Fun in the Mud:)

To celebrate that ONE nice day in the last 10 days or so, we went out for a walk. On non-rainy days we've been doing this nightly, and Sophie LOVES it.

My two new fave pics.




And now the MUD:):) Dan told me not to let her walk in the puddle. I just laughed and let her walk right in! I swear, I will not be one of those moms that doesn't let her kids do things because she doesn't want to clean up the mess. (Someone might have to remind me of this the first time I see finger paint on the wall!)



She was so hesitant to stick her hand in. She looked up at me, not for approval, but as if to say "do I really want to do this?"


And then of course she had to show me the fun:)

16 weeks!

How far along: 16 weeks, 2 days

Total weight gain/loss: 10 pounds (gulp--it is really packing on, suddenly). For the record, I think most of it is in my boobs. Holy cup size batman. I looked in the mirror this morning and yowza! I mentioned last time I thought I was getting a bump? Not so much. It looks more like I just lost my waist.

Maternity clothes: ALL pants are maternity at this point. My last pair of pre-preg jeans got packed away this weekend. No tops yet...way huge on me.

Stretch marks: Nope.

Sleep: Still dealing with MAJOR insomnia, and now some fun RLP that makes it feel like there is a gigantic rubberband in my uterus, whenever I try to roll over.

Best moment last week: Got to see McBabies again, and they are measuring really well so far!!!

Movement: Nope.

Food cravings: Still sweets. Nothing ever SOUNDS good. Dan asks what I want for dinner, and I can't answer, because nothing sounds good. I'm eating out of necessity, which is why I'm not certain where these 10 pounds just came from?!?!

Gender: Boy and Girl!!

Labor Signs: None

Belly Button in or out: In

Other random yuckiness: I still have horrible headaches. They gave me a script, but it is this horrible UN-coated pill that tends to disolve in my mouth before I can swallow, which in turn makes me want to hurl. Needless to say, I'm trying to deal with the headaches without the pill, but it *does* help, when I do take it.

I'm getting out of breath more quickly when I walk up stairs. This didn't happen as early with Sophie.

My boobs are starting to make those lovely changes that are so common in pregnancy. Ick.

I have a bump on my neck that looks like a mosquito bite. I had the same thing when pregnant with Sophie. It has to be related.

Insomnia continues to be my WORST enemy.

What I miss: A full nights sleep.

What I am looking forward to: Hmmmm...at this point, now that we know the sexes, I'm going to have to go for movement. I'm ready to feel some little bubbles in there, but I know it will be awhile longer.

dreams (and not good ones)

I had a dream last night about an alive baby, and a dead baby. What does this mean? In the dream, they were both swaddled, both looked like they were sleeping, except the one that was not alive was a bit bigger, a bit bloated. I put them down on the bed together to take a picture of them.

It wasn't a haunting dream, per se, but I have thought about it a few times today. I didn't wake up still thinking my baby was dead, but in the dream it was definately my baby. In the dream, I was very matter of fact about it, a live baby and a dead baby.

I started reading a murder mystery a few nights ago that had very detailed death scenes. Is that where this is coming from? I hope so.

Surprise ultrasound=sexes!!!

On my way to OB this morning, it occured to me that I should ask for an ultrasound. I know myself, and know that if my urine specimin comes back negative, then I will start to obscess about the cramping. I thought it might be a long shot, but I asked, and they said yes.

As I was waiting for the u/s lady it then occured to me that MAYBE I could find out the sexes of the babies. I didn't want them to think I was just trying to get an u/s to find out, so I was hestitant to bring it up, but I wanted to at least ask.

The u/s tech made it easy, though. She immediately zero-ed in on the heartbeats, and then started measuring the heads, giving me estimated weights (baby A is 6 oz, baby B is 5 oz), showing me the major organs. I asked if it was possible to sneak a peek between the legs and she said "of course!"

Baby A, who is apparently not shy at all, is a GIRL!!!! I was thrilled to know we'd have another girl:) Baby B took a bit of poking and prodding, but finally gave in and showed us HIS goods! Baby B is a BOY:) Obviously, most importantly, they appear to be extremely healthy and growing well. THis was just the icing on the cake!!!

I immediately felt bad that Dan hadn't been there, but knew that he would have wanted to know. Luckily, I was right, and he said "I knew it all the time." We've both guessed boy/girl from early on, and were even right in that baby A is the girl and B is the boy.

Tech also checked placentas, as well as my cervix and all looks good. She didn't give me a cervical measurement but said it was great. I saw on the screen 4.8something, and I think anything above 3 is good, so I'm relieved there as well.

