Scary Sunday

This baby is going to make sure I stay on my toes all the time!! This morning I woke up to find that I started bleeding. As soon as I saw it, I screamed for Jeff who came running. I tried to stay calm because our son was standing in the hall, but I didn't do such a good job at that. I started crying and praying to God that our baby was alright. I couldn't think as to what I should do, so I grabbed the phone and called my Mom. She told me to get dressed and go to the hospital right away. I know I should have called my doctor first, but panic set in and I just wanted a doctor to see me ASAP. The thought of having to drive the hour to our doctor's office and not know if our baby was still alive just wasn't an option for me. So my Mom rushed over to stay with Tyson and Jeff and I headed up to the hospital.

When we got there we had a short wait before the nurse came out to get us. She took us into the ER where she asked a bunch of questions, took my blood pressure, temperature and heart rate. She went over our medical history with our last pregnancy and after what seemed like forever, finally got us into one of the ER rooms. I changed into the gown while Jeff sat beside me. He was pale and nervous and I then realized we were in the same room he had been in with his Mother earlier in the week. His Mother is dying of cancer and he had to check her into the hospital. So here I was sitting in the ER, crying and wondering if our baby was alright and his Mom was in the opposite end of the hospital getting ready to say goodbye to us. As scared as I was, I also felt a huge weight of guilt thinking that I was only adding to his stress.

After a while the doctor finally came in and told me that if I was loosing the baby, there wasn't much that could be done. Again I started to cry and just prayed that everything would be fine. They asked for my blood type in case I should start to hemorrhage and told me that there was very little they could actually do. They would check my blood levels to see if I still had a high amount of HCG hormone and to make sure I didn't have some sort of infection. They would also do an internal exam to check to see if my cervix was thinning/dilating, but that was about all they could do at this hospital. 

Our town hospital is not equip with any sort of OB care so this made it difficult in treating me. I knew this going in, but I thought for sure they could at least check on our baby. That's when Jeff asked if they could at the very least listen for a heartbeat. The doctor agreed and the nurse set out to find a Doppler. It took quite a while for them to even find one and even longer for the nurse to find our babies heartbeat, but it was there. Our baby's heart was beating strong and loud in the 150's and that's when I knew our baby was still alive. That's all I cared about and listening to that sound was a feeling that I can not describe. Relief, joy and emotions that I just don't have words for flooded through me. I knew then that everything was going to be alright.

After finding our babies heartbeat and the doctor reassuring us that he believed that everything was fine, I told Jeff to go down and check on his Mom. The doctor would call him back if we needed him, but I knew that he needed to be with her more. So he went down and I waited to have my blood drawn and exam done. 

Thankfully everything turned out to be just fine. Our baby is still with us, praise GOD and the bleeding stopped. I am laying low today and probably for the next few days until our regular OB tells me what she wants me to do. I will call tomorrow when I know they are in the office, unless the bleeding should start again. 

Today was a very scary day and made me realize that anything really can go wrong at any time. I can not wait until this baby is finally born into my arms where I can try to keep him/her safe. I feel so helpless right now with baby inside my stomach where I can't do anything to help him/her if need be. I know praying to God to keep our baby safe will also keep me sane for the next 5 months! Hopefully that time goes by quickly and our baby will join our family and be with us for the rest of our lives.

16 week appointment

We went in for our 16 week and 5 day appointment yesterday and so far so good. Everything looks great with baby. Nice strong heartbeat (120bpm), growing right on track, low blood pressure and urine came out fine. Our doctor did prescribe some new medication to try and help with the nausea and vomiting, but once again that just means baby is growing healthy. We also had more blood work done to check for any signs of down syndrome, but even if something abnormal comes up, we are already in love with our baby just the way he/she is!

Side effects this week have been morning/night sickness that just doesn't want to give up, being tired, headaches (but nothing that I can't easily manage), sore breasts that are already leaking (oh the joys of pregnancy) and a growing tummy (big smile). 

