Tuesday, December 30, 2008
time is winding down...
We did go through the whole process of what to do when we start to see signs of labor. As of next week, we would not be considered pre-term if we were to go into labor, so they would just let it progress. It is hard to believe that we have come this far already!
We have been working diligently the last couple of days to get all the last minute things together. The bag is pretty much packed and ready to go, the birth plan is just about done, we are filling in the last of the phone numbers for our contact list, we bought a hospital gown alternative to wear during labor and delivery... its all coming together. Next step is just to wrap up any loose ends and get a plan in place for Chloe and the cats.
Next week on Wednesday we have a very big day. We are meeting with Dr. Ratner (the pediatric surgeon), taking a NICU tour and meeting with a neonatologist, and we have our last appointment at the Perinatal Center for our final sonogram. This is all in one day and it is sure to be an exhausting one! We will let you know how it all goes though!
We hope that everyone continues to enjoy their holiday season and had a great Christmas! Many wishes for a happy and healthy new year to all!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Christmas wishes...
Friday, December 12, 2008
Busy last couple of weeks...
Thanksgiving went well. We had our families over and had a nice big feast! There were of course plenty of leftovers to get us through the next few days! Vince’s mom and our friend Melissa organized our baby shower for that Saturday (11/29), so there was a pretty steady flow of people coming and going throughout the weekend.
The shower was very nice. We got lots of fantastic gifts that are sure to give our Gumdrop the start that he or she will need! We have an entire laundry basket full of clothes and onesies and socks and towels and wash clothes… Just amazing! And that also reminds me - - the nursery is done!! It looks great! We are really pleased with how it turned out. I will try to get some pictures that we can post of the shower and the nursery as soon as I can!
There was another Choices West appointment on the 2nd. Nothing much was new there. Weight is still good, sugar levels have been pretty even, heartbeat is strong as ever. There have been a couple spikes in my sugar levels, but I have been able to figure out what caused them for the most part and know what to avoid in the future. Raisins are evidently not something that my body is processing well right now - - thought it would be a healthy fruit option, but it didn’t quite work out that way!
Just this Wednesday (12/10) we went to the Perinatal Center for another sonogram and meeting with Dr. Spadola. Every time we go we brace ourselves for kind of negative news. We expected a rollercoaster of news from the beginning of this journey because that is what is typical of CDH, but everyone’s prayers and well wishes have been making a difference and we got another positive report this week! Overall growth is still completely average – in the 54th percentile – and the right lung still looks good with a lung to head ratio of 2.3 (anything over 2 is good). Fluid levels are still normal too! Nothing really alarming at all! AND, it was the absolute quickest Perinatal Center appointment we have ever had! We are usually there for hours because their office is so crazy and busy. So, this time I brought a bag of things to do while we were waiting and that did the trick! We were in and out within one hour! This was almost as exciting as the continued good report from Dr. Spadola.
Yesterday, my amazing co-workers had a baby shower for me after school. They really went all out and transformed our less than beautiful teacher’s lounge into a fantastic baby shower. They had all kinds of food and were so generous with their gifts. I am truly lucky to work with such supportive and wonderful people – they definitely make a challenging job worthwhile on many days when it doesn’t seem worth it! Hopefully I will have some pictures from the shower to post sometime soon.
Well, I think that is everything major from the last couple of weeks. We are getting ready for the holidays now. We went and cut down our tree last weekend and the house is all decorated now – with the exception that Vince really wants to hang lights outside, but the weather has been less than cooperative for climbing on ladders, especially with a still recovering knee! You can see our tree in the front window though, so that adds a little cheer to the front of the house! We have a couple parties this weekend, including one at our house with all our friends. It is an annual tradition that we have kept for probably at least the last 12 years. We have not done any shopping yet, so that is still on the list. We hope that you are all looking forward to this holiday season as well and stay warm and safe in these coming weeks.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Eventful past week...