I also found out that A has moved. She was in a little ball on my right side, and is now nice and cozy, lying under my belly button, across my abdomen. B is camped out somewhere behind her and apparently doesn't need as much room:)

potential infection???

What was the sharp stabbing of RLP this morning turned into dull achy pains regardless of my position. I noticed it the first time while brushing my teeth. It wasn't the intense, take my breath away, pains of RPL, but was definatley enought to catch my attention. I walked Sierra and the pains continued around the block. They weren't continuous, but the scary part for me is they were all coming from the same spot. At least with the RPL, I was getting the pains all over, left, right, high, low. Today, they were all focused in my lower left pelvic region,

I got to work and they seemed to disappear until about an hour ago. I caved and called the OB and got to talk to my nurse, who asked lots of questions. Confirmed no bleeding, no contrax, etc. She said based on my description, it may be a UTI or bladder issue, so I'm going in tomorrow AM to pee in a cup. I'm glad I called, although I felt silly at the time. Thankfully she didn't dismiss my concerns.

A few pics...

I have been SUCH a slacker on the picture department. I added these below this morning, but didn't have time to download any other from my camera.

This is one of my new fave pics of her, an expression that she sports often, just big eyed and curious:)



Not such a great pic, but I love that it shows what she does with her milk. The big cup is from a Blues game. She carries it around everywhere. Inside that cup is her sippy full of milk. That's how she rolls:)


The first public appearance of the McBaby Twins, taken at NT scan at about 12 weeks. Obviously a pic of a pic, and not a good one at that, but the top skeleton looking guy is Baby B (we think this is a boy). I'm not a fan of this "face on" shot, but I can rest assured since we have one of Sophie like this and her cheeks *did* fill in:) Baby A profile is on bottom:)

RLP, a bump and teething

Round Ligament Pain (RLP) has arrived. It completely caught me by surprise yesterday, when I was attacked by these sudden, SHARP pains in my pelvic/uterine area. THey continued this morning, although only when walking or going up stairs. This is definately new for me, I don't remember having these with Sophie. Also, rolling over in bed at night has caused me some pain as well (another RLP symptom). I haven't called my dr., but I'm sure that's what it is. RLP peaks in 2nd tri, and well, here I am.

Oh, and I'm getting a bump. I think I look more pregnant now than I did with Sophie at 20 weeks. Even Dan noticed. Technically, I'm 15w2d. I had to get rid of my last pair of non-maternity jeans:( I love the bump, it gives me reassurance, but if I'm showing now what will I look like in 20 weeks???!!!

Since Sophie's hospitalization, her night sleeping has gone to hell. She sleeps, but typically only if I'm with her. The first few nights after the hospital, I let her sleep in bed with us, I just wanted her to feel safe. After that, I let her fall asleep in bed with me (which was our pre-hospital pattern), and then put her in her crib. She now wants NO part of that. I think she did it once last week, but woke up after only 3 hours screaming. So now, because Dan is SO afraid that I am creating a horrible bad habit (I admit it's not good), I have started sleeping with her in the floor in her room. On hardwood...that's fun on a pregnant body. My new goal is to get up in the middle of the night (shouldn't be hard with my peeing pattern lately) and get in our bed, letting her stay in her room.

Anyhoo..the past several nights she has woken crying, several times a night. This is definately new for her and it just occured to me that she might be teething. I just looked it up online and canine teeth typically start popping up between 16-22 months. It would also explain the clinginess that she's had to both me and Dan, which I had attributed to post-hospital regression. So now, I can't wait to get home and hopefully see what's going on in that cute little mouth of hers:)

Update #3: McBabies

I had my OB appt today at 14w4d. She gave me an u/s without my even having to ask. Both babies looked good, with two strongly beating hearts:)

I told her that at the last appt she had rocked my world with her conservative view of this pregnancy and that I left without asking alot of the questions I had hoped to ask. She answered those questions, plus clarified some things that I've had more time to think about since the last appt.

1) When/how will cervical length be checked? The first check will be at my anatomy scan in about 5 weeks. If it's shortened, she'll send me to an MFM.

2) Do I REALLY have to deliver vaginally in the OR, even if there are two placentas? Yes, because once the volume of first baby is gone, the placenta often starts to break apart very quickly.

3) What are criteria for moving to part time work? Pre-term labor signs, general fatigue on my part. SHe prefers half days to cutting down the amount of days worked.

4)Sex? Yes, for now, so long as I'm not contracting, bleeding, etc.