I do have to admit that I am a bit on the down side seeing as no one is responding to what I thought would be a fun post. I guess I pictured lots of people from different backgrounds listing all the old wise tales they had learned about guessing the gender of a baby and then putting them to the test. My family and I have been having fun doing the few that we know of, but the lack of response by anyone else makes me sad. I am just starting to wonder if my blog is worth doing anymore. Is anyone really reading this? Is it helping anyone or at the very least providing a bit of entertainment? I guess that's the chance you take when starting something like a blog. Oh well, I have fun doing it. It gives me a way of looking back and seeing how far we have come. It was not an easy journey and I am truly blessed that we are at the point of being able to share our joys of being pregnant.

Time for some fun!!!

Anyone who has read my last few entries knows that I have been really stressing over every aspect of this pregnancy. The majority of my posts have been about things that I am worried about and I thought it was time to change that. It's time for some fun!!! 

I need everyone's help with this one so please, please leave a comment below to help us out. I want to know any and every way that you know of to predict a babies gender. I know of a few, but I would really like to know of other fun ways that we can try to predict what we are having. I went out today and bought an IntelliGender test and that will be our first try at predicting if this baby is a boy or a girl. I will do each and every one of the tests left for us (as long as it is safe) and I will write a post on the results for each. So get out your old wise tales, gender tests and charts and  help us to have some fun with this baby and try to help us guess what we might be having. We will find out for sure if if this baby is a boy or a girl on October 10th so make sure you leave your comments before then. 

I am also going to add a poll to our blog so everyone can leave their guess as to what we are having. I hope everyone has as much fun with this as we are hoping to.

Repeat C-Section or VBAC?

I never imagined that making the decision on how we would bring our next child into the world would be such an enormous struggle. From the moment I gave birth to my son I knew that I wanted to try again at having a vaginal birth, but after my doctor came into my room and told me that he would never allow me to go through another labor, I figured that the decision had been made for me. 

Fast forward almost 7 years and the decision is no longer that simple. I don't want someone making the choice for me, my body or my child. 

When I gave birth to my son I completely trusted in the doctors and the hospital to make the best decisions for me and my unborn son. I believed they had my best interests in mind and would be there to support my birth plan. Now I feel as though I was given unreasonable expectations that required me to labor, progress and deliver under their time frame. I never felt that my child or my life was at risk or that I could not handle the stresses of labor and yet I was told that after 15 hours, my time have been reached and that a c-section was my only option. I was scared, confused and felt so defeated. I felt like there was something wrong with me because I could not give birth to my son the way I was meant to. I was told that he was under stress and that I had no time to even talk over my options with my husband. 

Within minutes I was being wheeled down to the OR with no one I knew at my side. My epidural was removed and painfully a spinal was put in it's place. I was strapped down so that I could not move my arms and a sheet was placed just below my chin so that I could not see anything happening to me. Finally my husband came in and held my hand. I couldn't see his face, but knowing he was there helped so much. 

After a few moments I felt some strong tugging and finally the cries of my baby. My baby!! Really, I just had a baby! I could not see him and no one held him up for me to see. Was he really mine? Did he really just come out of me or was it some rabbit in the hat trick being performed behind the curtain? 

Finally after they unstrapped my arms I was able to move the curtain enough that I could see my son laying on the table, surrounded in nurses drying him off, putting on his little hat and his first diaper. He was scared, he wanted to be held, he grabbed onto the nurse's scrubs and she had to pull his little hand free so she could keep working. He was reaching out for someone to comfort him and he was pulled off. 

After what seemed like hours he was finally wrapped up and given to my husband. He was right next to me and yet I could only see the very top of his nose. When one of the nurses realized that I could not see him, she took him from my husband and held him so that I could see his tiny face and give him the kiss I had been waiting for months to give him. After a quick family photo, he was gone. I yelled at my husband to go with him so that he would not be alone and then they were both gone. I was laying on a table where no one was talking to me, no one was telling me what was going on and I was sad. I wanted to be with my husband and son. Where was he going? What were they doing to him? 

Another hour passed as the doctors stitched my broken body back together, no word on how my son was doing. I was moved from the table onto a bed and wheeled into recovery. There were two nurses in the room talking to themselves, no one to tell me where my son was. By the grace of God, Jeff came into the room just when I felt like I was about to loose myself. He told me that our son weighed 6lbs 15ozs and was doing great. I asked the nurse if I could see my baby. begging just to be able to hold him. Finally she agreed that Jeff could bring him to me. 

