32 Weeks and Updates on Just About Everything

So life has been a crazy mess the past few weeks!  The house is a wreck and my nesting is kicking in, so those two things don't mesh very well.  On top of that, Andy's back at work (he took a week off for the move) so I'm at home by myself all day long, but I'm getting pretty big so there's not much I can actually do by myself as far as unpacking goes.  I get half a box done and need to take a rest.  So I'm nesting like crazy, but can only get projects halfway done.  It's crazy frustrating.  But we are making progress.  A little at a time, but progress nonetheless.  Ok, so now on to the baby update . . .

We arrived at 32 weeks this past Saturday.  8 weeks to go.  Eight.  That's all.  Ok, see now I'm starting to panic about getting everything done again.  Anyway, 32 weeks means that we are in a safe zone of sorts.  If she would be born now, she would stand a very good chance at not only survival, but going on to be perfectly normal.  She's still kicking up a storm, which some NST techs have been surprised about.  Usually by 32 weeks they are big enough that they don't have enough room to thrash around like she does.  Oh but it feels like she has plenty of room in there!  My ultrasounds continue to show her head being down, so we're on the right track there!  And she continues to pass all of our NST's with flying colors.  Sometimes she decides to take a nap right in the middle, so we have to be hooked up to the monitor longer than we'd like, but eventually they see what they are looking for as far as movement and heart rate goes.

Yesterday we had another growth scan done to see how she's progressing size-wise.  The ultrasounds that I get done once a week just take measurements (via a special wand called a doppler) of the bloodflow through three major arteries in her head, umbilical cord, and abdomen.  They do growth scans every two weeks.  So four weeks ago was when she weighed the 2 lbs. 4 oz.  Then two weeks ago, she was up to 2 lbs. 11 oz.  Now this week she has shot right up to 3 lbs. 6 oz.!  She's still below the 5th percentile, but she is showing steady growth, which is a great sign.  The doctor said that it's looking more and more like she's just petite and not being restricted in her growth.  That's what everyone's been saying all along, but it's good that the doctor is actually starting to believe it now!  I guess it's very rare for that to be the actual case.  Usually, when a baby is measuring this small it is because something is holding it back or restricting it's growth.  Every once in a while, though, they see a baby that is perfectly content to be that size and that's just how they grow.  He can't say for sure (can they ever???) but it's looking like that might be the case with Ellie.  SUPER good news to my ears!

The only bad news is that they want to continue monitoring me twice a week, just to be safe.  And that's only bad news because we got a bill this week from my very first specialist visit back in September.  Apparently, our insurance only 100% covers 'routine' maternity care.  Whatever that means.  Are there really any 'routine' pregnancies anymore?  Seriously.  So every time I walk into the specialist's office, even if it's just for an NST and I don't see the doctor, it costs us a $25 copay.  Really, considering the cost of all the tests and whatnot, that's not bad.  Until you think about the fact that I'm going there twice a week.  That's $200 a month just in copays that we didn't budget for.  Hmmm, I guess we'll find that money somewhere!  Really, it's not the money that's upsetting.  Nowhere in the insurance statement of benefits does it specify that maternity care is covered 100% as long as it is within the realm of 'routine'.  That's what's really annoying.  It just says 100% covered.  So anyway, that's our little hiccup for this week.  There's always got to be something just to keep us on our toes!

So other than that, things are going pretty ok.  We haven't been able to decorate for Christmas yet because the living room isn't completely put back together, which makes me kind of sad.  That's usually something I do as SOON as I am allowed to, which is generally the day after Thanksgiving.  I need to unpack and organize the music room because I've got a student coming tonight.  Our dining room is piled full of stuff to be gone through 'then' and we have my Father-in-law coming over for dinner tomorrow night.  And the nursery is an absolute mess.  Here's a picture of the progress we've made on it so far:

Yeah.  The walls need painted, we need to get a blind for that window, the furniture needs moved around, the brown dresser needs moved to another room, the armoire (which is in the garage) needs to be painted and moved up, the crib needs put together, and I have an art project for on the wall that I haven't even started yet!  The good news is that we got the car seat and stroller out of the box and assembled the other night.  Someday we will have to install the car seat bases in our cars so that we could actually USE the seat if we suddenly needed to, but it's still progress.  We're both doing the best that we can and everything that NEEDS to get done will get done in time.  Pardon me while I go sit in the corner and repeat that to myself over and over again!  Oh wait, no time for a nervous breakdown, there is too much work to be done!  Time to watch White Christmas (snow, snow, snow, snow, SNOW!) and unpack the music room.  Wish me luck!