5)Pedicures/massages? Yes to pedicure, but no to foot/calf massages; otherwise for a full body massage only from someone who specializes in maternity massages.

6) What do to about headaches? SHe is calling in a script for me.

7) Insomnia? Benadryl or Tylenol PM is fine, which I already knew

8) When to stop baby aspirin? I can stop now but will probably keep taking for a few more weeks.

Update #2: Sophia

As of April 5, she is 16 months old.
Unofficial stats...

1. She loves to stack things.
2. She loves to sort things. She'll sort the food on her tray into the correct category.
3. If she does something she thinks is exeptional, she will clap for herself and then look at us to make sure we noticed and are also clapping.
4. I'm working with her on animal sounds. She likes to mimic, but all sounds typically come out like "mmmmmmm", although I did think I heard a "quack" last week.
5. Since coming home from the hospital she is more attached to her pacifer, just as we were thinking we were going to wean her.
6. Also since the hospital, it's been impossible to get her to sleep in her crib for more than a few hours at a time.
7. When you say "stinky" she'll grab her nose.
8. She is starting to try to take her arm out of her pajama sleeve. Is this the beginning of trying to undress herself?
9. Since the hospital, she knows where her "boobies" are. Is this bad? She spent several days in only a diaper and finally had access to her body that is usually covered with clothes.
10. She loves my belly button.
11. In the bath (although she still hates them), she loves when I put soap on her hands. She'll rub them together until they are sudsy.
12. The above has translated to wanting to pour her milk or water onto her hands and then rub them together. Fun.
13. She tried to pour milk into my belly button!
14. She loves having bubbles blown at her.
15. She still rocks the whale spout, her bangs aren't quite long enough to tuck behind her ear yet.
16. She loves her "spider book" aka Itsy Bitsy Spider. She doesn't care if it's read to her, but loves to be asked to point out the spiders. Sometimes she gets them, sometimes not.
17. SHe is still OBSCESSED with the trash, and especially likes to pull things out of the kitchen trash can and carry them around.
18. She is learning how to blow kisses:)

Update #1: Me

I am SO behind in posting. I can't blame it on being busy, although that is partly true. Primarily, I blame it on being lazy.

Here goes...

How far along: 14 weeks, 3 days

Total weight gain/loss: 7 pounds, give or take

Maternity clothes: Most pants are maternity at this point. I can still wear some of my regular pants, but the maternity are just SO much more comfy. No tops yet...way huge on me.

Stretch marks: Nope.

Sleep: Still dealing with MAJOR insomnia.

Best moment these last two weeks: Got confirmation from geneticists that McBabies looked great and had very small chances of Down's or Trisomies 18 or 21; Made it to the 2nd trimester---it has gone lightening fast.

Movement: Nope.

Food cravings: Still sweets.

Gender: ??? I guess a boy and girl.

Labor Signs: None

Belly Button in or out: In

Other random yuckiness: My headaches have been out.of.this.world. I had them with Sophie too, but I don't remember them being THIS bad. My head just pounds, at least part of the day, almost every day.

What I miss: A full nights sleep.

What I am looking forward to: OB appt tomorrow

Home again, home again!!!

Phew! We made it home about 6 pm last night.

They declared Sophie ready to leave the PICU about 12 on Sunday. SHe woke up not long after I made my last post and had obviously taken a turn in the right direction. She was playful and moving around, and was becoming hard to keep captive on her bed. The entire staff that worked with us was ALL fantastic (except one). Every time someone came in the room, they asked if we needed anything as they left. And they meant it. Finally, about 1 on Saturday, I told them I needed to hold my daughter. I mean, I slept with her, and cuddled with her, but I had not held her in a LONG time. THe nurse looked at me, looked at Sophie and said "I don't see why not. You have my blessing to unhook her from all the wires." What a GREAT feeling to pull all of those stickers off of her chest and take the b/p cuff off, and the O2 sensor on her toe. Picking her up was just AMAZING!!!!! I can't think of much that has made me that happy in a VERY long time.

We spent about 24 hours on a general medical floor, and once we could get her urine output up, we were ready to be discharged.

Final verdict? We still don't know. It *could* have been a random virus. If that's the case, we will probably never know. Or, it could be the onset of asthma. I'm learning more about it, and the asthma nurse spent a long time with us yesterday, and I'm really leaning towards this might be the issue.

