Baby Name Poll

Jeff and I are really struggling with naming this baby girl, so we have decided to ask for your help. Please vote on the name or the spelling of the name that you like the most to help us narrow down our list. We will be announcing Baby Girl Gordon's full name the day she is born. I really feel as though we are going to need to see her to make our final decision. If you have any names to suggest please feel free to leave them in a comment below. If we really like the name, we will add it to our poll. Thank you for everyone for your help in advance, I hope you have as much fun helping us choose her name as we have had.

Halloween Baby Bump

Just a quick post to show off my 5 1/2 month belly. 

I hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween!!!

Placenta Previa and Thrombus Factor 2 mutation.

Filling in the rest of the blanks as to why my posts have been so late. 

At my second ultrasound we were faced with more then just finding out the gender of our baby. I knew something wasn't quite normal because the scan lasted well over our appointment time. The technician spent a great deal of time measuring an "abnormal spot" behind my placenta, along with the blood flow through our baby's brain. Laying on the table, watching the images of our baby up on the monitor was such an amazing experience, but in the back of my mind I couldn't help but wonder what was wrong. We waited for so many years to finally have this precious child, how could something be wrong now? I knew that I could not ask the technician what was going on as they are not allowed to really give much information, but she was really good at giving us as much  as possible. 

She explained that the "spot" behind our placenta appeared to be the most likely source of our bleeding episode. She told us that sometimes the placenta can detach slightly from the uterine wall and when that happens, it often causes bleeding and in my case the majority of the bleeding has resulted in a pool of blood that is trapped. The "spot" will be monitored at each and every ultrasound to make sure that it does not grow in size which could indicate more detaching. 

When I asked why she was spending so much time on her brain, she said she was just checking to make sure that the blood flow was at a normal level and that everything looked alright. She then stated that since we are labeled as a high risk pregnancy, that more measurements would be taken. High risk, why are we high risk? That was the first time that day that I would hear those words, but no the last.

After we finished with our appointment we were told 2 things. 1 that we would need to be rescanned in about 2 weeks because they were not able to get good photos of her heart. This happened with our son so I was not nervous about this at all. Baby was just laying in a bad position to see things clearly. The 2nd thing we were told was that we had a video conference with a specialist from Portland in the next room. I knew we had a consultation, but I had no idea it would be like this. 

Jeff and I sent Tyson off with my Mom while we waited in a small room for the phone call to come through. As we were sitting there I had a thousand bad things going through my mind. Was she going to be alright, was she going to have T18 like my niece, was she going to come home with us. My heart was in my throat as we sat there waiting for the doctor's video to come on the screen. 

After about 20 minuets the monitor finally came to life. There on the other end was a doctor from Portland who had a thousand questions about my medical past. Because I have had close to 19 surgeries, the background info took forever! Finally after everything was scrutinized he explained that because I tested positive for a blood clotting disorder (the Thrombus Factor 2 gene) and had already experienced a blood clot, I would have to be placed on blood thinners and monitored very closely. I will have to inject into myself once a day starting at 22 weeks until about 36 weeks when the injections will go to twice a day. Thankfully the medication will NOT pass through the placenta to the baby. The major problem comes from the possibility of her also carrying the mutation and thus also having the possibility of having a blood clot in utero. This could lead to a number of problems, most of which I can not allow myself to think about. 

We were also told that the "spot" behind my placenta could and most likely will result in some bleeding again. As long as it is a dark brown color (old blood) it is not that concerning. However if it is a bright red, that could spell trouble. 

It wasn't until our follow up with our doctor that we were given another huge blow. Apparently the reason why they were so concerned with the "spot" is because I have a complete placenta previa. A placenta previa is best described as a placenta that is lying unusually low in your uterus, next to or covering your cervix..

There are three locations that a placenta can be. As in the picture shown it can be a normal placement, meaning it is high on the top or sides of the uterus. A Marginal placenta previa is a low lying placenta that is partially covering the cervix. A complete previa is when the placenta is completely covering the cervix.  If it is just a low lying or marginal placenta it has the ability to migrate, thus removing the risk factor. A placenta doesn't actually move in the uterus, but as the uterus expands, it pulls the placenta to a new position. The doctor explained it as drawing a dot on the bottom of a balloon. If you blow up the balloon the dot will move, but instead stretches to a new spot. In our second ultrasound it appeared that our placenta is in fact a complete previa. In most cases a complete previa does not have the ability to migrate to a safe position. 

Because of this, on top of my blood clotting disorder, I am now considered extremely high risk. To try and avoid any complications I have been told that if, or when I should start bleeding again, I will have to remain in the hospital until we deliver. This is something I will try to avoid at all cost. I don't think my son could handle me being gone for any length of time right now. He has been super clingy since we told him that we are pregnant. He is scared that if he leaves my side, something bad will happen to the baby. I hate that he thinks that way, but it's understandable after what happened last time. 