A few minutes later my husband and my son came into the room. Tyson was in one of those plastic bassinets wrapped up in a blanket and alone. When he was finally placed into my arms I never wanted to let him go. I finally got to really look at him. His tiny features and his wisps of curly red hair. Red hair? Wait are you sure this is my son? Jeff assured me that it was and I was in love. I wanted to try to nurse him right away, but instead he was placed back into the plastic bed by the nurse and was taken back to the nursery. Why? Why couldn't I keep my son with me? Why did he have to go back there only to be alone?

 

After I left recovery I was wheeled into my own room at the very end of the hall. Jeff was starting a new college class the next day and asked if he could go home to sleep. He has a huge fear of hospitals so I knew how hard it would be for him to stay. Before he left I asked if any of our family was still there and he said that they had all gone home. He kissed me goodbye and once again I was alone. 

It was another 6 hours before my son was placed back into my arms. SIX HOURS!!! He came in the room crying to be feed and held. The nurse who handed him to me told me to nurse him for about 20 minutes then she would come back and get him. I looked right at her and told her that there was no way anyone was taking him away from me again. She went on to tell me that I needed my rest blah blah blah. I told her that the only thing that I needed was my son and he needed me. They would have to get someone in the room to tear him from my arms if they ever wanted him back. She rolled her eyes and told me that she didn't care, she was off in another hour and the next nurse could deal with me. 

My son was finally where he belonged, in my arms, against my heart. I wanted to study every piece of my new baby. His eyes, nose, mouth, ears, fingers, toes. I couldn't get enough of this tiny person. I held him against my chest, talked to him, sang to him and loved him. He never left my side until the following day when I went into shock because of a medication allergy. After I recovered from that, he never left my arms again.

I don't want to go through that this time around. I don't want to be left in a room alone, wondering where my baby is. Waiting for hours on end for someone to bring me my child. This is the reason why I really want to try the VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). Although now it is called a TOLAC (trial of labor after cesarean). How encouraging is that, "a trial of labor", it sounds like they are expecting women to fail. 

During my first appointment I discussed my thoughts of a vaginal birth with my new doctor and while they both supported the idea, I was given a slew of scary facts that still pointed to a safer delivery being in a repeat c-section. 

After reading everything they gave me, I decided to do my own research online. Wow, there are some scary things out there on the web!! I am finding it really hard to find actual facts instead of personal opinions on the matter. Most people are so pro one and so against the other that it is hard to find bias opinion. I know there are risks with both options, but what is the right one for me. 

I know this is a VERY personal decision but I am asking for your help. If you are reading this and you know of someone who has gone through one or the other, please share their experience. If you know of a good place for me to get real facts, list them. If you have gone through one or both ways of birthing your child, please let me know what helped you make the decision. If you had a repeat c-section was the recovery time better or worse than your first? 

At my next appointment I am going to go over everything that I can with my doctor, but I am hoping to have more facts or questions for him then I do now. I want to know the likely hood of complications with both options. I also want to know that if I decide to do the repeat c-section, is there a way that I can keep my child with me the entire time if the baby is healthy. I have a lot to discuss and I hope that I can make the best choice for me, my family and my child. The stress of thinking I might choose wrong is just so overwhelming at this point.

15 weeks 3 days pregnant!

First I want to start by saying that I am sorry for being MIA for the past few weeks. I wanted so much to keep an updated blog about this pregnancy and yet I keep falling behind. Things have been wonderful around here, well other than the almost constant nausea and vomiting. 

I want to quickly recap the past few weeks before getting into the present. First off we finally told our family that we are expecting!! It was perfect and exactly what I had imagined. We started off by inviting our family over for a "back to school" party for our son who is now in the 1st grade. While everyone was having fun decorating school folders and talking, I snuck into our bedroom and pulled out a big box wrapped up for our son. Here is a video of what happened next.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A79LXflnxQY&feature=plcp

I am sorry that I am not able to upload the video directly, but for some reason it's not working. 

