Bedrest

My ultrasound on January 3rd didn't go so well.  My cervix had shortened to 2.3cm with funneling.  Dr immediately took me off work until further notice.  At only 21 weeks, that is a very long time to be off of work!  We did another check this past Thursday the 10th which was improved to 2.7cm with no funneling.  My doc seems to think the funneling was due to cramping at the time which put pressure on the area.  I'm now 23 weeks today.  My goal is to make it past 32 weeks, so 9 more to go!  Doctor said that if I have 2 more good ultrasounds, there is a possibility that she may send me back to work.  This would be a good thing if there is a strong caseload at work to keep my hours decent, but that hasn't been the case for the entire month of December and so far not looking good in January.  My bonus has been cut in half and we just got word that there will be no consideration of merit raises until June.  Looks like  I'll be attempting to find another job after this baby is born.

I'm hoping that with attempts to rest as much as possible (which isn't much, even at home) that I can keep this baby safe and snug and prevent another stay in the NICU.  I'm finding it very difficult to stay off my feet.  Definitely hard to do with a 3 year old running around, and I still have to shuttle him to his activities, preschool, etc.  I'm trying to make more crockpot recipes to prevent having to be on my feet too long in the kitchen, but dishes drive me crazy - so those must be done....  At least my bedrest orders aren't extremely strict at this point and I do have permission to get up and move around.  I would hate to be hospitalized!  I've heard some women can be hospitalized for a few months prior to delivery with certain conditions....how horrible!  The things we women go through to keep our little ones safe :)  It's a good thing men don't give birth - I know there is no way my husband could deal with this.

Been a long time

My last post was pre-baby #1.  I ended up having Nathan early - 14 weeks early....  We had a long road in the NICU, but he made it and is now a happy healthy 3 year old!  The builder that I spoke of in the last post did end up building our new house, but it took a while and we ended up staying at my mother-in-laws house for nearly a year.  Not quite how I imagined things would go.

Fast forward to present - I'm now almost 22 weeks pregnant with baby #2 (another boy).  I've already had a few complications this pregnancy and am anticipating that my doctor will most likely put me on bedrest at some point to prevent preterm labor.  Definitely don't want to have another preemie and go through what we did last time.

I haven't been able to workout during this pregnancy, things have been pretty busy and I'm supposed to be taking it easy.  I did get back into running the past year and ran a 10K on the 4th of July - which felt pretty great to accomplish!  I had also dropped my weight down quite a bit.  My new years resolution this year is to get back down to pre-baby weight by the end of 2013.  Baby is due on May 12th, so that will give me plenty of time :)

The job has been very rocky since November - my company has made a lot of cutbacks, to include my hours.  I haven't worked at all this week - but I'm trying not to stress out too much about it.  Our caseload is next to nothing, but hopefully it will pick up really soon.  The unfortunate thing is that most places aren't going to want to hire a pregnant woman, even for PRN work.  So I think I'm pretty much stuck until this baby is born.  I've been praying quite a bit that we'll get through whatever financial bumps in the road are ahead.

Speaking of praying - this year I went back to church.  I'd been away from the Catholic church for years, for many reasons.  Although some of my spiritual beliefs aren't exactly what the catholic church teaches - I still think the church has a lot to offer and decided to take Nathan and introduce him to the church.  He goes to the catechism class and got baptized on Dec 29th. 

My plan is to continue posting - over 3 years has been too long!  Not sure anyone will read this, but it feels good to put things down in writing.

Recovering

As if things couldn't get any worse for me this year - I came down with a horrible cold the day before my San Francisco trip. So - I had to cancel it. What a bummer! I spent the entire week on the couch instead. After 7 days - my OB finally decided to prescribe an antiobiotic to kick it out of my system. I finished the 5th day of that last night and seem to be on the mend. Still have a little bit of a cough and congestion. I suppose I should be thankful that it happened when my vacation was scheduled so I didn't have to call out of work (except for 1 day).

