (and I mean SWARM!) invaded the car while we unpacked. It was awful, but somehow none of us got bitten. Since Jenna has been on chemo she hasn’t had a single chigger or mosquito bite – I guess they aren’t all that dumb of creatures. The hotel was nice and beds were comfy. Jenna was amped about staying the night in the hotel, but was convinced that we were already at the beach. We told her many times that we had another day’s drive, but it finally sunk in when we were at the hotel.

Funny story: Jenna saw the ironing board in the hotel and was very excited about the surf board. I was a bit proud that I’ve avoided ironing long enough that my 3 year old has no idea what an ironing board is. :)

 

Day 2

Jenna isn’t one for sleeping in, but she did follow her rule at home and didn’t wake us up until the clock started with 7. Of course, once she woke us up, she wanted nothing to do with getting ready or heading down for breakfast, so it was after 8 before we ate. Because her ANC was so low just a few days before we left on the trip, we were very nervous about eating breakfast in the hotel, but we managed to find her pre-packaged items to eat, so we felt a bit more comfortable. We got on the road around 9 and started driving south. We drove for a few hours and entered into Louisiana, which was a state none of us had been to. I think it was the first time all three of us have been to a new state together! Of course we just went through a tiny sliver of the NE corner and it wasn’t terribly exciting, but we did pass by a nice lake that had cottages built on stilts in the water all the way around. We also passed by numerous penitentiaries and one had numerous chain gangs working in the fields. We saw many signs warning us not to pick up hitch-hikers. We didn’t see any, nor would we have picked them up, but it did make the drive a bit more interesting contemplating how the convicts might most easily escape from the various prisons. Another portion of the drive was a road that followed the path of the Mississippi river. It was very pretty and the water was much calmer than I expected it to be, perhaps because the river was very wide?

As mentioned, although interesting, the drive through Louisiana was short and we arrived in Mississippi. We drove a bit and came into Jackson. We were traveling with a very old GPS, so the maps were out of date. I was mostly worried about the outdated maps in large cities, so I turned the navigation on my phone. Mostly just interchanges had changed, but it was helpful using the phone through Jackson. We made it out of the city and realized we were really hungry, so at the request of Princess Jenna (who had been enthralled in various Hello Kitty and Strawberry Shortcake movies), we drove through McDonald’s for lunch and also made a quick restroom stop. Jenna’s been daytime potty trained since before she was 2, but she did regress quite a bit when she was diagnosed with leukemia and had lots of accidents during frontline treatment (Aug ‘11 – Jan ‘12). The accidents had seemed to stop early this year, but I had worried a bit about how she would do on the long trip, but I needn’t worry; I was the one requesting bathroom stops much more frequently than she was!

We drove and drove through Mississippi and finally made it to Alabama, which wasn’t much different than Mississippi, except perhaps there were tons of huge churches seemingly in the middle of nowhere. We made it to Mobile in good time, but I wasn’t quick enough getting the GPS out and rather than staying on major highways, we were sent onto side streets and through the middle of the city. It ended up being nice because there were a lot of old buildings with neat architecture, large trees covered in Spanish moss, and we happened to pass by the children’s hospital that we would bring Jenna to if she happened to get sick during our stay. When we were in the middle of the city we were sent into a long tunnel that apparently went under the buildings and came out right where we re-entered the highway that went over Mobile Bay. We saw a few pelicans flying and Jenna started to get excited about getting to the beach. I pulled up a map of southern Alabama and showed her where the bay was and how close we were to the beach we were going to stay at. She was not impressed that the bay was very muddy looking and quickly decided that a sticker puzzle activity that her Mimi gave her was more interesting. When Mimi had showed her how to do the puzzle, Jenna asked for a lot of help, so we were quite surprised to find that she did an entire puzzle in about 2 minutes. Fortunately there were a number of puzzles and she did a few of them as we drove over the bay.

Of course the interest only lasted for so long and soon it was more fun to put the stickers anywhere except in the book. :)

Mobile is only about an hour from Gulf Shores, so we were very excited! We came to the bridge that took us into Gulf Shores. We were actually staying in Orange Beach, which is to the east of Gulf Shores, but the GPS didn’t seem to know the right way to get there and I was a bit slow on the phone, so we took a nice drive through Gulf Shores before deciding to turn around. Once we were on the right track, the hotel was easy to find and we lucked into the best spot in the parking lot. We headed into the hotel and checked-in, then got our bags and went to our room. We were pleasantly surprised by our room, which was an 8th story ocean view!