30 Weeks and a Baby Shower

This past Saturday, we had two really exciting things happen . . . we reached 30 weeks and had a beautiful baby shower for little miss Ellie!

All our appointments have been going well recently, so there's not much to report on that front.  Miss Wigglepants was being stubborn for the ultrasound tech this week, but once she found the artery she needed, the readings looked great.  She even said it looks like she's starting to grow some hair, which is pretty exciting!  Developmentally, we're just getting bigger and stronger and chubbier to help survive in the real world.  I've been feeling fatter and fatter every day, but I'm told that's a good thing so I will try not to complain about it.  My dreams are strange and my hips hurt by morning, so sleeping is getting more difficult, but I'm also told that it just prepares me for the challenges of having an infant, so I will try not to complain about that either.  All in all, I'm feeling pretty good and and optimistic about keeping Ellie cooking for 10 more weeks!

We actually started our childbirth class at the hospital on Monday night, too.  Two hours, every Monday night, for five weeks.  That's a lot of information.  I think I'm too laid back to care a whole lot about it (I don't need a birth plan - I go to the hospital, they take care of me, I have a baby - how hard is that??), but it's already been really good for Andy, so I guess it's worth going to.  There are only 5 other couples there, so at least it's a nice small group and the nurses that teach it are super nice.

The house is coming along quite nicely!  My dad came down on Monday morning and mom got here Tuesday.  Andy's dad has been coming over every day too, so we've got a full house of workers!  We've got the dining room completely done (except for hanging up the curtains) and the kitchen will probably be done by the time I get there this morning.  Mom and I (but mostly mom) spent yesterday cleaning one of the bathrooms (yes, it took that long) and today we will tackle the other one before taking a break to run some shopping errands in town.  Someone has to go out and buy the new toilet paper holder - might as well be us!  Anyway, they are hoping to finish the living room and hallway by the end of the day and get at least one coat of paint up in either the master bedroom or the music room.  The guys are just working like crazy trying to get as much done as possible before we get furniture moved in.  I seriously have the best family ever.  I've been taking pictures of the progress, but will probably wait until after we've moved in and then just do a giant before and after post.

Ok, now on to the really exciting stuff - the baby shower!!  With all of the moving and stuff going on around this time, mom decided not to even try to surprise me (which was fine by me!) so I knew it was coming.  But I had no idea how CUTE everything would turn out!  She decided to go with a zoo animal theme (along the same lines as our jungle/safari nursery theme) and use bright primary colors with a box of animal crackers as the inspiration.

These cupcakes were the centerpieces (along with other cupcakes for eating).  The animals are actually made of fondant!  I thought they were plastic bathtub toys when I first saw them!  Mom found a woman in her local area who is a nurse, but also decorates cakes on the side.  She did an awesome job!

Here are the elements of the cake table.  Again, that elephant is fondant!  It's so cute!!  Mom made the zebra stripe pretzel candies and got the wooden puzzle train at her local thrift store.

 The gift table was decorated with Ellie's quilt (which you've seen in a previous post) and the stuffed elephant that was my nursery inspiration!  I found it at a store about a year ago and went ahead and bought it because I loved it so much!

 As they arrived, all of the guests were instructed to color a picture and write a message to Ellie at the bottom.  They will go in a picture book for her.  Here is Sarah, my cousin's daughter, coloring some lions!  (I forgot to take a picture of the book itself, but I'll get it up here someday!)

We played a few games, but my favorite was 'Sort My Socks!'  Each team had a basket full of socks that they had to match and pin together.  The team who completed their basket first won!  These ladies are FAST at sock sorting, let me tell you!  I think I need them to come over to my house on a weekly basis!!

Last, we ate snacks and then opened some very nice gifts, which I insisted Andy be around for.  He's going to use those diapers and wipes too!

All the wonderful women in my life who were able to attend (minus my cousin April who had to leave early).  A lot of people had work and other conflicts but were still kind enough to send gifts - all of which were very much appreciated!  We feel so incredibly loved and blessed.  Thank you cards will be coming out AFTER Ellie is born, so hang in there - we didn't forget!

Mommy and Auntie, who also helped a lot with the party planning and prep :-)

And this is how Ellie felt about the whole party . . .

Can you see her smiling?!?  And those chubby cheeks?!?  Such a cutie pie, if I do say so myself!  We can't decide who she looks like though, so we might have to do that the old fashioned way and just wait until she's born :-)

Settlement Day!

