34 Weeks!!

I'm now 34 weeks pregnant, and this is the time in my pregnancy that I had Timothy. I'll be honest and say I have a great deal of fear about this week. I keep asking myself, "If things fell apart at 34 weeks before, why wouldn't they again?"

The truth, though, is that after a few very scary days of protein and high blood pressure, everything went away. I know that isn't something that preeclampsia normally does, but I have a very powerful God and lots of people praying for me.

At this point, we're going often to monitor my protein levels and I'm having to keep a close eye on my blood pressure, but things are generally looking good. I'm still afraid, though!

The great news is that I've got to enjoy Timothy SO much over these last several weeks. We've watched birth stories on tv and he's so interested in how the baby comes out. We've played Play-Doh more times than I can count. Timothy got lots of games for Christmas: Operation, Perfection, Scatterpilar Scramble, Animal Scramble, etc. It's been nice enjoying him.

We've been in and out of the the doctor and the hospital many, many times in the last two weeks and I don't have much of an update. Actually, I guess I do--Samuel is still safe inside me, right where he belongs. That is wonderful!!

Celebrating Christmas

Preparing for Last Night's Performance

Last Sunday's Performance

Despite all the pregnancy "stuff" that we're going through, Timothy's still 3 and Christmas activities are still going on.

Last night, Timothy was a Wise Man in the school Christmas pageant. He did so great!! Much better than his first performance--no one had to hold his hand and I didn't see him pick his nose even once.

We're really blessed that he goes to such a terrific preschool that isn't afraid to teach children the truth of God's word!

I'm Still Here

...Reclining on my left side, collecting all my urine, taking my blood pressure, eating Brewer diet, popping vitamin D, drinking disgusting tea, and managing my stress level.

My appointment yesterday wasn't too encouraging. There are 7 signs of preeclampsia, and any more than 4 means you have it. I had 5. I am now officially on bedrest on my left side as much as possible.

She took a ton of labwork and we're collecting all my urine for 24 hours to determine my protein count. That will tell us how bad it is at the moment. Of course, our experience with Timothy taught us that preeclampsia is something that can get worse very fast. We had to pack our bags & prepare ourselves for the reality that we might have a baby before Christmas. We'll know more about what needs to be done when the urine test comes back early Friday.

Currently, we're in pray and hope and "wait and see" mode. We could have a baby any day now, or best case scenario I could be on bedrest for awhile.

My Pity Party

I'm headed to the midwife after Timothy gets out of preschool this morning. My blood pressure has been elevated, I've been having headaches, and I'm swollen.

This is my pity party:

I don't want to have preeclampsia again. I drank nasty tea that tastes like grass. I took herbs. I managed my stress. It's my turn to NOT have preeclampsia. I just wanted a normal pregnancy!!

I don't want to have a repeat C-section. I don't want to be trying to recover from surgery while I bond with my baby for the first time. I want to feel a real contraction!! I want to feel like I've been through what every other woman in the world has, too.

I don't want my baby to struggle. I don't want to see this child hooked up to machines with an IV going into his brain and breathing tubes down his throat because my body couldn't seem to handle this pregnancy anymore. I don't want to leave the hospital without my baby. I don't want this baby to be in an NICU somewhere 90 miles from our home.

I don't want to struggle with nursing. I don't want NICU nurses to tell me that he's too weak to nurse from the breast but he can handle formula. I don't want to try, desperately, to establish milk supply with only a pump. I don't want to feel like a failure when I can't give my child the nourishment that's best for him.

I don't want to explain to Timothy why he can't see his little brother. I don't want to be torn between my two children, one at home and one in the hospital for an extended period of time. I don't want Timothy to have to deal with my being ill this Christmas. I don't want to have to explain to him that mommy doesn't feel good so we're just going to watch Dora the Explorer again.

I don't know any way to end this post. I'm scared & I'm disappointed. I was certain that if I just did things differently I'd get different results. My blood pressure is actually down today and I should be encouraged, but I'm not. We'll see...

Swollen Ankles, Rising Blood Pressure

I am 32 weeks pregnant today--8 weeks until Samuel is set to make his first appearance!!

Unfortunately, though, it's starting to looking questionable whether or not this pregnancy is going to make it that long.

From the beginning of this pregnancy, I knew that I had a very high risk of developing preeclampsia again but I was certain that I wouldn't. I just knew God take care of things. I just knew I could keep my stress level down. I just knew that I could do things "right" this time and avoid it!

This weekend, though, my blood pressure started to creep up. The threshold for preeclampsia is 140/90 and I got a reading this weekend of 136/91, so we're only a few points away. I'm swollen, especially in my wrists and ankles. I'm having pretty much constant headaches. It's looking like, despite my best efforts, I might just have preeclampsia again.