Anyway, everyone was very surprised and excited. My Mom started crying and jumped up to give me a hug. I really thought my parents knew what was going on, but they said they had no idea. Who knew our surprise was truly a surprise! Once our son finally understood what it meant, he was thrilled, unfortunately his very first question for us was, "is this baby going to die too?" I can't tell you how much it broke my heart to know that he was already worried about that. We sat down and explained to him that this baby has a very strong heartbeat and that the doctor said that everything looked perfect. I told him that the only thing we can do is to stay healthy ourselves and to keep praying to God every night to keep our baby strong and healthy, growing in our love and God's strength. 

The last few weeks have been spent getting use to Tyson being in school full time and not being there to see him throughout the day. I don't think there has been a day yet that I have not cried because I just plan miss him. We have also been working really hard on the rest of our remodel on our house. The ceilings are now void of popcorn smoothed and painted, our new dining room table is finally here and set up, the walls are painted, the trim is almost done, the new mail box is in place, the new doors are hung and waiting for door knobs, the new built in entertainment center is almost finished and the hardwood floors are almost looking new again. Hopefully once everything upstairs is finished we can finally work on the mud room and the new family/playroom in the basement, freeing up the extra bedroom upstairs for the new nursery. Don't worry I haven't been pushing myself too much, thus the reason why it is taking so long to get everything finished. 

Ok, back to the present, 15 weeks 3 days pregnant. So far my symptoms are about the same. Nausea, vomiting and my energy levels are not quite where they were. The medication that the doctor gave me is helping a lot, but I am still having times in the day where my stomach wants to remind me that it's not quite happy with the flood of hormones coursing through my body. 

 I also find myself crying at the most ridiculous times and at the strangest of events. We decided to take our son to the car races, despite not being big fans of the sport. As soon as the first car crashed I started crying. I just couldn't stop picturing some one's baby sitting behind the wheel of that car, driving at a ridiculous speed and possibly getting hurt for what, a plastic trophy? Anyway, our night was over when I learned that one of the racers, who won by the way, was a 13 year old girl. I can't imagine how hard it must be for her parents to watch her go out there and take such huge risks with her life. She ended up being amazing, but I could only picture this small child behind the wheel being chased by big bad guys in fast cars that could hurt her. Not an event to go to while pregnant! 

Other than that this pregnancy is going great. I am finally starting to grow out of my old jeans, although I am not showing at all. I am trying to find a comfortable pair of maternity pants that work, but so far I'm not having much luck. I think I am just going to stick with the hair elastic through the button hole a little longer. 

Oh some VERY exciting news, I felt the baby move!!! I thought I was feeling something around week 14, but everyone kept telling me that it was far too early to feel anything. Well now I know I am feeling this little jitter bug move! It's mostly when I'm sitting up, but I also feel it at times when I am laying down, just before bed. This baby was so very active during our ultrasound so I'm not too surprised that I am already feeling him/her move. 

Another really fun and exciting aspect of being pregnant is being able to listen to the baby's heartbeat and kicks!! I bought an Angel Sound fertility Doppler on Amazon and once I hit about 14 weeks, I have been able to hear our baby's heartbeat very clearly.  I love this one because I am also able to hook it  up to an external speaker which allows everyone to join in on the fun. My son has asked me to listen to the baby every night before going to bed so he can check to make sure the baby is alright. He loves when we hear the baby kick or roll and he thinks that his baby brother/sister is already starting to play with him. I can not wait until Tyson can feel our baby moving on the outside. I know we have a long way to go before that, but I know it will be a very special event. I would defiantly recommend this product to anyone expecting a baby! Not only for peace of mind, but also as a way for your husband or partner to feel more connected to the tiny baby they can not yet feel. Just remember that it may not work for everyone in the early weeks and if the baby rolls over so that it's facing away, it's heartbeat can be harder to hear. In the early weeks and months there is a lot of room for baby to move so don't get scared if you can not find your baby in the same spot as last time. Some days it takes me a long time to find where our little one is hiding while other days it seems to be waiting right under my belly button.

Here are the photos that I promised from our first ultrasound and I will also try to post pictures of my growing belly as soon as I can find something to wear that doesn't make me look like I weigh 500lbs.

This is the photo we tied to the baby balloon.