We’re in the home stretch.  I’ve been trying to do some productive things like washing the clothes, linens, etc.  I raised the crib back up and put on the bedding.  I also washed the car seat liner and installed one of the two bases.  I still have to put the carrier back together and install the other base.  There are plenty of other things to get accomplished before the baby gets here - and that could be very soon!

This past Monday we had our first childbirth “class” with our doula.  I like her very much and think it was a good choice for us to hire her.  The first part of the class was spent going over things like how our views of “normal” labor compared to societal views.  That might not have been the most useful time we ever spent, but the second half was used to practice some relaxation techniques (many of which involved a birth ball).  I felt like these were helpful and much more concrete than anything we talked about at our Bradley class for Anya.

We had an appointment on the 16th that went well.  Baby Girl’s heartrate was 134 bpm; my blood pressure was great and I weighed in at 123 lbs.  No protein in the urine and the baby was head down.  We still really like the doctor.  Our next appointment is Wednesday.  We’ll meet the other doctor in the practice then.  I’m glad we have an appointment because around Friday night I realized that I no longer felt kicks on my upper right side but rather on my lower left instead.  I also could feel what was likely her head (though possibly her tush) pushing up on my right side.  That would all suggest that the baby had put herself into a breech position.  I’ve been trying some exercises and other home interventions to get her to turn.  Last night one of the things I did got her to flip from the right side to the left - Lex and I both saw it happen; it was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen my body do.  As of this morning I couldn’t really pinpoint her position.  I’ve been getting pokes on the right and low down the left/near my cervix (some of those must be punches).  She keeps getting the hiccups and I feel her banging into my left side just above my hip.   A few minutes ago I got about a minute’s worth of strong kick-like movements on my upper right side again, and I think I can feel her legs and back, so I HOPE HOPE HOPE she’s settled herself back into a head down position and won’t turn again.  I can’t see a breech position helping us achieve a VBAC.  Please think good thoughts for us!

Anya had her two year well check on Monday.  The nurse measured her at 34 3/4 inches (75th percentile) and 25 1/2 lbs (35th percentile).  Tall and thin!!!  Her weight was probably a little lower than it should have been since she had just gotten over being sick and had no appetite last week.  I was surprised that she measured as tall as she did; Anya looks smaller than several of her friends, at least to me.  She was very cooperative when the nurse measured her so we’re trusting the number as accurate.  Now we can FINALLY turn Anya’s car seat!

Anya was actually extremely cooperative throughout her whole appointment.  I’m not sure she cried at all!  We brought her toy doctor’s kit with us, and that helped keep her distracted.  The doctor said she’s healthy and thriving.  He was impressed with her verbal and cognitive skills - he said something along the lines of “We expect a lot from Anya. We expect big things from her. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’m pretty good at knowing this - we can expect a lot from her.”  This was after she said, “I have a pretend stethoscope and Dr. Wolfe has a real one.  We’re using stethoscopes together.”  He was equally surprised to discover that she was diaper-less.

The persistent rash that Anya has around her mouth and on her cheeks wasn’t visible at her appointment, of course (probably due to the steroid injection from last week).  After looking at the pictures I brought and hearing our description, the doctor feels it is most likely a reaction to food and moisture (DROOL) on her face. It’s not a reaction to a particular food, just another part of Anya’s sensitive skin issues.  His advice was pretty much to do nothing since it doesn’t bother her.

No more well checks until Anya is THREE!  That seems eons away.  Wouldn’t it be something if we didn’t have to go back to the pediatrician for another year (for Anya, at least)?