I also have lost the option of having a VBAC. Because the placenta is covering my cervix, if I should go into labor, my placenta could deliver before the baby, leaving the baby without oxygen. To avoid this, my c-section date will be moved up to avoid me even going into labor. Because I live over an hour from the hospital, they want to make sure that I don't even experience contractions. To monitor this, and our baby, I am going to start going in for monthly Bio Physical Profiles up until about 28 weeks, then I will go in every week until about 36 weeks then they will be moved up to twice a week until delivery. When my doctor was going over everything with me, she asked if I simply wanted to move into the office, seeing as how I am going to be there almost as much as her. 

In case you don't know what a Bio Physical Profile is, I know I didn't, here is a quick rundown. 

A biophysical profile (BPP) test measures the health of your baby  during pregnancy.  A BPP test may include a non stress test with electronic fetal heart monitoring and a fetal ultrasound.  The BPP measures your baby's heart rate, muscle tone, movement, breathing, and the amount of amniotic fluid  around your baby. I go in for my first BPP on November 20th. I will be praying that everything looks good and that my placenta has migrated, even a little! 

Since learning all this, we had another ultrasound. This was to get a better picture of little girl's heart. Thankfully after completely somersaulting she finally got into the right position and they were able to see that her heart is perfectly normal. So I hope you will understand why it has taken me so long to get everything updated. Between looking my Mother In Law and finding out everything isn't perfectly normal, I have been really stressed and not in the blogging mood. I do promise to try to be better at updating everyone on what is happening and to make up for my lack of response, here are a few pictures from our 20th week ultrasound.

I can't believe how much she changed in just 2 weeks! Look at those  cheeks!

This one was taken for my son so he knew his sister didn't turn into his brother.

I can't believe the size of her foot! I stopped buying baby socks for her because I am almost certain she will fit into mine when she is born!

21 weeks and 6 day pregnant with a baby........???

Finally I have time to sit and write this post. Too bad it's only because my son has the stomach flu and we are laying low at home today.

Anyway I know a lot of you have been waiting a long time for me to finally announce what the gender of our baby is. I was going to post all of the gender tests that we had tried, but I know that would make this post way too lengthy, so instead I am just going to list our favorites. If you would like to know what other tests we tried, just write me and I'll send you a list.

The first gender predictor that we tried was the Intelligender test. It is a first morning urine test that you can buy online or at any local Rite Aid or Walgreen's.

 (We picked ours up at Rite Aid for about 40$).

 You take the test by collecting your First Morning urine in a small cup then retrieving 20ml in the  syringe provided. You then remove the sticker on the top of the bottle, and inject the urine. Do not replace the sticker when you are done. Then you simply swirl the bottle for 10 second and then leave on a flat, WHITE, surface for 5 minuets. If the color turns dark green it is a boy result. If the color turns an orange it is a girl result. Here are photos from the test I took.

As you can see it is clearly a girl result. So that's  
  Girl 1     Boy 0

Lunar Age of Mother Lunar Month of Conception  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

The next one we tried was the Chinese Gender Cart. This is a simple, online chart that is based on your Lunar age and time of conception. 

Because there are so many different versions of this "ancient" test, I decided to Google the top rated and most accurate sights. This is the sight that came up in most of my searches.  http://www.chinesegenderchart.info/ 

What I like most about his sight was that it has an easy conversion on their page to find your lunar age, which is different from your "normal" age. Just type in your Birthday and month of conception and you will be given your lunar age for the entire year. For me and my conception month, my lunar age is 33 and if you go to the chart, look at the age 33 then over to the 6th month,

 the result is a girl.

 Girl 2     Boy 0


 The next predictor that we tried was based on the number of beats per minute of the baby's heart rate. The old wives tale states that if your baby's heart rate is between 120 to 150bpm, then your baby is a boy. If the heart rate is faster than 150bpm, then that indicates a girl.

At our first appointment, our babies heart rate was 165 beats per minuet and that would suggest a girl result, but we were told that in the first few months of pregnancy, a babies heart rate is faster then it's "normal" heart rate. We were told that we should wait until we were in our second trimester to do determine what our baby's "normal" heart rate would be. So at our second appointment our babies heart rate was at 126bpm and our doctor even suggested that she would have to guess that the baby would be a boy. 

  

 Girl 2  Boy 1

However, when we went to the hospital a few days later because I was bleeding, our babies heart rate was 156bpm and at our third ultrasound the baby's heart beat was almost the same at 159bpm. So that would indicate a Girl result. 

  

Girl 3  Boy 1

It was at this ultrasound that we also found out for sure what the gender of our baby is. The ultrasound technician was so amazing and was very good about keeping the secret from Jeff, my Mom and myself. The only person she told was my son, Tyson. He was going to keep it a secret until we got home that night where he could announce it to all of our family at once. In reality he lasted about 3 seconds before we all knew what the baby was. 

Before I get to reveling the gender, here are a few photos from that day's ultrasound. 

This was my favorite photo. Giving us all the thumbs up.

So now it's time to finally reveal the gender of our little miracle. The newest member of the Gordon Family is Drum roll please.............

Baby Girl Gordon should be joining our family around March 9, 2013!!!! We are all so excited and can not wait for her to get here!!

Congratulations to all those who guess right!!!