We also met with the pediatrician's office on Thursday afternoon. It is the office that has been recommended to us by numerous people on a personal and professional level. It is where our nephew, Emanuel, goes and was highly recommended by Choices West and a NICU nurse Vince met at physical therapy. We met mainly with the nurse practitioner and only briefly with the actual pediatrician when he came in to introduce himself and reinforce the fact that we are in good care. The NP runs the office for the most part and will most likely be who we will mainly deal with, but it was disappointing to not get to sit down with the doctor for any great lengths. The NP does personally know Dr. Ratner (the surgeon) which is a good connection to make though! Despite our (really just mom's!) disappointment, we are satisfied that we are making the right choice with this office.
And, we have a nursery! It is practically complete. The major painting is done and looks great. Mom is going to stamp some stars on the walls and then the painting will be done. We bought the crib set last week, but were only able to get the crib, not the dressers. We were told the dressers would not be in for 8-12 weeks, unfortunately. So, we put the crib together last Saturday and went out and bought a mattress so that we could get the full effect - sheets, bumper, mobile - and we were satisfied that we had done as much as we could. Then, yesterday we got a message that our dressers were available already!! So exciting! We went and got them last night and had Patty's brothers came over to help move them in. It looks great! Absolutely perfect! And with the shower this weekend, it makes us feel good to know that we have space to put everything away now. Only problem we are having is that Chester (our cat) thinks that the crib is his personal comfy bed. It is probably a good thing that we have a couple months at least to break him of this habit!
So, with Thanksgiving tomorrow and the shower on Saturday, it is going to be more busyness around here. We hope you all have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy your time with your families. We are very thankful this year for you and all your support these past few months. Next year we will have even more to be thankful for by this time!
Monday, November 17, 2008
Latest Choices West Appointment
We also got to meet with Dr. Neulander today. Choices West is his practice, but we have never met with him. He is the first medical person who has handled our situation as a human being, not just a doctor. He put many of our concerns to rest. We should definitely be able to have one of the mid-wives deliver the baby and we should be able to have a natural birth. This is all pending no other complications of course, but the chances are the same as any other normal pregnancy. Dr. Neulander also assured us that we can name our choice for which mid-wife to deliver the baby and that he would make a point of being there as well. So, that is a very comforting thought. While we know that this situation was beyond everyone's control, he was apologetic about what we have to deal with. His sympathy was comforting and we feel completely at ease with being under the care of his office.
In other baby news... we purchased a crib and matching dressers yesterday. Dad is picking up the crib tonight and we have to wait for the dressers to be delivered in a few weeks. Dad worked on the nursery all day Saturday and made some good progress. Bridget came over and was a huge help too. It should be done in the next few days hopefully!
We also went yesterday and had maternity photos taken. We already looked at the proofs last night and are very pleased with how they looked. There are definitely a few that we are going to look to buy prints of. The photographer that we went to has a studio right in the basement of his house. He was really nice and his assistant was wonderful. It was really a great experience!
So, we are getting along well! It is a busy week coming up with birthing classes, meeting with the pediatrician, and a million other things! Busy, but productive! We will keep you posted! Stay warm!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
No change is good change...
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Halloween
Here are a few pictures of us at the crew's annual Halloween party. Patty won the most creative costume award. One of the only times that she could pull that off :-)
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
one more speed bump...
We are 27 weeks now and at our appointment with Choices West yesterday we had to do our glucose tolerance test. It was not a pleasant experience as mom is still queasy in the morning and drinking orange sugar water is not pleasant for a sick stomach. And her veins would not cooperate, so that was another challenge. Other than that, the appointment went well. Heartbeat was strong. Only a couple more pounds were gained.