Everything is moving forward with the selling of our house. Inspection is done, appraisal went through and now we are set to close on Nov 20th. We put an offer in on a house in Freeland - but it's in the process of foreclosure and it could take months before everything is squared away. We haven't had our offer accepted yet anyway, so who knows what will happen there. We are meeting with a builder tomorrow night to see if that is even an option for us, although the timing is pretty horrible. It would mean that we would be in an apartment for quite a while before the house gets finished. I really hope that we find something soon and can close before the baby is due.

Sold!

Surprise, surprise....our house sold last night! Closing is set for Nov 20th. Inspection is scheduled for this saturday, so hopefully all will go well. We were shocked to receive the phone call after our listing had expired. Stephen and I were resigned to staying here another year or so and had been making plans to tackle the nursery project within the next few weeks. Glad we didn't get started on that early! Now to find a new house to move into within this short timeframe!

Work is going well. My legs are swollen by the time I get home at night from being on my feet all day long. We've had a girl call out sick the past few days too - which makes the caseload tougher.

I haven't done any exercise yet - just being on my feet after rehab-ing the foot injury is enough for now. I'm pretty tired at night anyway. I'd like to do water aerobics, but will probably wait a while to get this house situation taken care of first.

Back to work

I was finally released back to work on the 25th. What a relief! I worked a 6 day stretch - and boy does my body feel differently now. My foot held up for the most part, just a few aches - until yesterday when I woke up and my entire left leg was swollen. I'm hoping that it was just from being back on my feet all day long for 6 days straight. I have today off and will be attending an NDT conference on Fri/Sat, so hopefully the rest will do me some good.
It is much more difficult to move around in those hospital rooms with my belly now getting in my way. And the smells are making me gag a bit more than usual.

Tomorrow I turn 35....not quite sure how I feel about it yet. I'll be at the conference all day and then going out to dinner with the family. Should be a good time. My husband bought me more maternity clothes - not quite the birthday present I had in mind, but I really need them since the weather is getting colder and I have nothing to wear.

It's a boy!

I had my first ultrasound yesterday and found out we are having a baby boy! I was a little shocked - I really thought that it was going to be a girl...I guess that tells me that I need to get in touch with my instincts a little more...LOL Stephen was super excited! Everything looked normal on the ultrasound which made both of us very relieved. I'll find out the results of my quad screen within the next few days and can make the determination whether or not to have an amnio. As of right now, we are pretty comfortable with the ultrasound results - so I'm hoping that the screen comes back with a low risk as well.

I've ditched the crutches and have been limping around on my foot. It still is quite sore and I'm unable to push up onto my toes while standing. My first PT appt is tomorrow, so hopefully they will give me some great exercises to do in order to strengthen it up really fast. I need to get my butt back to work!

Another 3 weeks

The cast finally came off on thursday, but the Doc wouldn't clear me for work until he re-evaluates me on the 24th. Needless to say, my supervisor wasn't too happy. I'm at the mercy of my doctor at this point. I was instructed to continue use of my crutches with gradual increase in weightbearing on my left foot. I am so tired of using those things - you can't carry anything! I must use them for stairs ( I tried to do them solo, and almost fell on my face) but have been walking a little bit without them around the house. My foot feels quite unstable still and aches quite a bit. I guess it's going to take a little time for all those muscles to strengthen back up. I'm scheduled for physical therapy next Thursday which should help with the strengthening. I'll probably ditch the crutches within the next few days.

Pregnancy update: I'm 17 weeks 3 days. Ultrasound is scheduled for Tuesday. My husband and I listened to the heartbeat this morning with the doppler and heard what sounded like 2 heartbeats overlapping for a few seconds....both of us looked at each other with utter shock. Hopefully it was just a fluke - but I guess we'll find out on Tuesday :) At my OB visits, she only listens for a few seconds, so it would probably be hard to know if it was twins or not. I still haven't been officially weighed since my 8 week visit - but when I got on the scale at home I was up 10 lbs today. I was hoping that it would be less, but I guess that isn't too bad considering I've had to sit on my butt for the past 5 weeks and haven't been able to exercise this entire pregnancy so far due to my injury.