Right now I'm 32 weeks. Timothy was born at 34 weeks and struggled a great deal in NICU. The magnesium they gave me to save my life made him sleepy and unable to breathe properly, and his under-developed lungs certainly didn't help the matter. It was awful. Terrible. Unspeakable.

So we're at do-or-die time. I don't know what's going to happen, but we're going to do the absolute best we know how to get my blood pressure down and keep this child inside of me...at least until 37 weeks. If I can just make it through the next 5 weeks the baby's lungs should be mature.

Here's what we've been trying:
-- Nettle Tea (diuretic--also helps with my anemia)
-- Red Raspberry Leaf Herb (also helps with swelling)
-- Calcium/Magnesium/Zinc
-- Vitamin D
-- Evening Primrose Oil
-- High Protein Diet

I don't know what's going to happen in the coming days and weeks. This could be it. But I'm not going to sit idly by and let it happen--I'm willing to try anything to avoid a premature delivery and NICU stay again. If you know of anything that might, potentially, work to prevent or get rid of preeclampsia please let me know.

Also, I'd like lots of prayers going up to God on our behalf. Children are a blessing, regardless of when they come or how they come. But we might honestly be looking at having a baby before the end of the year and that's frightening to me!!

Our First Dentist Trip

So, this post has nothing to do with teaching Timothy. Instead, it's about the way raising a child teaches me.

Today we went to the Pediatric Dentist for the first time. On the new patient paperwork I had to fill out, it asked me to describe his personality in one word. How in the world do I do that? I sat starting at the page, thinking of all the words I could use to describe him. The one I finally settled on was "determined."

I was worried about how he would do during the cleaning, but he was absolutely perfect. He walked in and told the doctor "I'm impressed with the fish in your aquarium!" That had the nurses laughing so hard. He giggled through the cleaning and did great with the X-rays. The dentist came and examined him and said his teeth looked fabulous and to keep up the good work!! I felt victorious, my first dental visit nearly completed and everything working out perfectly!

All we had to do was wait for the X-rays and sign some paperwork as we left. I gathered up my things, Timothy chose something out of the treasure box, and we were handed a toothbrush.

Then, the dentist came and asked me to sit back down. I could tell this was bad news!! Apparently, Timothy's back 4 molars are too close together. They're not supposed to be touching at this age and they're wedged in with little room. He has a two cavities in between his teeth on both sides on the bottom. Because his teeth are so close together back there, the only thing that would have prevented it would have been flossing. Now, I can honestly admit that I have never flossed Timothy's teeth. Ever. His front teeth don't even touch and I didn't assume his back did, either. I've never even heard of flossing a two year olds teeth!! Nevertheless, Timothy got two cavities because I didn't floss his teeth!!

I was already feeling like a miserable failure when she began to talk about how we're going to treat this problem--I can't say I picked up on the full treatment plan, but I heard total sedation and Demerol and felt a little queasy. We don't even like high fructose corn syrup, much less Demerol!!

As the dentist was talking, Timothy interrupted her and said "I have something important to say!! Mommy, I don't love you, I guess."

I walked out of the dentist feeling like an unloved, non-flossing, two cavities in a three-year-old miserable failure of a mother!!

Lessons learned:
1) Get your kid to the dentist when they get their first tooth.
2) If the teeth touch, you HAVE to floss.
3) If the teeth touch, all the brushing in the world won't make up for floss.
4) If you don't floss, your toddler WILL develop a cavity and
5) To fix this cavity, your toddler will have to endure TOTAL SEDATION and DEMEROL and finally,
6) Three year olds don't always say what you want to hear

We're going to have to call and schedule his follow-up appointment (or look into other options), but I'm really sad for Timothy. If we just would have flossed...

Apples, Baby Teeth, and One Amazing God

I said earlier that I've been worried about this pregnancy. Here I am at 31.5 weeks--I had Timothy at 33.8 weeks.

While I know my "guess date" is written on February 8, I fear that this baby may not make it that long. My last pregnancy ended so terribly that it's hard for me to even imagine a happy ending to this one!

I had my biweekly appointment with my Certified Nurse Midwife yesterday and I felt so much better when I left. My blood pressure was perfect. I wasn't spilling any protein in my urine. The baby's heartbeat is perfect. I'm not dialated or effaced at all. I don't have gestational diabetes. (I did get bloodwork back that showed I'm fairly anemic, but that's easily solved).

I have to keep being reminded that, while I did have a premature baby last pregnancy, my body didn't go into labor prematurely. Actually, my body never went into labor at all (emergency C-section).