Angela, the triage nurse at Choices West and our personal savior these past weeks, called this afternoon with the unfortunate news that the glucose test did come back positive. Just one more challenge to be dealt with, but I am ready for something to work out easily for once. It seems like one speed bump after another on this journey. So, we are picking up a meter at Wegmans tonight, meeting with Angela to get some more information tomorrow afternoon, and meeting with a nutritionist Friday morning. Gestational diabetes is obviously not the worse thing to be facing, but it is frustrating nonetheless. Especially when we have been trying so hard to do the right things. Everything for a reason though!
Monday, October 27, 2008
No miracles yet...
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Still Waiting :-(
Thursday, October 16, 2008
MRI
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Gumdrop's First Real Close-Ups
We had another appointment with Dr. Spadola today. They did another sonogram and growth looks good. We are in the 59 percentile for size. We like to be average so just about average makes us very, very happy. From what she can tell the liver has still not moved and that is very good….plus size of the right lung is within the good range.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Our Story from the Beginning
We found out today that we are pregnant!! While we have been trying for quite some time, it still came as a surprise and we found that we were in a bit of shock. It was a very happy surprise though!
We had our first appointment at Choices West today. There was not much to see, but we did get to look at our “grain of rice” on the sonogram. It’s just amazing! We now feel a little more comfortable starting to share our big news with others!
We had our second appointment today and got to hear the heartbeat for the first time. It is hard to believe that there is a little heart beating in there already. The heart was strong and everything looks good! Mom has started feeling worse the past couple of weeks, but it is not horrible and she can just relax for awhile now that it is summer.
Another short visit to Choices West this morning let us hear the heartbeat again - - just as strong as it was last time! Mom is still not feeling very well and is still getting sick. It is not a daily occurrence though. The doctor gave her a dissolvable pill to try when the nausea starts. It is supposed to make it go away instantly. We will have to see if it works, but it does give a little more peace of mind with the school year fast approaching!
Today was our big appointment at Choices West. We have reached 19 weeks and were due for our first real sonogram that looks more like a baby and less like a blur. Today was also the first day back at school and we got off to quite a start as Mom puked out the side door while the new administrator she had never met looked on - - great first impression!!
The sonogram was amazing! The technician explained frame by frame what we were looking at: the head, arm, leg, waving hand. He was having a hard time keeping up with the baby and let us know we should invest in some running shoes because we were going to need them. At one point, he switched to a view of the baby that needed no explanation - - it was a perfect view of the baby’s profile complete with a turned up little nose. We were in awe. As we sat in the waiting room waiting to meet with the midwife, looking at the printed version of this view, we joked about the elf nose and sent out a cell phone camera version of the sonogram.
After getting called back by the nurse, we went through the steps that have now become natural. I had gained 4 pounds since my last appointment, which is actually the first substantial weight I have gained since the beginning. Things seem to be progressing. The nurse left us in the examination room to wait – and wait we did! A while later, Rita, one of the women in the office who we have been seeing, finally came in and shocked us with what she had to say.
It seemed that the sonogram technician saw something that concerned him. While they are not specialists in this, it seemed from what they could tell that the baby had a hernia in its diaphragm. That was all they would tell us. Other than that we needed to now see a specialist at the
The morning of our next round of doctors arrived and we tried to remain as positive as possible. Angela at Choices West tried to get us an appointment as soon as possible to cut down on the nerve wracking wait. She also warned us that it would be a very long day, so we came prepared.
In the days leading up to this, Dad of course started a full internet search of everything related to this problem. We now knew it was a genetic birth defect called Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia and that it affects roughly 1 in every 2500 babies in
The
After waiting for over an hour, we finally got called in for the sonogram. The technician was very thorough and took a fair amount of time looking our baby over inch by inch. In spite of the circumstances, it was still amazing to see that little baby on the screen. She would not say anything one way or another and just reiterated that Dr. Spadola would discuss everything with us when we met with her later.