We headed to the balcony and took in the view and the fresh sea air. Jenna caught sight of the pool and begged to head down. Aaron and I said we were going to the beach first, then we would go to the pool. After a bit of pouting, she decided that was better than staying in the room. So we changed into our swimsuits, added sunscreen, and headed down to the beach.

Is she not the cutest!?

Jenna had been telling everyone for weeks that she was excited to wiggle her toes in the sand and she had her water shoes off the second she left the boardwalk. She didn’t take much time wiggling those toes though and quickly challenged her dad to race her to the waves. She smartly left her mother out of the race this time. :)

They did wait for me before getting into the water. This picture is of the first wave that touched Jenna’s feet. She has been to the beach in Georgia (she loved it) and to Lake Michigan (she hated it). I was curious to see if she liked the gulf or not. She definitely loved it!

I’m not sure who’s idea it was, but she was quickly in her dad’s arms and they were walking into deeper water. I made it into mid-calf deep water and quickly realized that I am too off-balance from pregnancy to try to stand up against any waves, so I stayed back and took pictures.

I was quite convinced that she was hating it and was frantically trying to get Aaron to bring her back to more shallow water. But, then I saw this…

The little stinker was just hiding her eyes so water didn’t get in them! She was having a blast!

We all played in shallower water for a bit, then headed back to the hotel pool. This pool was awesome! It wasn’t huge, but it was very well designed. It was rectangular, one side was zero entry, the other had stairs entering into 3ft water. The middle was 4.5 ft. There were a few fountains in the zero entry area that were a lot of fun for the little kids. There was also a small rectangular area that was 4ft deep that jutted off to the side and was covered. To start with Jenna was only interested in the zero entry area and didn’t want to get into water much above her knees, but that would quickly change during the rest of our trip!

After the pool we went back to our room and ordered pizza. We were told it would be around 30 minutes. An hour later we called the pizza place and they were closed, but did answer the phone to confirm that it was out for delivery. Another hour later we called the front desk to make sure they hadn’t delivered to the wrong people. They said that the delivery guy had just checked in and was heading to our room. Finally! The good news was that the pizza was really good and cheap. We had plenty extra that we were able to snack on it for our entire stay at the hotel.

Today Aaron took the day off work, so the three (and a half) of us went to the new aquarium. First we ate lunch at Fritz's. Jenna didn't act terribly excited to be there, but at the end of the day she insisted that it was her favorite place all day! The aquarium was fun, but very overpriced. Still, we saw lots of neat fish and it was very clean and informative. After the aquarium we had time to kill, so we walked around Crown Center. While we were at the Crayola store, the baby started moving, so I grabbed  Aaron's hand to see if he could feel. The baby wasn't moving fast, but was stretching out. It took a minute, but Aaron was able to feel him. It was so exciting! Now, hopefully Jenna can feel him soon. He almost always moves when she talks to him, but he stops moving when she tries to feel him.

We have an OB appointment this afternoon and we should get to  schedule the big ultrasound. I'm hoping we can get in within the next two weeks.

Baby Boy!!

We are so excited to be having a baby boy! We had a surprise ultrasound a few weeks ago due to a small bit of bleeding. The bleeding was most likely due to low lying placenta, which isn't unusual for 14.5 weeks (how far along I was at the time). It should move higher in the uterus by 20 weeks.

The baby was perfect. We could see him moving, his heart beating, his cute little feed, nose, and lips! The ultrasound tech said that  sometimes it is too early, but that she  could easily tell that he was a boy. We were both grinning like fools and had tears on our cheeks.

I haven't had any bleeding episodes since, but most evenings I've been nauseated and I'm still constantly tired.

Today, I felt the baby move from the outside! He hasn't been very active for the last week or so, but today he was all over the place!

13 week appointment

We had our 13 week checkup on Friday. It was very quick and at the office I like best. We were able to check in quickly and the nurse called us right to our room. That never happens at the other office!

They checked my blood pressure, which was high. It is hardly ever high, but has been high the last two appointments. It probably doesn't help that fruits and veggies don't sound good and I haven't had the energy to exercise...