Last week Lex went to California for what should be the last time until Baby Girl is a few months old.  He left Tuesday morning; by Tuesday night Anya was running a fever - how does she manage so often to time getting sick with his being away?  Even on Motrin her fever wasn’t going away, just dropping from 102 degrees to 100 degrees, though as long as the medicine was working she was in a pretty good mood (watch out for her when it wore off, though!).  On Wednesday night the barking cough started (bad enough that she threw up in bed - THANK YOU MOM FOR COMING OVER AT 11 PM TO BRING ME A HUMIDIFIER AND MORE SHEETS AND PILLOWS). That’s when I was pretty sure it was croup (a friend of hers had come down with it over the weekend, so it wasn’t too hard to figure out).  The cough wasn’t too bad - manageable as long as she was upright - meaning that bedtime was a little difficult.  After I put her to sleep I’d have to go up every 30-45 minutes because she’d wake herself coughing and then start crying which would make the cough worse.   I would try to hold her up but she adamantly refused.  Poor baby was so tired, all she wanted to do was lie down and go back to sleep, and luckily if I rubbed her back for a minute or so she calmed down enough to conk out again.  When I went to sleep I moved her to my bed, and that way I was right there to help her when she woke up in the middle of the night.

Friday morning she seemed to be doing A LOT better - no more fever but still a lingering cough, as her doctor predicted when I spoke with him on Thursday.  I took her to her transition class - we both really needed out of the house after being home for 60 straight hours.  Things seemed okay until around 4:15 that afternoon, when Anya’s breathing became much more audible and chesty, and then developed a little whistle to it.  She wasn’t in distress, but I called the doctor just to check in - I did not want to end up in the ER that night if I could avoid it.  I was told I absolutely needed to bring her into the office, and they even stayed a little later just for her.  The nurse practitioner and one of the doctors examined her and both felt she needed an injection of steroids to relax her airway, and they told me if it got any worse that evening I must take her to the ER for a nebulizer treatment.  Thankfully the steroids helped, and they cleared up the persistent rash she’s had on her face as well!

Lex came home Friday night, and we spent most of the weekend homebound as Anya continued to recover.  Aside from a little residual cough and runny nose, she’s over it now and we’re slowly getting back to our regular routine.  As far as croup experiences go, this wasn’t fun but it could have been a lot worse.  The one thing that made it more difficult was that I HAD IT TOO, except without the barking cough - adults rarely get that symptom.  Today is the first day I’ve felt mostly normal again.

Since we were stuck at home I decided I wanted to do something productive, so I started re-washing Anya’s baby clothes for Baby Girl.  I was disappointed to discover that more things were stained than I had recalled, but I wasn’t going to do much about it - it’s not like SHE is going to care.  Then someone on my December 2008 Mommies board mentioned she used Oxiclean to soak some hand-me-downs she’d gotten that were stained, and everything came out practically new.  I figured I’d try it, and WOW!  I could not believe the difference it made, especially in the bibs.  There are some items that look brand new, and others that went from terribly stained to mildly discolored.  I am IN LOVE with Oxiclean.  Oxiclean, if you are listening, I want to be for you what Jared is for Subway.  I will sing your praises to anyone who will listen!

Today I hit 32 weeks! Everything is going well, pregnancy-wise. I’m pretty big - I had a scan last week and was told that I have a good amount of amniotic fluid, which may account for my size.

Where’s the belly?

There it is!

The baby is head down but must be sitting high up still since I’m still sleeping through the night without needing to go to the bathroom. It’s getting harder to move easily, though!

We had a consult with the new OB-GYN practice last week.  We weren’t impressed by the long wait (there was an emergency with another patient) or the decor (they share office space with an odd, religious fanatic dermatologist), BUT once we met the doctor I immediately felt comfortable.  She was very open and honest with us about their philosophies about c-sections and the risks involved with a VBAC (but unlike my other doctor she gave me accurate numbers).  This practice serves a big community of orthodox Jewish women, many of whom intend to have several children, and, as the doctor explained, the human body just cannot handle ten c-sections.  That’s one of the many reasons why they work as hard as they can to make sure they don’t perform c-section unless absolutely medically indicated.  The doctor we met with has a c-section rate of 9%, which is absolutely phenomenal.  I’m not sure what the head doctor in the practice’s rate is, but I’m sure it is similar, as he is the one who owns the group and is the doctor I was referred to in the first place.  The doctor did a quick scan to check on the baby (the heart rate was 155 bpm), had me get on the scale, and got a urine sample.  Everything was great and we are definitely switching practices; I have my next appointment on the 20th.  I will also deliver at Monmouth Medical center instead of CentraState, which is a good thing, given the c-section rates at each hospital.  Lex and I have a tour of the maternity ward scheduled for November 2nd.  We also decided to hire a doula to assist with the birth after all - more on that in a different post.  None of this guarantees that I will have a successful VBAC, but I’m feeling more confident that if I do have another c-section, it won’t be because my doctor didn’t want to be up all night!