So, remember that one time that we bought a house?  Yeah, me too!  Settlement went off without a hitch yesterday.  Well, kind of.  We'll get to that.  Here's a rundown of our big, exciting day . . .

7:30 rolled around bright and early for our final walk-through.  Everything looked pretty much how we left it the last time, so we were satisfied enough and left around 8 to head to the attorney's office.  Now, our settlement was scheduled for 9, but the attorney had said that he wanted us there around 8:15 to get started on our part so the sellers didn't have to sit around forever and just watch us sign papers.  Hence the freakishly early start to the day.

So, signing the paperwork wasn't all that painful.  My hand didn't even cramp up!  The sellers showed up at 9 and signed their part of the papers and then handed over the keys.  And that was that!  We got a few instructions from them about the keys (5 of the 6 go to the house and the one left over goes to the garage) and the mail.  They moved into a rental duplex right next door to the house.  That's a little weird to us, but I suppose we will just have to get over it.  It's just a rental, after all, so hopefully they won't be there permanently.  So our mailboxes are RIGHT next to each other, so if we get each other's mail by accident we can just pop it in the other box.  At least they were nice enough to let us know that they would gladly do that for us!

And that was that.  No party music, no balloons, no popping champagne cork.  It was a little anticlimactic, to be perfectly honest.  I didn't really feel any different.  We literally climbed in the car and said, "Well, I guess we own a house now."  So we drove home (to the house we currently live in) and picked up the other car full of cleaning supplies and headed over to the new house to start cleaning!  Yay, fun!  Andy took a broom and swept down the walls and ceilings and I followed behind him with the vacuum.  After the vacuuming was done, we rented the carpet cleaner and really attacked the carpets.  They didn't look dirty because of their color, but there was some seriously disgusting water coming out of them.  I'm glad we took the time to do it. We finished up around 9:30 and returned the carpet cleaner to the store with time to spare!

In the middle of the day, I had to run to town for a Non-Stress Test.  Ellie was very cooperative, so I only had to be hooked up to the monitor for 20 minutes instead of 40 like the last time.  Results were good - nothing to report!

Last night around dinner time, we got a call from our realtor saying that there was a problem with our paperwork.  I knew it was too easy.  We've hit roadbumps around every corner with buying this house, so just going in and spending an hour signing papers seemed way too easy.  Luckily, it wasn't a problem with us or anything we did, but the HUD needed re-done by TODAY because of a bank error.  The bank holding the first mortgage on the house gave the attorney the wrong payoff number for their portion of the mortgage. They accidentally took $4,000 more than it would have taken to pay off the mortgage, so the second bank got that much less.  These numbers were off from the beginning, so it's hard to tell why they just noticed it NOW, but it should make the bank holding the second mortgage really happy to be getting that much more than they thought they would, especially since they were the ones actually taking the loss in the first place!  So, we didn't do anything wrong, we just had to go in and sign a new HUD.  This means that the attorney got to his office at 4:30 this morning to rewrite it and our agent got to her office at 6 to make copies for us.  We got there at 6:15 (on Andy's way to work) and signed off and the sellers will sign off sometime today as well.  That's a lot of extra work for a lot of people just because of the bank's stupid mistake.  Like I said, it would have just been too easy to sign the papers and be done!

Our only other hiccup is that we don't have a key to the front door.  None of the keys they gave us work for it.  We've got our agent talking to their agent about whether or not they were forgotten or just got lost over the years, but we will probably end up changing the locks anyway.  Especially since they live next door.  Call me paranoid, but I just don't want to take that chance.  Andy thinks it would be nice to have the garage have the same key as the house anyway.  Just one more adventure of the brand new homeowners!

Today's adventures include running to town to get all of the paint we will need next week (don't worry, someone from Home Depot will carry it to the car for me!) and pulling about 10,000 nails and screws out of the walls so that Andy can start patching them when he gets home from work.  After that, the guys can start painting the walls and ceilings.  I think that part will make me more excited because the house will start to look different and feel more like ours.

And with that, I will leave you with a picture and get started on another busy day!  Be back with a baby update next week :-)

It's hard to see because of my unwilling photographer, but here I am, using my brand new key to
open the door!  Too bad it was the front door and the key didn't work!

29 Weeks and 3 Appointments in 2 Days

Another busy week has come and gone, leaving me with the daunting task of how to summarize it all for you!  We'll start with our 29 week update and go from there.