Then the doctor came in, listened to the hearbeat with the doppler (160bpm) and asked if we have questions. We didn't have any. He said that since I will only be 17 weeks at my next appointment we will have to wait for our anatomy scan (and to find out the gender) until 21 weeks. I'm hoping I can talk him into pushing back my next appointment until 18 weeks and doing the scan then. Otherwise we might pay for an  elective scan. I'm anxious to find out the gender, but mostly I just want to see this baby. The u/s at 8 weeks was great, but the baby still looked like a bean and not a baby.

Morning sickness has eased up over the last couple weeks, but today it hit hard again and I had nausea the entire day. Sea bands didn't even help.

Baby Cain #2! Yippee!

I think that everyone that regularly reads this blog knows that we’re expecting, so I thought I would make an update. I love being able to go back and read updates from when I was pregnant with Jenna and I don’t want to miss out on that experience this time! I am laughing that I said ‘regularly reads this blog’. As if I’ve posted anything since July or August of last year!

 

At this point, we haven’t had a chance to tell a couple family members, so we’re still keeping a low profile, but hopefully I will be able to broadly share the news by the end of the week.

 

Right now I am 12 weeks and 4 days pregnant and due September 23^rd. Strangely Jenna was due the day after Aaron’s dad’s birthday and this baby is due the day before my dad’s birthday! We found out about this pregnancy days before my birthday and we found out about Jenna days after Aaron’s birthday! It is funny how things work out!

 

Mostly this pregnancy has been very similar to Jenna’s. I started feeling sick (24-7 nausea, without getting sick) at around 6 weeks and it started slowly easing around 11 weeks. I’m 12 weeks and 4 days now and I am only having a rare bout of nausea each day, mostly at bedtime.

 

This pregnancy did start off a bit scary (besides the fact that I had multiple miscarriages prior and was already nervous). I had spotting starting around 5.5 weeks. It was light and we had an ultrasound that didn’t detect an issue. It was too early to see a baby at that point. I had another u/s at 6 weeks and we were able to see a teeny-tiny baby with a flickering heartbeat that was around 130 bpm. We could also see a tiny area of bleed. It wasn’t something that concerned the doctor because of the location and size, but it definitely worried me. The u/s tech told me that her guess was that the baby implanted so deep that it caused extra bleeding and since I’m on blood thinners (more about that later), it caused more bleeding than is typically seen with implantation. I had a small amount of spotting again at 6.5 and 7.5 weeks and each time I just knew that was it. But, it wasn’t. I had another u/s at 8 weeks and we saw a perfect little bean with a very strong and regular heartbeat at 178 bpm. There was no sign of the bleed by that appointment and I haven’t had any issues since.

 

I had a few strange cravings early on (such as vanilla frosting sandwiched between whole grain tortilla chips – I did not indulge on that one). My chiropractor gave me a supplement to help stabilize my pituitary gland and it stopped the strange cravings immediately. Thank goodness, who knows the next craving might have been! Mostly things just don’t sound good at all, but I’m constantly hungry, so I make due. I wish I could say that I made due with fruits and veggies, but the only thing that seems to help settle my stomach is high-carb foods. It really stinks because I was eating very healthy when I got pregnant. Hopefully now that the morning sickness is starting to fade, I can get back into a more healthy habit. With Jenna the only real craving I had was nectarines. I had one almost every day. I have had a few, but mostly they haven’t been very good. I did come across a very good one a week or so ago and it has made me crave them again. Unfortunately, I am having trouble finding another good one. Perhaps now that it is a bit closer to spring they will start being tasty again.

 

I started feeling a few movements right at 12 weeks. From Jenna, I know what a baby feels like, but I still had trouble believing that I was feeling it move so early! It felt a bit like a flutter the first few times. The second day I felt it when Jenna was talking to me. I told her and she has been so excited and says that the baby moves when she talks to it. So cute! Yesterday was Aaron’s birthday and I felt the first real kick! What perfect timing! Today after lunch I could feel it squirming around for a bit. I still can’t believe that I can already feel it moving!! I think that feeling the baby moving is one of my favorite things about pregnancy.

 

After the first miscarriage we bought a doppler. I started trying to find the baby’s heartbeat around 9 weeks and finally found it at 9 weeks 6 days. It was between 160 and 170bpm. I have a listen every few days and it is wonderful to hear every time! Lately it has been moving so much that mostly I just hear kicking sounds and then the heartbeat fades in and out. Aaron says that the baby is swimming laps in there. I laugh and say that I hope it enjoys the space while it has some.