The day after my appointment, I went to my previous doctors’ office to obtain my records.  I filled out the form to give my written consent and was told I would get them within the 30 days they legally had to fulfill my request.  This morning I received a call that the records were ready to be picked up and, by the way, I knew about the charge for having my records copied if I was leaving the practice, right?  A DOLLAR per page, for a grand total of 71 DOLLARS!  I was fuming when I was told this, but apparently they have the legal right to charge me up to 25 cents per page and a “reasonable” clerical fee.  Is $53.25 a reasonable fee to copy a file?  I’m not convinced, but I needed those records so I paid the fee anyway, making sure to express politely my displeasure at not being told about the fee ahead of time.  The receptionist gave me a “break” and said, “Just give me $70 even.”  How generous of her!  Lex wants me to file a complaint with the US Department of Health and Human services, and I will, but I need to wait because I looked through my records tonight and found that they were incomplete!  They didn’t include the charts of my weight gain or blood pressure from either pregnancy or doctor’s notes from my appointments.  I don’t care about the notes as much but I think the other information is important.  I want to take care of that before I file the complaint.  I don’t understand what possible reason they could have for leaving those pieces of information out.  I’m not an expert on HIPAA, but it was my understanding that as the patient I have the right to have access to my entire file.  I did ask for a complete copy of my records, so I would think that would include everything.  Grrrr.  This only convinces me further that I have made the right decision to switch practices.  I am so annoyed about this.

I fell on Tuesday.  I scraped my knee pretty badly and have a huge bruise on my right arm.  Both are the result of crashing into a parked car on our driveway when trying to stop Anya from doing the same as her ride-on car rolled faster than she could manage.  Luckily she did not get hurt other than when we bumped heads during the collision.  She was pretty upset that I had fallen, but even more disturbed that her car rolled down the driveway into the street (”Get it!  Get the car!”).  What did I learn from all of this?  It is not a good idea to take the recycling down to the curb while trying to watch a toddler on a ride-on car make her way down the somewhat steep driveway, especially not while wearing flip-flops.  Also - don’t let Anya ride her car down the driveway in the first place!

Anya is currently asleep in her big girl bed for the first time at night!  We’ve been talking it up for several days, and she’s been pretty excited.  I even asked her a few days ago if we could give her crib to Baby Sister when she was born, and Anya was a big fan of that idea.  Last night she told me she wanted to sleep in her big girl bed, and when I said that she could sleep there the following day but would sleep in her crib that night, she said, “No, Baby Sister is going to sleep in the crib, Mommy!”  I was worried that it would be hard for her to fall asleep in the bed since naps are still pretty difficult - she doesn’t want me to leave the room, screams if I do, and she takes a LONG time to fall asleep, usually with my help - but she went to bed without any objections or problems.  Apparently it’s just naps in general that she objects to, not their location.  We’ve gotten through the first potential hurdle of this transition (falling asleep in the bed); let’s hope we get through staying asleep all night and waking up without problems as well.  Anya’s new room is almost finished; I’ll post pictures soon.  I transferred all of her clothes and many of her things to her big girl room this week, so if sleeping there at night goes well we will soon be able to start setting up the nursery for the new baby.

