Happy Thanksgiving

It has been a busy, yet not busy week here. Last Thursday, Nov 19, was the day of our Hallmark baby shower and I was getting a hair cut before heading over. A little after 9 am I got a call from my nurse midwife saying I have elevated protein levels in my urine and I am to be on bed rest immediately. The protein levels, along with higher blood pressure and water retention are all signs of preeclampsia. It is something that can elevate quickly and often leads to induction. They are hoping to get me to 37 weeks, then look at inducing. She wanted me to come in for a quick check up with them, then to the hospital for fetal monitoring and an ultrasound. I told her I would have to come in later after the baby shower.
We had a wonderful baby shower, about 30+ people showed up, we had yummy cake and goodies and a lot of well wishes. It was great to see so many people there to support John and I. We passed around ultrasound pictures and dog photos. I think more people enjoyed the dog photos just as much, if not more!
From there I headed down to the doctor's office and went over things with the nurse midwife. With preeclampsia the big fear is a sudden increase in blood pressure and pain from your liver. It can come along suddenly, so I have to be aware. It would affect me more than Anna. They were going to try to get us to 37 weeks before having to deliver depending on how I was doing. I then went over to the hospital labor and delivery ward for a non stress test for Anna and blood pressure for me. It was supposed to be an hour, but I was strapped to the monitor for over 3 hours. I tried paging someone and was not having any luck. I think they were waiting on results from a blood sample they had taken. I then went to have a bioscan ultrasound done. During this they look for Anna to perform 4 different things, such as a large movement and moving her diaphragm, all within a 30 minute period. She did accomplish them, but she was a little quiet after kicking the monitors for the previous 3 hours. I finally left the hospital close to 7 pm!
I have been resting, except for my doctors appointments twice a week. Each time I have a NST (non stress test) and my blood pressure checked. The second protein level I had done showed lower levels, which was good. It seems I am on the edge of preeclampsia, but they feel better safe than sorry.
John decided he wanted to do a full turkey dinner still and put together a nice dinner. I did suggest to him that he could go straight to leftovers since it was the two of us. I was able to talk to my parents and grandma on Skype, a free video chat site. Grandma commented on how large I am. I showed them where we were at in the nursery and toured around the house a bit. Later we talked to Scott and Tiffany while John was finishing cooking. Fun to do, especially if your camera is mobile.
This weekend we expect Mary and Earl in with the mobile home on Saturday afternoon. They will be here until Monday morning and will help John out with a few things. And eat turkey!
Hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

45 days left!

Sometimes I want it to hurry along and other times I cannot believe how fast it is going. Anna is doing well. This weekend she decided to move up and now rests her back above my belly button. I had some blood work run to check this with my swelling and slightly high blood pressure. Everything came back good and clean, so I just need to stay off my feet more. One more week at work, then I am done.
I am at week 34, so this means Anna is around 17 inches and 4-4.5 pounds. She continues to move around, but is starting to show signs of sleep patterns. John put his head on my belly to listen and got a kick to the ear. She does not want to be crowded. My uterine and abdominal walls are getting thinner allowing her to see more light and work on opening and closing her eyes. We are estimating her final weight to be in the low eights. We shall see!
We had our first snow here this morning. Very wet and melted quickly. Was still nice to see. We are still waiting for our Pin Oak to drop leaves so that all the leaves will be raked up. The acorns are a different story. So many! Things are slowly getting done around the house, but very slowly as I cannot do too much helping. I cannot imagine bed rest, house rest is bad enough! Ally and Milo find our days to be boring. I would play with them more if Ally would bring her toy to me rather than a foot away. I told John I need one of those long gripper arms.
We scheduled our birthing class and went to our breast feeding class. We have a baby shower at Hallmark on Thursday, then need to make plans for Thanksgiving. I did not realize it was so close! I hope everyone is well!

Sad sad day

So yesterday ended up as one of our saddest ever as we had to say goodbye to our most beloved Kodak. He had been slowing down over the past few weeks, right after his 11th birthday. We had a great day Sunday out raking leaves, playing with the neighbor kids and he ate the best he had in the past 2 weeks. I was going to call the vet Monday anyways to take a look at him as he had been drinking more and was dragging his back legs. We have been watching him get weaker in the back due to his spine fussing. Well, yesterday morning he literally dragged himself downstairs for me, I am not sure how he did it, but he kept enough control not to knock me down. He went outside and peed what looked like iodine, then refused to move off the couch. I knew things looked pretty bad. He was breathing heavy and coughing up phlegm. John came home, half carried him to the car and we went to the vet. We took Ally and Milo in case this was their chance to say goodbye. Our vet said there was a lot of wet sounds in his chest, so much it was hard to hear Kodak’s heart. His temp was 106! So, left and right he was doing really bad. We were looking at kidney failure, possible heart failure and a raging temperature that would involve hospitalization. Our vet said we could do a bunch of diagnostics, but it looked like the only proper thing, even after diagnostics was to say goodbye.
We decided it was best to let him go and not let him suffer. I wanted him to go out having had a fairly good day the day before, not forcing him to hang on for us. He was not very aware of things, so we loved on him and said goodbye. Overall he had not been sick long, he just went down very quickly. We miss him so bad it hurts. He was my best friend with all the moving we have done and he was always there for me. He was John's guy and John felt better with him keeping an eye on things. We had a special bond and I will miss him every day. I wish he had been around long enough to met our baby, he loved babies. We had him for about 8 1/2 years, not long enough. He was wonderful and he is greatly greatly missed.