According to the internet, Ellie is the size of an acorn squash right now!  Now, of course, it would be a tiny little acorn squash that no one would ever buy except for me because I would think it's cute.  I've always been that way with tiny things.  Even travel sized bath items are cute to me because they are just so small.  Maybe that's why God is giving me a tiny baby, who knows?!  Anyway, she's definitely starting to get a little more cramped for space.  Every time we go for monitoring, it is easier and easier for the tech to get reads on her because she can't swim away as easily!  That's not to say she doesn't try, she just finds other ways to fight back.  She's giving me some pretty fierce heartburn no matter what I eat, so I'm just learning to deal with it and know that it will go away some day.

So, we had lots of appointments this week just because that's how the timing fell, but it snowballed into a mess that none of us anticipated.  On Wednesday morning, I was scheduled to go in for my glucola test and then have a follow up the next day to go over the results and get my Rhogam shot (darn RH- blood type!).  Thursday I was also to have another growth scan at the specialist just to make sure she's still progressing.

Well, Wednesday got off to kind of a rocky start.  My family has a history of difficultly with getting blood drawn.  It has nothing to do with being queasy or anything like that, we just have small, hard to find veins that don't like to be punctured.  I have some horror stories I could tell you about medical professionals who have had to stab me repeatedly just to get a single vial of blood, but I won't go into that right now!  Knowing this about myself, I try to be as prepared as possible - making sure I am very well hydrated (to plump my veins) and warm (so they don't retract any further into my arm) - and I make sure to go to a lab where the person drawing my blood is doing that procedure all day, every day.  For the glucola test, however, they needed to just have a nurse do it at the office.  I was a little nervous about that, but was determined to do my part to make it easier on her, so I drank PLENTY of water before downing my glucola drink and heading out to the office.  That was almost a tragic mistake on my part.  My stomach was so full of water that adding the glucola made me so terribly nauseous.  I almost had to pull over a few times on the drive into town, but I made it!  I was also relieved to see that it would be the nursing supervisor that would be drawing my blood.  Unfortunately, she needed 3 vials and only got 2 before the only viable vein in my arm just stopped bleeding.  She had to stick me in the back of the hand and do some wiggling, but finally got everything she needed.  Not the most pleasant experience, but not the worst.

Then the Dr. came in for my actual checkup.  She said I look great!  My belly was measuring right on the money at 28.5 weeks and I have gained a grand total of 14 pounds so far!  Oh, but she noticed I hadn't had my flu shot yet.  Andy had been bugging me to get one (since he already got his) and I had been meaning to, but it's hard to make yourself do something you don't want to do, even when you know it's in your best interest.  I had never had a flu shot before, so I wasn't sure how my body would react to it, and after having been stuck twice already that morning, I did not want one then, but she was not about to let me leave without it.  So, I got three needles in my left arm on Wednesday morning.  Luckily, my only adverse reactions to the shot were being very tired (which I've heard is almost universal) and my arm being very stiff and sore.  I went to bed that night, not worrying about the next day because it seemed as though all the tough stuff was over.  Ha.

Thursday morning I was up bright and early to drive to the specialist.  Luckily, they are not too far away from our home, but they are in the opposite direction as my OB's office, so I knew having the two appointments in the same day could present some challenges.  I got there and had my ultrasound, which was just fine.  They don't make my back hurt like they used to, which I am very grateful for!  After some wiggling and some jiggling, we also finally got a couple of good pictures of Ellie!  Unfortunately, the ones of her face did not scan well at all.  Her little foot measured at almost 2 inches long (which seems pretty long to me!) and overall they estimate that she weighs about 2 lbs. 4 oz.  We got to see her practice her breathing, which is a very good sign of development, and all of her blood flow and fluid levels look great.   After that, they hooked me up with a Non-Stress Test, which I did not know that I would be having.  Nothing too terrible about that.  I'm just glad I brought a book!  Then I thought I was supposed to talk to the doctor about the results of the infection screening bloodwork I had done the week before, but that wasn't on my chart, so I had to wait around for him to have a few minutes to meet with me.  It was a different doctor than I had seen before, which turned out to be a good thing!  The previous one was very knowledgeable, but not terribly great with bedside manner.  This one explained things in a way that I could really understand and made me feel a LOT better about the whole process that we are going through.