I had an appointment with my OB-GYN, the one who actually delivered Anya, this morning.  Both the baby and I are doing well.  She had a strong, steady heartbeat, and I am measuring right on target.  I’ve gained about 20 lbs so far.  After the examination the doctor asked if we had discussed scheduling the c-section yet, which was a convenient way to begin the VBAC discussion.  It’s very clear to me that though they haven’t said I can’t have a VBAC, the doctors at this practice are not in favor of the idea.  I was not happy with the way the doctor (the same one who assured me when I consented to the c-section with Anya that I would not be locked into c-sections for future pregnancies) went over the risks of a VBAC with me and kept harping on all of the things that could go wrong.  I understand that he is trying to cover himself and all of that, but I was particularly annoyed that he inflated the risk of uterine rupture to 1-2% when in fact it is actually less than 1%.  Then he gave me the consent form for VBACs to take home and review.  The tone of this paper was essentially “I acknowledge that a VBAC poses less risk for ME than an elective repeat c-section, but that it will probably harm or even kill my unborn child, so I’m signing it anyway because I’m a selfish bitch.”  It was not lost on me that it took them a long time to find the consent form in the first place, and one of the receptionists didn’t even know what a VBAC was.  I left the appointment very upset with my confidence shaken.  I have been in contact with several different people about VBACs recently, and the advice I keep getting over and over again is to switch doctors and hospitals (because CentraState has a 47% c-section rate, which is among the highest in the nation).  The same OB-GYN practice has been recommended to me several times, even while I was pregnant with Anya.  I have a consultation set up for October 6th and will update more on this topic after that appointment.

One cute story - we had gotten Anya a pretend doctor’s kit at a garage sale over the summer, and we finally got around to cleaning it and giving it to her yesterday.  She’s been having A LOT of fun playing with, giving check ups to both me and Lex, as well as her dolls.  She’s very serious when she’s being Dr. Anya; everything she does is very specific and deliberate, though not necessarily logical.  For some reason every exam involves pretending to cut my hair with the toy tweezers!  Today I asked her if she wanted to go play with her doctor’s kit in the playroom to distract her from the post-nap crankies, and she said yes.  She told me I was the patient and I should sit on the couch.  She took out the little blood pressure cuff and put it on my hand, and then (this is the cute part) lifted up my shirt to listen to my belly with the stethescope.  Until then she had only listened to our hearts like Lex showed her, but I guess after coming with us to my appointment this morning, she wanted to check on Baby Sister, too!

I hit 28 weeks on Monday, which means I’m officially in the third trimester.  I’ve gained between 18 and 20 lbs, and I’m feeling pretty good overall, though some maternity clothes are beginning to feel uncomfortably tight, especially if they are low rise pants. Bending over is challenging because the blood rushes to my head instantly, and standing at the sink or counter is becoming comical.  I’ve recently developed the skin of a 15-year-old - thank you, pregnancy hormones!  The baby is moving all over the place again and has frequent episodes of the hiccups, which, though they annoy me, remind me that she is okay in there.

I saw my gastroenterologist on Monday.  I’ve been doing so well for the last five weeks - completely symptom-free, even a little too well - that he said I could stop the extra medication I had been on and just continue my maintenance medication.  I’m extremely excited to be back to “normal” before the baby is born, and I HOPE that I can maintain remission for the rest of the pregnancy and then postpartum.

Since late Monday night, I had noticed a big decrease in the frequency and strength of Baby Girl’s movement. This can be completely normal during pregnancy, but I started to get a little nervous on Tuesday because I’d had a similar situation with Anya, and a non-stress test revealed that although she was okay, I was having contractions I couldn’t feel. I had about four contractions yesterday, most likely Braxton-Hicks. Still, the baby was moving, so I didn’t call the doctor. This morning when I woke up I realized I hadn’t felt her move all night, and she wasn’t responding when I poked my belly. I drank some juice and felt her move a tiny bit, but things were just way below their usual levels. Finally mid-morning I called the doctor, explained the situation, and asked if I could wait until my appointment next week while monitoring her movement. Not surprisingly, I was told no, I needed to come in today. The doctor was able to find the heartbeat, and of course she moved a little while he was examining me. He felt she was probably okay, but he wanted me to go for a biophysical profile scan to rule out a few problems that could be causing the sudden drop in movement. The scan went very well, and everything seems fine. I guess she was just taking some time off, and it’s also possible that she had shifted into a backwards position for a bit, making it hard to feel her kick. Here are the pics:

Sucking her thumb:

Profile shot:

Baby Girl looking at us:

In other pregnancy news, the baby’s heart rate was 146 bpm, I’ve gained about 18 lbs so far, and I PASSED MY THREE HOUR GLUCOSE TEST!  Woohoo!

Happy Fourth of July from us!

