Fingers Crossed

Let's try this again! Had an appointment today at 8am and after a very boring week at home, I have been told I am good to return to work. However, if I have anymore bleeding, that is the sign and will be done working for the remainder of my pregnancy. So at this point I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will be incident free for the next 5 weeks. I will continue going weekly to the doctor and doing the non stress tests twice a week at this point. I am still having a few contractions, but my doctor said this is expected and I will probably have them throughout the rest of my pregnancy. Once again, none of this has seemed to phase the baby, which I am hoping is a good sign that not much will phase him when he comes out! That is about it for baby news, of course stay posted because things seem to change in an instance with this kid! In other news, I am seriously contemplating my Bronco fandom. I am not really contemplating this because I just am too set in my ways to change, but could we be any worse?!? Even the teams that have 0 wins have looked better than us. Needless to say, Tebow was not the answer and I think it is time to give the Notre Dame boy a shot! Congrats to all the Viking fans for pulling an upset, however this derailed me a little on my pick'em league. Lot of season left so hopefully I will make up some ground! Birthday season has officially kicked off with both nephew Mason turning the big 3 and niece Avery turning the big 4! With that being said, I bid October goodbye and welcome November! I am excited for what the next few weeks hold!
Jo

Eventful

Well, just when I thought everything was going good, the child of mine decides it is time for another couple trips to the hospital. Marcus and I are getting very familiar with the ins and outs of Sanford. We had baby class on Saturday, so we spent the entire day at Sanford. Got some great information and took a tour, some of which we were familiar with! Sunday night, went to the bathroom and was bleeding again. Good news, not near as much as it had been previously, but since it was enough off to the hospital again. Was given an IV of fluids and monitored for a while and back home. I already had an appointment with my doctor on Monday morning at 7:30 so since the bleeding had pretty much stopped again we got to go home. My appointment went good, and I was told to relax on Monday to make sure the bleeding was not going to come back but I could go back to work on Tuesday. Since I was monitored Sunday night, which basically is the non stress test, I didn't need to do another one yesterday morning. So, once again I am all excited to go back to work, and my kid has other plans. Tuesday morning at about 4, I woke up with cramping. It wasn't major cramping, but enough to keep me from sleeping. There was no bleeding when going to the bathroom so I figured that is a plus, but still decided to call. Didn't want it to be a sign that the bleeding was going to return. I called the clinic this morning and they told me I better go in. Once again, Marcus and I made the fantastic trip to the hospital. Good news, we are pros at navigating around! Turns out my cramping was contractions. Not the Braxton Hicks but some regular contractions. I was seen by the resident OB on call and again I am not dilated at all, cervix is completely closed. I was given a shot to stop the contractions and my doctor was notified. He asked that a urine sample be taken, which was fine since I had to go to the bathroom anyway. In my sample there was blood and something else, but basically it came back to I have an infection of some sort. So we hung out a little longer while more tests were ran and it seems I have a urinary tract infection. Even though I have not had the usual symptoms for this, I guess it can be common in pregnancy. This is to be believed what caused my contractions or pre-term labor. The cause for the bleeding is still unknown. Through all this, baby H has been just fine. Heartbeat is great and he is a moving like crazy which is all good! He is however, going to be grounded for like the first 10 years of his life, only kidding! At this point I am at home and have been told no work for the rest of the week. This really bums me out for two reasons. Daytime TV stinks and I really love my job. I hate the fact that I do not get to contribute and that others need to pick up my slack for me not being there. I know there is not much I can do about it, but I still don't have to like it. The dog however, will completely eat this up. So for now, I will be doing as little as possible and trying to relax. Hopefully everything will be cleared up by Monday and I will be free and clear for the remaining 5 weeks of this pregnancy. All in all though, I am not going to complain too much, and I would totally do it all again!
Jo

So Far So Good

Went to the doctor today, and so far everything is good. The bleeding at this point has disappeared completely and the non stress tests continue to be good. My doctor said that if my next one this week shows good and my first one from next week shows good, then I will only have to do them once a week, which means I will combine my weekly appointments with him and the tests. Baby is moving like crazy and seems to have flipped again and is currently head down, which is a good thing. Marcus and I were talking and really hoped he would flip to head down before delivery so that we can experience the whole delivery thing. Weird, I know. Hopefully he will keep his little head down. I have been told that he will really start gaining the weight these next couple of months, so even though I feel I am as big as a house, I get to get bigger! Other exciting news, our friends had their baby boy, and our other friends are pregnant again! It is a babies world, they just let us live in it! Boomer, our first child in the form of a big black lab, has shown that he will take to maternity leave very well. Marcus and I will be just hanging out, watching TV on the couch and he will decided it is time for a nap, in bed. Apparently the floor is not comfortable enough for him! Hoping to get some pictures of this lazy pooch and the nursery, which I am happy to report is almost done, up soon! I might actually be somewhat prepared for this kid...then again...most likely not! Until next time!
Jo

Back to work!

