I Wouldn't Mind Sleep

Am I in labor right now? Yes. Maybe. The contractions aren't nearly as painful as I recall with my labor with Malcolm (yet). They are painful enough to not allow sleep. So, I sit up with Tony as we watch TV. Amanda is on call for when we decide it's time to head to the hospital. I'm kind-of thinking this is false labor. I don't believe I'm in actual labor yet. Now we just wait and see.

The Second Labor

One of the benefits of keeping a blog for as long as I've had this one - I can look back at my pregnancy progress with Malcolm and compare it to this pregnancy. At my 38 week OB appointment today, the doc said that my cervix is 3cm dilated and 50% effaced and that there is a 50% chance that I could go into labor this week. At first, I thought, "Wow! I can't believe I'm that far along!" And then, I read what my progress was with Malcolm at 37.5 weeks. Yep, about the same.

In many ways, I'd like to be done with this pregnancy. Let's get it over with already! On the other hand, it would be better if I didn't go into labor until next Sunday. Sherry is arriving Saturday evening to take care of Malcolm while we are at the hospital. Plus, Sunny & Chris' wedding is Saturday night and there are also 2 birthday parties that same day. Let's not mention all of the things I'd like to get done around the house...

Now we just wait and see when this little guy is going to make his appearance. Malcolm has made it very clear that he's ready for his baby brother to come out.

Photographs

Here's the link to all of the photographs from this weekend

35 Weeks Pregnant

A friend of ours started up her own photography business and asked if she could take pictures of us for her website. I'll post the link to the pictures once she puts them up on Flickr.

I am tired. It's too easy for me to overdo it. I'm ready to no longer be pregnant but am not ready to have 2 kids. There is still lots to do to get settled into the house. The kids' room still needs to be set up. Our guest room is nowhere close to ready for guests and our first one will be here in 4 weeks. Whew. OK. Complaining isn't going to help anything.

Progress

After multiple successes at using the toilet while out in public last week, I decided to take away the diapers on Sunday. After a couple of accidents at first, he figured out that he can't just pee wherever and used the potty like a champ ALL DAY LONG! He had one more accident after he put his jammies on that night. On Monday, we were out all day in underwear with no accidents. I put him in a pull-up for his nap but it was totally unnecessary. Last night, we put him in a pull-up for bedtime (we call them nighttime underwear). When I checked on him before I went to bed, he had taken his pajama pants off. When I asked him why this morning, he thought he had gotten them wet when he peed in the pull-up. So who knows...maybe he won't need 'nighttime underwear' for very long. He hasn't pooped on the potty yet. I'm still trying to figure out how to work that out. Right now, he's at preschool in underwear and I'm hoping he does really well there. This whole potty-training thing is going so much better than expected. My guess is because I waiting so long.

I've been having a lot of physical pain with this pregnancy to where it hurts to stand and walk. I finally bought a maternity belt to help support my growing belly and can already tell the difference. The pain has really hindered packing progress. Speaking of, I need to use the rest of my free time this morning getting some packing done!

There is Still Much to Pack

Oh, look! I'm 28 weeks pregnant! Officially in the 3rd trimester. I had my glucose test yesterday and it came back negative (no gestational diabetes). The heartburn & round ligament pain only gets worse. The nurse I saw yesterday recommended I purchase a maternity belt to support my belly. Yay. It will help with the ligament pain, but not the heartburn. Here's a picture of me from last week:

I'm still having problems with exhaustion which has definitely put a hamper on packing. Hmm...maybe I should go pack right now while Malcolm's at preschool...

Happenings

It was my birthday recently and we had fun. I said, 'No!' to cooking so we went out to eat twice over my b-day weekend. I am 36 and I feel older. I even dyed my hair brown in hopes of never coloring it again. What? Yes. I'm throwing away my hair-dying shirt and saying goodbye to my artificially hair colored days. Well, that's my goal anyway. Let's see if I can do it.

The little brother in my belly is kicking up a storm and growing like a weed. My OB even said so. I have outgrown my maternity pants that I wore with Malcolm already. I don't want to go shopping for maternity clothes, but it looks like I'm going to have to since I've exhausted all of the options of borrowing from friends.