We’ve been having a great time taking advantage of the summer!  Playdates, dance class, story time at the library…so much to do, so little time (to blog)!  I’ll have to post a video of Anya at her “ballerina class” very soon - it’s just too cute, and she loves it. She’s still a little wobbly on her feet and doesn’t really run, jump, or climb, but she’s getting better and more adventurous. She does love to walk up and down the stairs (while holding my hand) instead of crawling, and always reminds me to hold the rail.

Anya has been busy doing all sorts of other things, too.  She definitely knows her colors, or at least the main 8 that show up in her Crayola box plus pink and white.  Her teacher at day care told me a cute story:  She had been working on the color yellow with the class, and was showing the kids a series of yellow objects, asking what color for each one to get them to repeat yellow.  The teacher decided to hold up an apple just to see what the kids would do, and all of the kids said yellow, except for Anya, who shouted, “RED!!!”  Apparently Anya’s excitement was very comical.  Anya still loves to draw and paint, and if you ask her to draw a circle or a line, she does a pretty good job.  Her favorite is still polka dots.

This week we gave Anya one of her 1st birthday presents - a toy baking set - that we had set aside originally because we thought the pieces were too small.  She has been SO cute with it, baking cupcakes for her dolls and feeding them all sort of things.  Watching her pretend is still so much fun, and she’s such a little mommy to her dolls.  It was hard not to crack up this morning when she put her bear on the floor and said, “Here baby girl, change your diaper.  That’s better.”

Anya still talks up a storm, especially at home, and if she’s not talking, she’s singing.  She knows almost all of the words to several of her favorite songs, and she can fill in the words to even more.  It always amazes me when she can supply words to a song that she’s only heard a couple of times.  She absolutely loves music, and she’s always asking us to sing songs to her (or play them on the “puter”).  What’s funny is that whether she’s talking or singing, she speaks with a very strong NJ accent.  “Twinkle, Twinkle” will sound something like this:

Twinkle twinkle little stawe, how I wunda whatchoo awe
Up above the world so hoiy, like a doymind in the skoy

I know that I have a little bit of an accent (and it’s gotten so much worse since we moved back here…grrr), but hers is like a caricature of a Jersey girl, it’s so extreme. Some of it MUST be due to imperfect pronunciation of certain sounds, but it’s still kind of cute.

We’re so happy that Anya is back to kicking us out of her room at bedtime. Two books, two songs, and then it’s “Music off. Crib…go to sleep. Away, Mommy!” She still only sleeps about 10 hours at night, but her nap now lasts about 90 minutes on an average day. It’s nice that she’s cooperative about sleeping, because Anya’s been very sensitive (or ornery, cantankerous, take your pick) about pretty much everything else of late, and she’s a total drama queen (”I’s yelling!”). The way she can turn on and off the tears on a moment’s notice can be very aggravating for us, and her frustration tolerance is very low these days. I think she’s having a little bit of an internal struggle over her desire to be a big girl and still wanting to be a baby. Sometimes she insists on doing everything herself - especially when it comes to meals - and other times she loses it if we don’t help her immediately. She’s also been doing some serious testing of limits. This has been a trying time for all of us, but still, it’s hard not to adore a kid who can exclaim “OH BOY!” with 100% sincerity.

This post is already quite long, but bear with me a little longer - we have another kid to discuss I had two appointments this week, one with a new gastroenterologist and one with the OB-GYN. I went to the gastroenterologist to get a second opinion, and though I’m having a lot of guilt about leaving my current doctor, I plan to go to this practice full-time. This doctor felt that I needed to switch to a different medication, one that is essentially the same as the one I’d been on, the only difference being the, um, delivery method (Look, I have colitis. This is my life.). My current doctor didn’t want to put me on it because he said that he was concerned it could somehow stimulate labor. This doctor pretty much thought that was nuts. My OB-GYN wholeheartedly agreed. I’ve been on it for three days and have already shown some significant improvement.

