It's a BOY!

Wow does time go fast when you have two little ones!

Baby Boy arrived on his due date - April 7th at 4:54pm 8lbs 21.5in

So much to catch up on! Let's see...

The last few weeks of my pregnancy were mostly uneventful. Due to my geriatric pregnancy I had to start doing weekly ultrasounds at 37 weeks. The first one baby decided not to do practice breathing so that bought me an NST test. I did some research and from what I could find it seems there is no solid data supporting these types of extra monitoring in an otherwise healthy pregnancy. The next week I thought about refusing the ultrasound but decided to go along with it when my husband expressed his concerns about not doing them. The last ultrasound I had the week of my due date the fluid looked much cloudier than the previous week. This means one of two things. The mostly likely explanation is baby is shedding their vernix and skin cells. The second and much less likely scenario is meconium. The recommendation is to then induce labor sooner rather than later. The ultrasound was on Monday and they suggested coming in the next morning for induction. Aside from the cloudy appearance on ultrasound baby was perfectly healthy so I refused. Instead I agreed to be induced on Friday - my due date. In the meantime I tried everything to get labor going on its own. I had a good run of contractions Wednesday night for a couple of hours. I did all I could to enhance them, but eventually they tapered off and stopped completely. 

Due date and induction date. We had to check in at 1am. I had our babysitter come and spend the night with our daughter and then I had a patchwork of a few other people including our nanny that would be staying with our daughter the next couple of days. At 1:45am  I was given my first dose of cytotec. I was only 1 1/2cm dilated and about 60% effaced. The first dose gave me a few tiny little cramps, but nothing otherwise. The second dose of cytotec was given at 5:45. My doula showed up around 7:30am and she suggested I get up and try going for a walk. We walked the halls for a good 45min and I started having some actual contractions! Just before 9am labor took off and around that time I was already 3cm and 80%. I spent the next few hours doing my best to cope with the contractions. I used the exercise ball, wandered around the room, and eventually ended up in the whirlpool tub. My contractions become really intense when I was in there and around 1pm or so I decided I had enough fun and asked for an epidural. I was 6cm and 100%. The epidural did not take on the left side the first time. So anesthesia had to come back and luckily all that was needed was to pull the catheter back a little bit. They had to hang a fluid bolus for the start of the epidural but once it showed my blood pressure was doing fine I asked them to turn it down as low as it would go - basically just enough to keep the vein open. They gave me so many liters of fluids with my daughter and I do believe it played a huge role in how bloated I was for weeks after and why my milk took five days to come in with her. This time I was given less than one liter of fluids total. The nurse wanted to give me more fluids because she said my output from the foley wasn't much, but I again refused and instead drank more water. I then rested for a little while. They asked several times throughout the morning and afternoon if I wanted my water broken, but I didn't feel it was necessary. An hour or so after the epidural was placed I started feeling baby pushing down during contractions so I listened to my body and would push a little along with baby. My water finally broke on its own a little after 3pm. It was just a little bit of a trickle, no where near the gush I had with my daughter when the doctor broke my water with her. My doula suggested the nurse come in to check the fluid since they were concerned about the cloudiness on the ultrasound. The nurse came in and pulled back the sheet to check me and she stepped back in shock and said, is that the umbilical cord?? You could have heard a pin drop. We all knew that would mean an immediate c-section. Thankfully, it wasn't baby's cord. It was instead part of the amniotic sac bulging out. Since so often the hospital will break someone's water the nurse and my doula had never seen someone's sack bulging out like that. The fluid was clear so the cloudiness was the vernix. Which I believe since baby was almost completely clean at birth! At that point I was fully dilated. But I asked to wait until my body felt like it was ready to push. at 4:04pm my body was ready. This time I made sure they didn't turn my epidural off. They turned it off when  I went to push with my daughter and that was 3hrs and 31min of pure torture. During the pushing phase when baby moved down into my pelvis my sacrum started hurting way more than labor. It had been bugging me throughout my pregnancy. I went to the chiropractor three days after I had baby and she said my sacrum was completely out of place - which I believe as I felt it during labor!! Pushing only took 50 minutes this time!! Baby came out a little crooked. I got the head out fine, but once I pushed his shoulders out everything tore. I tore down and also tore my labia completely in half. With my daughter once I agreed to the episiotomy she popped her head through and the rest of her body came flying out. This time I felt every little bit of baby come out - I could tell exactly when his head, nose, chin, shoulders, etc. was coming out. And when he was crowning I could still feel him kicking me in the ribs! My husband was able to catch him - better than with our daughter since baby boy came out a lot slower. As soon as baby came out there was a big gush of fluid and blood so my husband wasn't able to tell immediately what we had. Then I heard him practically shout, it's a boy!! Now that we've done it both ways - finding out before hand with our daughter and waiting for our son - we both agree - finding out in the delivery room is So. Much. Better!! We actually wish we wouldn't have found out with our daughter now that we know how much more fun it is to find out at the end. 

I'll try and get another update typed up soon to get up to date!

Little Bumps in the Road

I can't believe I am within a few weeks of meeting this little one! This pregnancy flew by, and then the last month hit and it has slowed down considerably!