Went to the doctor today and for now, I have gotten the clear to go back to work. It is pretty funny how excited I was to hear that! I of course have to take it easy and if it becomes to much for me or the bleeding returns we will need to revisit the work subject! I am pretty dang excited to be able to go to Target and the grocery store as well. I was starting to worry that Marcus was going to be left to the Christmas shopping and last minute baby shopping! Hopefully everything stays good until delivery time! For now I will see my doctor every week and will go in twice a week for a non-stress test. Basically they will hook me up to the monitors for about 15 minutes and monitor babies heartbeat, movement, and any contractions I may be having. Marcus has told me that when I am done working, it is to home and resting. I better get ready for chicken patties, mac & cheese, hamburger helper, frozen pizza, and pot pies! Got to love him! I probably will not update each week but maybe every two otherwise you will all get really sick of me talking and hopefully there will not be much to report! 

Jo

Still 31 Weeks

Well, my plan to head back to work for Friday got derailed. Thursday night at about 1am I got up to use the restroom, while this is not out of the ordinary, I was bleeding once again. I got to wake up poor Marcus and off to the hospital we went. This time we called the labor triage and were sent right up. We did another ultrasound, which still didn't really help indicate where the bleeding was coming from, but we did find out that baby was now head down. I was having some contractions, nothing major, but I was checked by the OB on call. I was not dilating and my cervix was completely closed so that was a good thing. Baby was doing flips in my stomach because at some point he became breech again. They decided to keep me until the really fancy baby doctor could see me. I call them that because I cannot spell the name for them! My doctor checked in on me around 6am. At this point the bleeding had stopped, again, for the most part. We continued to monitor the baby, who was doing great. His heartbeat was good, and never showed any signs of distress. My blood pressure, and pulse were good as well. We say the fancy baby doctor around 11 and he decided that he wanted me to remain blood free for 24/48 hours so I was spending the night. My poor hubby was scheduled to go to KC for the weekend, but since they were keeping me, he stayed home. I tried my hardest to get him to go, but apparently he is more stubborn than me. So, we settled into watching daytime TV, which is horrible, and trying to keep friends and family updated. Problem is, we really don't know where the bleeding was coming from so not much to update! We did get some visitors throughout the day and evening which was nice. I didn't get much sleep on Thursday night due to being monitored all night. If I tried to lay on my slide, we would lose the babies heartbeat and the machine would beep, so I pretty much had to lay on my back as much as possible. It is sometimes hard to sleep on my back, because my hips start to hurt. Friday night, they allowed me to go unmonitored from about 10 to 6:30 so I got a lot more sleep, when I didn't wake up to Marcus snoring! My doctor came in around 8:30 on Saturday and said they were going to allow me to go home, but I was to do nothing. No lifting, no long walks, and at this point no work. I am seeing him Monday to see where we go from here. I did have baby shower scheduled for Saturday and he allowed me to go to that, but I was not to do anything while there. I sure tried my best! So for now, I am trying to do my best at doing nothing. Marcus will tell you I didn't do a good job at that on Saturday, and that I have done much better today. I am a little sore in the stomach area, and have a hard time bending over. Hopefully I will hear good news tomorrow, but for now this is mainly what I have. I will certainly keep you posted!

Jo

31 Week appointment

Okay, so I totally thought I was at week 32, but either I can't count or the doctor's can't count, and I am going to have to go with I can't count. As usual, things have to be done the exciting way! Last night in my attempt to go to the grocery store, I went to the bathroom and ended up bleeding. Off to Acute Care we went. Not much can be done there, so they called ahead and we made the trek to Labor and Delivery. Once at Labor and Delivery, I got hooked up to the monitors to make sure baby was good. I was still experiencing some bleeding at this time, but compared to what it was it was slowing down. Baby was doing good, heartbeat was strong and he was not under any distress. With my placenta being low, we did an ultra sound to see if that was the source of the bleeding or if I had a tear somewhere. My placenta has moved up some, and I didn't have any tears so that all looked good. Apparently the baby did not like the heartbeat monitor because he kept kicking it! During the ultrasound we discovered that so far the baby is breech. He really is giving me the whole pregnancy experience. Since my bleeding had pretty much stopped, my doctor was comfortable with sending me home, especially since he was going to be seeing me today. So finally around midnight, we got to check out and head home. I was not allowed to go to work today, and was told to just lay low and so I did. I am not very good at laying low and was soo bored today! At our appointment, my doctor said that the bleeding was most likely caused by my low placenta. He said something about blood passing over the placenta to the cervix and sometimes if the placenta is low a pool will develop and when the placenta moves, the blood has no where to go but down and out. It is, of course, something to continue to monitor. We will have another ultrasound in about a month to see if the baby is still breech or if he has decided to flip. If not, they will try to help him flip, but if he doesn't, my doctor said he is not going to attempt to deliver him breech so that would mean I get a C-Section. At this time I have been cleared to go back to work, Yeah!, but need to make sure I am taking it easy and if anymore bleeding or pain of any sort to call him. I need to watch what I lift to make sure it is not too heavy and I guess to my dismay, rely on my hubby to pick up the slack! Marcus is off to Kansas City this weekend for the Nascar Race. It is a guys trip so they should have a ton of fun! He is leaving me in the good paws of Boomer and of course all our family and friends! I go back to the doctor in 3 weeks, than it will be 2 weeks, and than every week after that! Guess that means I am getting close! Until next time, and I hope a less exciting next time!

Jo