I am at absolutely no greater risk of premature labor than anyone else. I am, however, at significantly higher risk of developing preeclampsia again...and this is the time that I would get it. So I need to stop worrying about an early baby and start watching my stress level. I'm going to finish the two classes I'm teaching and then rest & relax & act eight months pregnant! Anything that makes me anxious or nervous or raises my blood pressure is out from now on!

But here's the thing she said that reassured me. An apple knows exactly when to ripen and no one has to tell it. Why should my body be any different? Kids grow teeth around six months old and no one has to tell them. They just know what to do! God's designed my body working with His infinite plan, and it takes 9 months to grow a baby. I need to trust that my body's going to work how it was intelligently designed to do so!!

Win, Lose, or Pick Your Nose

Timothy is in choir at our church. They've been practicing Christmas songs since August in preparation for today's 12-minute performance.

I've been working with Timothy, but on many of the songs he'd sing halfway through and then say "I can't sing that whole part of it!! I don't know that part!!"

Going into today's performance, then, I was worried that he might stand there and not sing parts of it.

Actually, it was worse....

They lined the 30-some 3&4 year olds up on riser and Timothy was right on the end. The music started, Timothy smiled and waved, and he sang a couple of lines. Then he stopped. Then he looked around for awhile. Then he stepped off the riser. Then he got back on. Then he started at the ceiling for awhile. Then he started fumbling around in his pockets...and he pulled out a pair of blue sunglasses!!!

He stood there in his blue sunglasses while the congregation roared until the director ran and took them away.

As the rest of the children sang, Timothy picked his nose for awhile. When he tired of that, he attempted to disrobe and remove his shirt!!

I was completely mortified, and I've never been so glad to see a musical be OVER!!!

The truth is, though, that it was really funny. Timothy stole the show!! And it taught me that it doesn't matter how you teach a child or how prepared they are, when they get out into the world they might do some things you don't expect. They may pick their nose when they're supposed to be singing. They might make dumb life choices. I, as a mother, have no control over any of it--Timothy gets to choose how to live his life!!

Please, God, let him make better choices than he made today!!!!

The Stickers, Too

Something strange happened today in the doctor's office.

They had a few inflatable soccer balls hanging from the ceiling, and Timothy loved them!! I said "there are five balls up there!" and Timothy argued back "No there aren't! There are seventeen!!"

I counted the balls hanging from the ceiling and there were five.

Timothy pointed to some balls painted on the wall and said "What about those balls?"

I counted out loud, adding to the balls from the ceiling, and there were fourteen.

Timothy got down to play with the magazines and turned his head to look back at me. "You forgot the ones behind you."

When I turned around and looked, there were three more--seventeen balls!!

We did the full Glenn Doman math dots program from How to Teach Your Baby Math with him, but I've never seen anything that indicated he has truly exceptional math skills or could count the number of cows in a field. The few times I've asked him how many there are of something, he's made up some number (thirty-teen, for instance).

Today, though, was exciting--I'm still not convinced it means anything, but it shows that Timothy understands the basic principles of math at least.

Pregnancy Update

With Timothy: I developed severe preeclampsia at 34 weeks and had to be transported 95 miles from our rural hospital to delivery him premature via emergency C-section. I never went into labor--he never dropped, I never felt a contraction, and he certainly wasn't ready to be born. He spent 2 weeks in NICU struggling to learn how to eat and breathe, but there are no lasting complication.

With this pregnancy: I'm trying my best to avoid another C-section. Most doctors would not let me attempt at VBAC so I decided to go with an experience Certified Nurse Midwife in a birthing center. I feel really confident in my choice of providers (she's fantastic), but I still have a fear about whether my body is going to truly wait ten more weeks or not.

Last week the baby dropped--10 weeks early. I know that doesn't mean impending labor or anything like that, but for someone who is trying to avoid a premature delivery it's a little bit discomforting.

At my last midwife appointment the baby was in a perfect head-down position. Now, however, he's become transverse--his head is on my left and his feet are on my right and his bottom is poking out my stomach. It's uncomfortable!! We've tried everything we know to get this child to move, but it doesn't seem to be working. That's a little disappointing--he was in the perfect position and now he's not!!

Here I sit--30 weeks pregnant. Due February 8th. Praying and praying for a term child. If the baby comes before I hit 37 weeks, I will have to switch providers and have the child at a hospital (for obvious reasons) and more than likely it will be another C-section. The last thing I want is major surgery and to try to heal from that as I take care of two children!!

In the meantime, I'm trust God--I know He has everything in His hands. His plan is perfect and mine is not!!

We could use prayers, though--that I stay healthy, that the baby turns head-down, that I not go into labor until at least 37 weeks, that I have an uncomplicated delivery, that the baby is born healthy and without problems, and that he takes to nursing immediately.