One month old!

So Anna is now one month old, so I should catch the blog up from Thanksgiving. I was on bed rest and I started having appointments twice a week with fetal monitoring and ultrasounds.
On December 14 I went into my regular Monday appointment and John came along to check out the maternity ward (we were still deciding between two hospitals at this point). Well our midwife came in and said, "So,we will induce you tonight..." We were shocked. Apparently my blood pressure was higher than they liked. If they did not induce they had concerns about damage to my organs. We were 37 weeks along and she was showing to be good sized. John and I split up after the appointment, him to work and me home. I called my mom, who was flying out on Sunday. She immediately called the airline to book a flight out that day. That would work out great for us, mom here and she would be able to stay the night with the dogs. John's parents were planning on being in Indiana at the end of the week, so they got things together to head out from Texas. They were planning to come to stay with the dogs, but were able to hold off with my mom's flight. Well, we started on Monday, but Anna was not born until Thursday morning. She was born 8:21 am by c-section. I had gotten to 10 cm dilated and she was in a +2 position face up but could go no further.
Well, 12/17/09 gave us our lovely baby girl at 8 pounds 10 ounces 2 weeks early. An early Christmas present. There has been lots of enjoying her since with her cute smiles and snuggling. Nothing beats a contented smile after eating.

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.

Happy Halloween!

We are entering week 32 already! Things seem to go really slow, then very quickly. She is about 16 inches in length and usually has her bottom up by my belly button. She does move around quite a bit still, but she seems to hang around on my right hand side. It is funny to rub her and get a response, sometimes it is a big movement. Anna weighs approximately 3.7 pounds. I will not say how much I weigh! She has full finger nails and toenails. The next few weeks will be spent gaining weight and getting a bit longer. We have a last ultrasound scheduled for 11/13, so maybe we will have a good guess at her size then.
As for John and I things are a bit busy. John is crazy at work with Christmas tests and fixes. Lots of meetings and running around. He went on a market tour the other day with people from Walgreen's and his new boss' boss' boss and besides sharing all his knowledge of cards he was able to dazzle them with some great barbecue suggestions. Lots of leaf raking and still oak leaves to fall. When we are outside we get hit with acorns, and those hurt! The dogs love the fall and have been having fun hanging out with the Tripplett kids next door. Kodak even managed to catch a leaf on his nose. He is slowing down and we are keeping an eye on him. Have a good week.

Meet Anna

If you had not heard bebe's name is Anna. Anna has been a long time favorite of ours.
Week 28 came and went. We were recovering from our trip back East and John was very busy with work. I am finally feeling a bit better, but it is getting hard to move up and down at work. I shall have to see how much longer I can keep getting up and down. I may have to see if there is something else I can do.
This past week we went for our second ultrasound. Anna is growing well. She is in the 64th growth percentile, very active and everything still looks good. My placenta, the reason for the appointment, is still off by 0.12 cm, so we may have a third ultrasound. We need to talk to our new clinic about it. We are now in our 29th week, so we are officially in the third trimester. Anna weighs between 2.5-3 pounds and is about 15 inches long. She is becoming more and more active, moving around quite a bit. At the ultrasound she had her head down next to my right pelvic bone. She also had her feet up next to her head making it hard to get a good view. Our technician Caroline was determined to get a look at her face for us and even turned the machine over to 3D view. We got some cute shots of Anna with her hands beside her head. We even saw her suckling! Quite the facial expressions already. According to different info I have read she will really start putting on weight now. That means more weight for me! But we have a healthy baby girl growing, so we will keep up eating as healthy as we can. I have my glucose test tomorrow and I hope all is well.

NH Visit/Fair Week

I am now 27 weeks pregnant (9/28). This means bebe is the approximate size of a sock monkey! She is now over 2 pounds and at least 12 inches. Next week we have another ultrasound, so we shall have to remember to find out how long she is. I am feeling fine, just tired from being so busy and my ankles are swelling more. Yeah. She is moving around and last night I could physically see movement as I lay down on my back to put my feet up. Very strange.
We have once again been quite busy. Last Sunday John's brother-in-law Eric came to visit and we caught a wet Red Sox game at the Royal's stadium. Unfortunately we lost. I flew out to NH early on Tuesday (9/22) and John and Eric went to the game that night. John says he just missed catching a batting practice ball. He said another man's glove got in the way.
Thursday I watched Ethan and Enola while Tiffany had an interview. We then all went apple picking. The MacIntosh were really yummy, but all the good ones were up high. Tiffany put Ethan up on a branch and held his legs while giving him directions as to which apples to pick. Enola and I kept watch for orchard workers. It was a warm 80 degree day. John was offered tickets for the last Red Sox game and went with some coworkers. They had a good time and the Sox won. All in all a good day.
Sunday was my baby shower put on by Jenn, Mom, Tiffany and Rebecca. We had it over at Tiffany's grandmother's studio. It was an afternoon tea with yummy baked goods by Jenn and Tiffany. There was local NH tea and the party favor was local NH soap slices, all very nice. We had fun. Enola was helping by pulling all the tissue paper out of the bags, sometimes even before I could get it! She also did a silly laugh which had everyone going. Thank you to everyone who put it together and those who came. It was great!
After the shower we had a 80th birthday party for my Grandma Bauer. It was nice seeing the whole Bauer family. The Hanson family came out from Chicago, which was great and Aunt Michelle driving up with all of them. Come to find out my pregnancy is going just like both of my aunts'. Nausea in the beginning and a bunch of weight gain in the end. Yeah!
Tuesday (9/29) I picked John up in Manchester and I had more movement in my belly than I had had the week before. She missed his voice! We had a busy afternoon running some errands and then heading down to Boston for the game. The day before Scott had called saying his CEO offered him his box seats and would we like them, yes! It was a great game (better if we had won) and a lot of fun to get to Fenway on a very charged night.
Wednesday we headed up to the cottage and had a nice evening with Mary and Earl and a lobstah dinner. Thursday we spent at the Fair with Tiffany and the kids seeing all the animals and trying to convince Ethan he did not want to go on the rides. We then headed over to Gonic for dinner with Drew and Becca. We had a nice time visiting and a very long day. We slept in a little on Friday before heading over to visit my Aunt Flora and Jackie. We then met up with Mary and Earl to go see Gram up at her retirement home. It is a nice facility with lots to do and many people she knows. It was good to see where she has been staying and how much she enjoys everyone there.
We then checked out the outlets for baby clothes and stopped to see Uncle Junior before heading down to Deerfield for the night.
Saturday we hung around the house in the morning with John helping Uncle and Scott working on the porch. It was a rainy day. Mary and Earl came over and we ended up grabbing Ethan and Enola and all of us going down to the Fair. The kids were good, if not hungry. We stayed until the weather started to turn then headed over to Scott's house for supper. Sunday we packed up, stopped by the Fair and then headed out getting home a bit after 7pm. A long crazy couple of weeks!