Our prenatal appointment went well. We only saw this doctor once when I was pregnant with Anya, and though he’s a little weird, he’s very thorough. He found the heartbeat right away, and it was loud and strong. I’m 17 1/2 weeks along, I’ve only gained 7 lbs, but I’m measuring right on target. I don’t think I’m quite as big anymore as I had alluded to recently, but I had a really bad week, colitis-wise. I was very concerned about the effect the colitis has been having on this pregnancy, with all of the cramps and the weight that I had lost this past week. The doctor had a lot of suggestions for additional supplements he’d like me to take which he feels will help with the colitis, and wants me to come back in two weeks to be rechecked. He feels that overall, things are going well with the pregnancy. I’m pretty sure I’m feeling kicks now, but they only happen here and there, so it’s hard to be positive.

I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday!

Here’s our newest munchkin:

I ended up getting an unscheduled scan yesterday afternoon.  I had been considering calling the doctor for a few days because I hadn’t felt the baby move in several days and I was 95% sure I had been feeling movement last week, but kept deciding against it since it’s still pretty early.  Then yesterday I woke up with some low cramps that wouldn’t quit and didn’t feel digestive, so that, combined with some other circumstances, prompted me to call to see if I could just come in to have the baby’s heartbeat checked.  The office staff agreed that I should come in, but said I’d have to see the doctor, not just have a nurse use the Doppler.  The doctor found a strong heartbeat after about 15 very long seconds, but didn’t like the cramps I had described so she sent me for a scan to check my cervical length.  Thankfully, all was fine, and the very nice technician let us take a bonus peek at the baby.  She couldn’t get a clear view and wouldn’t say so confidently, but she thinks the baby is a girl.  We have our Level 2 scan in four weeks, so hopefully we’ll be able to get a definitive answer then.

The downside of this story is that there is no explanation for the cramps, and though they seemed to lessen in the early evening yesterday, they were back this morning.  I’m starting to feel that although they aren’t the “urgency” cramps I usually get with a colitis flare-up, they must be related, especially given how often I’ve been in the bathroom over the last 36 hours.  Maybe this is just how colitis and pregnancy interact - I can’t be sure, since I got through being pregnant with Anya with no symptoms whatsoever.  It might be time to accept that this pregnancy is going to remain somewhat uncomfortable unless I can find a way to beat this flare-up.

So…yes, we’re pregnant!  Woohoo!  We are all so excited here.  We’ve posted a couple of times over the last few months about the pregnancy, but we had kept those posts hidden until now:

Maybe baby #2?
Not so faint anymore!
Just in case you weren’t convinced…
It’s nice to meet you!
Update - 8 (almost 9) weeks pregnant
How we told

We had our nuchal translucency last Thursday, and it was a very positive appointment.  The technician couldn’t find the subchorionic hemorrhage, which suggests that it is no longer there.  She also didn’t find any evidence of an amniotic band, just a small separation between the sac and the placenta that will likely fill in by 16 weeks.

The test itself went well.  The nuchal fold measured 1 mm, which is VERY small (the technician said over 30 mm is the level where there would be a concern).  The little peanut was somewhat cooperative, although the technician had to poke me in the belly several times to get the baby to roll the right way.  We got to see a few good shots of the face and the little feet and hands (which it couldn’t keep away from its mouth):

The technician thinks the baby is a girl.  I’m not sure what she is basing that on, since she never really got a good “head-on” (tush-on?) view, but we’ll find out for sure at the end of July when we have our Level 2 scan.  The only other notable news from the appointment is that I’m measuring a week ahead of where I should be.  She remeasured 4 or 5 times, and each time she got 13 weeks, even though it should have been 11 weeks, 6 days, putting my due date at December 5th instead of December 12th.  What does this mean?  Nothing, right now, other than I’ll probably end up having another big baby.  There’s no way my dates are off - according to the scan’s due date, I would have ovulated before my last period had ended completely, and that’s really not possible. The neonatologist who evaluated the scans from the NT and took my blood was very thrown off by this discrepancy. She couldn’t decide which due date to use for the test and had what felt like a 10 minute argument with herself. Ultimately she decided my regular doctor had locked me into the December 12th date, so that’s what we need to stick to for now.

I’ve only gained maybe 2 pounds, but I’ve definitely popped…

We have our next prenatal appointment on Thursday.  Things are good these days - I’m pretty much over the first trimester fatigue and nausea, and I’m starting to get an appetite again.  Hopefully this colitis flare-up will soon be taken care of and then I can focus on enjoying being pregnant!