I am happy to say that we are no longer on the hunt for a place to live. We found a place on Capitol Hill that is much larger than our current townhouse, has a yard, lots of charm and is just a few blocks away from our old apartment. We are pleased as punch. It's a duplex and we'll be on the top two floors. Friends of ours live on the bottom half; they were the ones who referred us to the owner of the house once they heard that their current neighbors were moving out. Our lease starts on June 1st. Now it's time to put this place on the market and get the hell out of dodge!

Pregnancy Update

My apologies for the delay in posting an update - life gets busy! Everything went really well at the ultrasound and the baby looks perfectly healthy. He's measuring at 20 weeks, 5 days so I wouldn't be surprised if he arrived before July 30th. Yep, Malcolm's getting a little brother! I'm excited to have 2 boys. My belly is so much bigger at this point than it was with Malcolm:

I Love Food

A good portion of the blogs that I read are about recipes, cooking and eating. I love good food. I love to cook and do not do it nearly enough. So many of the food blogs I read include recipes with meat. The meals look and sound delicious. They make me wish I ate meat if the writer describes and photographs the dish well. However, when I actually think about eating meat, I get totally grossed out. But many of these dishes out there? Just gorgeous.

Tomorrow afternoon is my 20-week ultrasound. I am nervous. Very nervous. Tony isn't worried in the least. Men!

The Reality of HLHS

When we first received the news that baby-to-be had Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, I was in an exam room with a screaming toddler. Tony had left to go to work and I was there to have my monthly check-up. A doctor (not my own) came in and gave me the news. I was taken off-guard and had no clue what to ask. So, like every person who has access to the internet, I went home and started to do my own research.

The information out there only gave us an idea of what HLHS entailed. The scientific papers & studies were, well, really scientific. The 'personal stories' were vague. We wanted details. It wasn't until we met with the pediatric cardiologist that we received realistic statistics. A lot of what I had read on the internet had given me false hope.

In most of the scientific papers that discussed the surgeries, they gave a survival rate of 75-80%. The cardiologist let us know that those statistics only take into account the babies that have the first surgery and are released from the hospital. Those numbers do not take into account the newborns who die before surgery and those who pass away before the second surgery. When you look at it that way, the survival rate is more like 50%. And then, 10% of those children do not survive the second surgery and then many do not make it to the 'final' surgery.

A child with HLHS is put through 3 open-heart surgeries in the first few years of their lives - at a minimum. The possibility of complications is high. Since this is considered such a new procedure, cardiologists aren't really sure how long the rewired two-chambered heart will last. Many of these children will need a heart transplant sometime in their teens; some might make it to their early twenties.

I think it's pretty amazing that doctors have figured out how to make a 2-chambered heart work well enough to keep a person alive. But, it's really important to take into consideration how having half of a heart will effect the rest of the body's organs.

I wanted to write about what we were told by the pediatric cardiologist (and there was lots more) in hopes that it would help other parents who have just found out that their baby-in-utero has HLHS. For a week, we thought Baby Bee had a better chance of survival and had no idea the kind of pain he would go through once he was born. We had to make the most difficult and painful decision once we had all of this new information.

Our Current Reality

This is not going to be an uplifting post. Far from it. Consider yourself warned.

On Monday, we had our 20-week ultrasound. We found out that Baby Bee is a boy. We also found out that he has Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS). Essentially, the left side of his heart is not developing and is not functioning. You can get more details by doing a Google search.

I will be going in for further testing in the very near future to see if there are more birth defects. If Baby Bee only has HLHS, the hope is he will be able to have open heart surgery shortly after he is born. He will either have a series of 3 surgeries to allow his 2-chamber heart to function or he will have a heart transplant. There is a 25% chance that he will not survive his first surgery.

We were completely taken off-guard by this news. The last thing we expected to hear was that our baby-to-be has a very serious and rare heart defect. We are filled with a deep sadness. This has been the hardest thing either of us has ever been through and it's only going to get harder.

Update on Being a Parent

And having a parent - Happy Birthday to my dad! He's 30 years older than me today!

18 week belly picture:

I started feeling Bee move around at 17 weeks. I'm now 19 weeks pregnant - almost halfway there! Next ultrasound is coming up on Monday.

This past weekend, we went over to Julie & Jeremiah's house so the kids could play. Here's one of my favorite pictures:

To see the rest, go to my Flickr page. Eliska and Malcolm play well together; she's pretty enamored by him and follows him around everywhere.