 

Many of you that know about our news have asked if Portia has a prediction. Well, I didn’t want to ask her because we did with our first miscarriage and she was very inconsistent and I don’t want to have extra worry (I know, the whole idea of a dog having any idea is silly, but indulge me J). But, Aaron and Jenna really wanted to ask her. So, 2 out of 3 times she has said boy. I’m fairly sure she is wrong, but we shall see! My chiropractor says that it is a girl and the one wives tale that I actually believe in points to girl (my leg hair growth has slowed WAY down – it did this with Jenna, too).

 

Back to the blood thinner. After my last miscarriage they ran a slew of tests and found out that I have an autoimmune disorder where my body produces antibodies that can cause micro-clots. Typically it isn’t a serious issue, except during pregnancy where it can cause micro-clots that cut off nutrients to the baby, which causes it to stop growing or to not grow at all. This disorder causes an 80% miscarriage rate (and the m/c rate doesn’t decrease as pregnancy gets farther along, so, if untreated, many women have very late term m/c). But, if treated (with a prophylactic blood thinner) the miscarriage rate decreases to that of the normal population. Whew! So, I started on a blood thinner as soon as I found out I was pregnant. I give it to myself once a day on either side of my abdomen – they say to aim for the love handles (oh joy). It isn’t fun, but very much worth it. They did test me for the antibody at my 8 week appointment and it was negative. They also tested me for lupus because if you have lupus you generally have this antibody (but there are lots of people with the antibody that don’t have lupus), but all the tests came back negative. I will switch to a different blood thinner as my due date approaches (the one I take can’t be reversed so if I went into labor I would have to do it completely natural). I wouldn’t mind trying natural. I did make it through about 12 hours of 1.5-3min contractions that were on top of each other with no pain meds at all and then another 8 hours on really wimpy pain meds before I could have an epidural, so if I am fortunate enough to have a baby that doesn’t turn its head to the side just before it is supposed to enter the birth canal, I might be able to make it naturally. But, I would rather be on the blood thinners that at least will give me the opportunity for an epidural. J So, I will start them around 36 weeks. After giving birth I will be put back on my normal blood thinner for six weeks or so and then I don’t need to take it again unless I develop a clot, in which case I will have to get on it for life.

 

Because of the blood clotting disorder my pregnancy is being treated as high risk. I had a consultation with a perinatalogist before we started trying to get pregnant and he walked me through the basic plan. He said that he would see me occasionally during the first trimester and then I would have my anatomy scan with him (18ish weeks or so). Starting toward the end of the second trimester I will have frequent (I think he said weekly) ultrasounds to monitor the baby’s growth because the blood thinner can cause a growth restriction. My OB told me that he isn’t sending me to the specialist until my anatomy scan, so for now I am just seeing him monthly. I have my second appointment tomorrow and then my next appointment will be at 17 weeks, so I’m hoping that I can push it back a week and do my anatomy scan at the end of 17 weeks or beginning of 18 weeks. If he is going to have me wait longer for the scan, I will probably try to talk him into giving me another ultrasound in the meantime. I am just too nervous to wait that long to see this baby again. The good thing is that my doctor said that after everything I’ve been through he will do what he can to help ease my anxiety.

 

My doctor says that I’m a great candidate for a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section), so that’s my goal. If it doesn’t happen, that’s alright, but I really hope that it does. My doctor isn’t a fan of VBACs after the due date, so I will likely get induced unless this baby is a bit less stubborn than Jenna was (11 days late, but who’s counting?). The problem is that he also doesn’t like to use the typical induction medications for a VBAC, so I don’t know how effective it will be. Fingers crossed that I can get the baby to come on its own a bit early and induction will be a moot point.

 

Sorry this post is such a hodge-podge. I wanted to give a broad update to get caught up before I started posting again. J

 

If anyone reading this blog isn’t following Jenna’s Caring Bridge or Facebook site and wants to, please leave a comment with your email address and I can send you a link. Now that I am doing some blog updates again, I will probably occasionally include info about her treatment if I’m already posting anyhow, but in general I will only be updating CB and FB (it is hard enough to keep two sites up-to-date). She’s such an amazing girl and is so excited to be a big sister!

 

 

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