Basically, he said she is still too small and they still don't know why.  This is more serious than just being small, though, because this is the area of the percentages where they find the drug addicted or fetal alcohol syndrome babies.  I hadn't realized that before.  The good news is, he said, that I'm giving her the best shot that she can have at this point.  I'm doing everything I can.  It felt really good to have a doctor actually look at me and tell me that.  I think at some point, every mom wonders if there's something more she can be doing for her child, but that's even more prevalent when you're still growing the baby.  I'm her only source for everything right now, so it's so easy to think that it's something that I am doing that is causing these problems, but according to Dr. Smith, that doesn't appear to be true.  She shows no signs of nutrient deficiency or inadequacy and I don't have any bad habits that would be affecting her.  There are also no signs of infection and still no obvious signs of a chromosomal disorder that they would be worried about.  Basically, there are no answers as to why, but that's not really important anymore.  What's important is just making sure she's still growing and not showing any signs of distress.  We've decided not to have an amniocentesis done because it wouldn't change anything about our treatment plans.  So what are our treatment plans?  Well . . .

I will be going in to the specialist for twice weekly monitoring.  On Mondays, I will have an Ultrasound and a Non-Stress Test and then on Thursdays I will have just the Non-Stress Test.  This will hopefully ensure that if she stops growing or starts to show signs of distress, they can catch it in time and decide to deliver her early before things get out of control and we have a stillbirth.  The notion of delivering her early is terrifying to me.  If I go in for a NST and they say she's not thriving, they'll rush me across the street to the hospital and c-section her right out of there before I even have a chance to call Andy!  However, it is comforting to know that they will be watching her so closely because the thing I want more than anything else is to bring my baby girl home.  I still think that this will all turn out to be nothing and that she will be born healthy at full-term, but it is still good to be prepared.  So since there is a risk of having to deliver early, Dr. Smith wanted me to go ahead and get some steroid injections to help her lungs and blood vessels develop.  This is the same stuff they normally give to moms who go into pre-term labor, but I got it early.  They couldn't give it to me there, but called my OB to set it up for my afternoon appointment that very day.  No biggie, just a few more shots!

So after that meeting, I had 15 minutes at home to eat some lunch and rush back out to the OB!  I got there and got my Rhogam shot, which hurt like the dickens.  If you've never had one, be thankful.  They're the type of shot that has to go in your tush.  It's not pleasant.  The good news is, I passed my glucola and iron tests, so no extra stuff has to go on in that department!  Then the doctor came in and told me that there was a problem with the steroid shots.  I needed one that day and one on Friday.  Normally, they would send me to the pharmacy and I would pick them up and then bring them back to the office to be administered, but ALL of the pharmacies in the area were out of them.  So I was going to have to go to the hospital.  Ok, I think I can handle that.  Leave the OB at 1:30 and call Andy in the car to verify directions to the hospital.  Now, I teach piano lessons on Thursday evenings starting at 4 and I still had cat toys and all kinds of clutter strewn around my house that needed picked up before anyone arrived, so I was beginning to feel a bit of a time crunch.  But how long could it take to drive 3 blocks to the hospital and get a shot??

An hour and a half, that's how long.  It took a while to register because I had never been there before and then I had to be escorted up to the maternity ward since I didn't have an official appointment.  Once there, they got more paperwork filled out and then sent the order for the shot down to the pharmacy.  That's when the real waiting began.  It took forever just for that stupid little syringe to get upstairs!  I was completely worn out and overwhelmed and had already been punctured 4 times in 2 days, so I may have been a little crankier with the nurse than I meant to be, but I think she understood.  Shot in the right arm this time, since the left just got the flu the day before, and I was on my way.  This was the most painful shot I can remember receiving.  It was like an instant burning muscle cramp.  I actually cried when I got to my car it hurt that bad. But by then it was after 3:00 and I needed to make the 25 minute drive home to get the house tidied up for my students!  I got there and got everything done in time, so it all worked out, but there's nothing like a surprise trip to the hospital to really cramp your plans for the day!

Friday morning I went back to the hospital and got the follow-up dose of the steroid shot in the same arm as before since it still hurt less than the flu shot did.  Luckily, since I had an appointment, it took less than half the amount of time it did the day before.  It was kind of nice to get a sneak peek at the maternity floor though!  We will soon be headed there once a week for birthing classes, so it's good to know where we're going!

Friday night was my last night of work at the retail store (yay!) and it was crazy and busy, but the steroids gave me lots of energy, so I didn't mind it too much.  Saturday, we got to go to a friend's wedding and catch up with some really wonderful friends there.  Yesterday included church, a potluck lunch afterward, errands, and packing.  And this morning I am headed back to the specialist for another Ultrasound and Non-Stress Test!  The past several days have just been a whirlwind of activity, but we seem to be surviving (for the most part)!  Life's not about to slow down any time soon - this week includes settling on the house and cleaning/painting/beginning to move in!  Super exciting, but a little surreal as well.  I'll let you know how it goes :-)

Ellie's little foot