The little guy has finally started saying his name properly. We've known that he's known how for some time now because sometimes he'd slip up and say, "Malcolm" instead of, "MahMoh". He hasn't called himself MahMoh in a few days.

Welcome, Trekell Boys!

This morning, my fabulous friend, Jill, gave birth to her twin boys; one naturally and the other via c-section. We're glad you are finally here, Max and Alex! I hope to meet them later this afternoon.

My 'friends who are pregnant' list is dwindling quickly. No one else has announced a pregnancy since me. Right now, I have 6 local friends who are pregnant (not including me). I have three friends who are trying to conceive so I'm hoping they'll have news soon.

Babies!

Comparison at 13 Weeks

Here is my belly at 13 weeks:


Looks very similar to this, no?


Guess how far along I am in that second picture when I was pregnant with Malcolm...21 weeks.

Ugh.

I broke out the maternity clothes this weekend. Sad face.

Results - Thumbs Up!

We got the results from the tests run earlier this week and everything came back negative which is a Very Good Thing. There is no indication of Down's Syndrome or Spina Bifida. For those of you that don't know, the risks of these two things increases an enormous amount once you reach the age 35.

We've been keeping busy with play dates galore. I purposely didn't schedule anything today so I could have a bit of downtime and a few minutes to clean up the house in preparation for tomorrow morning's play date. It's raining on and off today which is wonderful - we needed it very much! Our garden has been a little neglected - there is much to harvest. I harvested the broccoli last night since it looked like it was about to bloom. We'll be noshing on that all weekend. I hope to get out in the garden this afternoon to pull up the broccoli stumps and make room for the zucchini. I also have a ton of kale that needs to be harvested.

A Bee

Here's a little profile of the occupant in my uterus. And no, the technician wasn't even going to try and tell the sex of the baby. Everything looks good so far. At one point during the ultrasound, Malcolm pointed to the monitor and said, "Bee!" We were going to call the occupant 'Jellybean', but now I think it must be 'Bee'.

Checking In

Hi. I'm here. A little tired from lack of sleep. OK, maybe a lot tired. We went to Atlanta last weekend for a little family vacation to visit friends and had good times. I will post pictures sometime in the future.

Pregnancy update: Haven't really had any nausea and my food aversions are pretty much gone. I've started cooking again and buying food which has been nice. My energy is up a little bit but I'm still not pushing myself too hard. Some days it's very difficult not to because, well, the house is not going to clean itself. I have my first doctor's appointment next Thursday and have genetic counseling and ultrasound on the 15th.

Only 30 more weeks to go! Ha.

Comparison

Here's my belly when I was around 7 weeks pregnant with Malcolm:


And now, here's my belly around 8 weeks pregnant with #2:


I already can't fit into most of my pants & skirts and my t-shirts ride up my belly.

Could it be twins?

Dear Energy, I Miss You

Malcolm loves going to the Kid's Corner at the YMCA. He asks for it. Unfortunately, I have had a very hard time mustering up the motivation to work out. When people are usually low on energy, exercise helps except when you are low on energy due to pregnancy. I took him to the gym a couple of times this week and totally took it easy; all I did was bike & walk on the treadmill. It killed my energy for the rest of the day.

I think it's time for me to start doing some menu planning. I've had a terrible time figuring out what to cook for dinner the past couple of weeks because the thought of all food nauseates me. I talked to some of my other pregnant friends to see what they do since this seems to be a problem for every woman when pregnant - they make the standard favorites of the family and *try* to eat it but if they can't, no big deal. Now I need to get off my butt and start the planning.

What did pregnant women eat before cereal was invented?

What I'm Reading

I am fully aware that by the end of the year, I will have very little time to myself. One thing I'm going to do my best not to give up is reading. Right now, I go to bed a little early so I can read in bed for 30 minutes (rarely do I make it that long). I'm currently engrossed in Under The Banner of Heaven and In Defense of Food. I've also started reading Eat, Pray, Love, but it's not grabbed my interest very much. I've been a bigger fan of non-fiction lately; I just haven't read any great fiction recently.

So hey! Happy Belated Mother's Day! Mine kinda sucked. I spent most of it in bed feeling exhausted and nauseous. Bland food is my only friend. Tony gave me the best gift - he took care of Malcolm all day so I could rest. He also got me a beautiful bouquet of flowers.