A couple of weeks ago we had a little scare and ended up on labor and delivery. Baby ended up being just fine. I woke up in the morning and noticed that baby wasn't moving. Didn't think a whole of it at first, but then when my daughter got up an hour later and baby didn't respond to her at all is when I started worrying. I then spent the next hour doing everything I could to get baby to move. Ice water, 7up, changing positions, rigorously rubbing my belly,  jumping up and down, even tried holding my electric toothbrush to my belly to see if the buzzing would get baby to respond. Finally pulled out my doppler and I couldn't hear a heartbeat or even movements. So yea. That's when I panicked. Called labor and delivery and they said to come straight to the hospital. Called my husband and he raced home within minutes to pick up me and our daughter. The second they put the heart monitor on my belly they had a strong heartbeat from baby. Little stinker must have just been really sound asleep. Five minutes after I had been on the monitors baby woke up and was not happy to have all that stuff strapped to my belly and spent the next hour trying to kick everything off. They also did an ultrasound and baby looked perfect. At least baby has behaved themselves since then. I would have stretches of little to no movement with my daughter but it never scared me like it did with this baby. Probably because this baby likes to move. A lot. And all the time. I would even say baby has gotten busier over the last week. I remind baby daily they are not allowed to ever scare me like that again!

My last OB appt my doctor brought up something I wasn't expecting. Apparently there is a little concern about my uterus since my last ectopic was attached to the outside of my uterus. This can potentially cause a weakened spot on your uterine wall that could potentially rupture during labor. The doctor that did my ectopic surgery did not have to cut into my uterine wall nor did she have to stitch it at all. But because I had so much blood in my belly it was impossible for her to have a completely clear look at my uterus. Since I have a different OB now I think she just wants to err on the side of being more careful. She said we could do a c-section to avoid any risk (Um, NO!!) or the alternative is she would just like me to do more of my laboring at the hospital. I am not really concerned about it being an issue. I mean, if there wasn't any obvious damage, I don't feel there is much risk. Especially when you consider all the women who do VBACs and the rupture rate with those is really low. But it is one more thing hanging out there. I had planned on doing more of my labor at home this time, but we'll see how it all goes.

I have another appointment tomorrow. These weekly visits are a little annoying. I'm refusing cervix checks this time around. After doing a lot of research I have decided it's something I can skip with absolutely no harm to baby and the bonus is I don't have to get undressed at my appointments or get a hand shoved up there. The doctor still wants me to do the weekly ultrasounds. After our scare a couple of weeks ago I'm willing to do one more, but then I think I'll be done with those too. There really isn't any evidence they change outcomes. I do feel we over monitor things these days. The more you look for something to be wrong, the more you are likely to find something.

Baby dropped  a week ago. I forget how uncomfortable that makes everything feel! Having a toddler crawling on me all day certainly doesn't help! Speaking of toddlers, my daughter must sense the changes coming soon. She has been so incredibly clingy lately. She refuses to let anyone other than me read her bedtime stories or put her to bed. She loves her daddy during the day, but screams like she is being murdered if he even tries to read bedtime stories with her. Hoping she becomes a little less attached to me after baby arrives, but I'm a little worried about how the transition will go for her. For now I'm just enjoying our extra snuggles and time together since her days as an only child are numbered.

32 Weeks

Life just gets busier and busier...

Baby has continued to measure exactly where they should at each of my last two appointments at 24 and 28 weeks. I failed my one hour glucose test. After how awful the three hour test went with my daughter I asked if there was an alternate option. Thankfully, there was!! I instead had to check my blood sugars four times a day for two weeks. All my sugar levels were good. I was so thankful for that option. It was so easy compared to doing the three hour test. I would even choose that over the one hour test!! The finger pokes were nothing. The only annoying part was waiting to eat again two hours after meals to check my blood sugar - sometimes I was hungry again before the time was up! But even when I checked it a little early so I could eat again, the levels were fine. 

I'm carrying this baby the same as I did with my daughter and the heart rate has been the same for this baby as well. Weight wise I'm actually two pounds less than I was with my daughter at the same point in my pregnancy, so that's awesome! The only noticeable difference is this baby is more active than my daughter was. More kicks, and stronger kicks! My daughter loves the baby in mommy's tummy and gives baby so many kisses! She also likes to set her toys on my tummy and watch baby kick them! Should be interesting to see what she thinks once baby comes out!

My daughter has pretty much stopped nursing. It's been a little over a week since she last even tried. She still points to my boobs and says milk from time to time, but hasn't attempted nursing again. We'll have to see how she reacts when she sees baby nursing!

I have another OB appointment this week and then I'm supposed to go every two weeks until 36, then weekly with ultrasounds starting at 37 weeks. I've been trying to find information about the ultrasounds and so far it seems like in my case it's just unnecessary testing. I haven't yet found any studies showing there is a significant benefit to them. Even the mayo clinic website makes it seem like the ultrasounds are limited in how helpful they are. Since the only risk factor I'm even facing right now is being "old" I just don't see how it's going to benefit me. I don't have GD, my blood pressure is great - and something I even monitor at home from time to time. So who knows. I am looking at reducing some of the appointments I have scheduled and strongly considering skipping the ultrasounds altogether. 

Otherwise all is well. I'm in nesting mode. I've got a good stock of freezer meals done already and would like to make another 10-15 before baby arrives. Getting excited to meet this little one!