Back out in the waiting room, we waited some more. It was nerve wracking. The nurse finally called us back again. She took my weight and blood pressure – which was high, of course – and then ushered us to yet another room to wait in. We sat there for a while longer before another nurse came in and did a short questionnaire with us regarding our health and genetic backgrounds. Because CDH is a genetic defect, they needed a full background to rule out any other complications. Then came more waiting until Dr. Spadola finally came in, introduced herself, and asked us to follow her to an examination room so she could have her own look on the ultrasound. Still no answers, but we had an idea now that it was not going to be the “everything looks good” diagnosis we had hoped for.
Dr. Spadola intently studied the images on the screen for a few minutes before finally announcing that it is often easier to point things out rather than try to explain later. She pointed to a large black spot on the baby’s chest. This, she told us, was the stomach. She also noted that it was pushing the heart to the right and obscured the view of the left lung. The long and short of it was that there is indeed a hole in the diaphragm on the left side. From what can be detected through the sonogram, the stomach and part of the small intestine are in the chest cavity where the left lung should be developing. She also found a cyst on the baby’s brain. This she said is a “common human variable” – many babies have this and it can mean absolutely nothing. In our case, since there is one defect already in play, the cyst could mean something more serious or it could mean nothing at all. We are focusing on the issues that we know exist and are not going to get caught up in the “what ifs” that pop up along the way. We have to have faith and deal with things as they come.
We decided to forego additional genetic testing and continue the pregnancy as normal. There is nothing about what we do between now and February that will change whether we know more or not. It was hard news to take and obviously not what we hoped for, but there were a few bright spots. For one, the hole is on the left side, which is the better side for it to be on. Also, Dr. Spadola measured the right lung and it looks good - - not perfect, but better than it could be. And from what she could see, the liver is not in the chest cavity, which is a big plus. She gave us an 80% survival rate and we have the best facilities in the area to work with. She was perfectly clear that this will not be an easy road to take and will have its fair share of ups and downs, but it is doable. She was honest. The baby will be placed on a respirator as soon as it is born and will have surgery to correct the defect as soon as he or she is stable enough. From there, no one knows. Every case is very different. It could be three weeks in the NICU; it could be three months.
We will have more testing done to get a better picture – a fetal echocardiogram to look for heart defects and an MRI to determine where exactly all the organs are. The echo is already scheduled for next week. Until then, we will continue to hold out for the best.
We went to the pediatric cardiologist today. The technician who did the echocardiogram was very nice and luckily Gumdrop cooperated, so it was a quick process. The doctor happened to be called out to the hospital, so she offered to have him call us when he returned if we did not want to wait. We decided to wait it out though. We could not have handled leaving without knowing what the prognosis was. When the doctor called us in, he was quick and to the point: the heart looks good, all the parts look good, blood flow looks good. He said that after the baby is born, they will do another echo to make sure there are no minor defects, but from this standpoint, the heart is healthy. Good news was exactly what we needed!
We went and met with Deacon Nick from Holy Family tonight. Vince had talked to him last week and explained the situation, so he invited us to come in and sit down with him. He is a fantastic person and put our minds more at ease with all that is going on and is to come. He told us some amazing stories of babies he has dealt with that have beat all odds and the miracles he has witnessed. We discussed with him our options for after the baby is born and we have decided to call him as soon as the baby is on the way. He is going to come to the hospital and baptize the baby as soon as he can. Then, after Gumdrop is well again and on the road to full recovery, we will have the full church baptism ceremony with everyone. It is a comforting thought. We are sure that Deacon Nick will be a great support for us in the months to come.
We felt Gumdrop moving for the first time tonight! Well, Mom has thought she has felt things for the past couple of weeks, but was not quite sure. Then tonight when we were watching TV, the bumping became obvious. Mom grabbed Dad’s hand and made sure he felt it too. It was amazing… there really is a little baby in there and it is getting bigger and stronger every day.
We had our next regular check up at Choices West this afternoon. Mom is sick with a cold, but other than that things look good: we gained another 3 pounds, good blood pressure, and a strong Gumdrop heartbeat. Rita seemed confident that there will be no problem with us continuing our care at Choices West. We will still go to the