I took Sophie to the dr about 5 weeks ago for wheezing. She had one breathing treatment in the office and was fine. They sent us home with a breathing machine which is why we had it for the treatments we gave her Sat morning before going to the ER. ANother sign of asthma is random night-time coughing, which she also has.

They sent us home with a mask/inhaler to wean her off the abuterol. We're giving her a tretment every 4 hours for 24 hours post discharge, and then every 6 hours for the next 6 days. To treat preventatively, they also gave us a different inhaled med calld Flovent. She gets two puffs in the morning and two in the evening, indefinately I guess.

I'm so glad my baby girl is better. I felt so completely helpless, watching her lay there in such a vulnerable state. Dan just called me and I heard her giggling in the background. Music to my ears:)

Thanks so much for all the good thoughts and vibes!!!

Pediatric ICU

It's currently 4:50 am on Sunday morning. Where to start this story???

Sophie woke up with a runny nose on Friday. No big deal, just a clear, runny, snotty nose. I didn't think much about it, except that I assumed a cold was on it's way. For me, Friday was horrible. Lots of crap happening at work, the pregnancy insomnia continued, so I was really way more excited than I should have been for the Tylenol PM I was planning on taking before bed. As Sophie got closer to bed time, she developed a pretty nasty cough. Something told me it was going to be a long night so I opted not to take the meds. Good decision.

She and I both fell asleep about 8:30, and I woke up at midnight to her labored breathing. She sounded congested. I wrote it off as that. She was never able to go back to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. Therefore, I didn't sleep. I stayed in bed with her until about 3 am, just trying to soothe her, and then at 3 I got us both up and tried to rock her in her rocking chair. It seemsed to help a bit. At 5, we went back to our bed because I was simply exhausted since I'd been up since midnight.

I must have falled asleep b/c Dan woke me up at 6:45 totally freaked out b/c she was breathing so hard. I informed him (not so nicely) that this is how she'd been all night. We decided to pull out the breathing machine that we'd gotten at the pedi office about 5 weeks ago when I took her in for a wheezing episode.

We gave her a treatment (Albuterol) at 7 and then again at 9, and although it helped it wasn't helping enough. She was really struggling.

Dan made the decision to go to the ER. I planned to go if things didn't get better but he made me go earlier rather than later. I remember being SO mad at him b/c I just wanted to take a nap. Getting in the car I opened the corner of the door into my forehead. I remember saying "God, please let this day be over quickly." Little did I know. It was only 10:50 am.

We got to the ER where, long story short, they did another treatment and determined she needed to be admitted for observation. Again, the treatment helped, but not enough. We waited a few hours for a room. Through the ER visit, Sophie was a trooper. She was too tired to really struggle with anything. The official diagnosis was bronchiolotis. Her fast tests came back negative for flu and RSV. An x-ray later in the day showed no pneumonia.

Once in the room, the nurses came in and introduced themselves and made friends with Sophie. After they left, she rolled over on the bed and just lay there. Her face was so calm or tired or something I don't know, but from her neck to her diaper she looked like a fish out of water. We honestly didnt think anything about it. We felt like we were in a good place and she'd get the care she needed.

Soon, two docs came in and one looked at Sophie and immediately looked at the other doc and said why is she here? She questioned us as to whether she looked like that in the ER. Basically, yes, just now she was in diaper only so her breathing was more obvious.

The doc called for a stat PICU referral. She looked at us and said "her lungs are working overtime and I'm afraid her heart won't be able to keep up." While I was still trying to process that, we were surrounded by 12 PICU docs in our room. I looked at Dan and he started crying. I looked away. I could NOT go there. SO there I was, sitting on the bed holding Sophie, surrounded by docs that all looked to be on a mission, very serious (duh). In addition to their coats they all had to wear the yellow drape thing and gloves (since we didn't truly know what was wrong). Needless to say, they were a daunting sight. The plan was to do another breathing treatment and see how things looked after that. I was the obvious choice to administer the treatment, since I was already holding her. So I did, in front of a team of PICU docs. It was very surreal lol. I was holding her in one arm, holding the mask to her face in the other, constantly kissing her forehead calling her "my sweet pea", and rocking her to try to ease her struggle. But, she didn't struggle. She just took it, without a fight. She was just exhausted.

The head PICU doc told us that she needed to be moved to the PICU for at least a day. He thought she may need a continuous albuterol treatment, which was something she could NOT get on a general medical floor. It also meant that she'd need an IV, and not be able to eat/drink.

We've been here since about 5 pm Sat night. We started with the continuous treatment but her little heart was just racing. It was staying steady at about 205-210, but then there came a point where it was 220-225. I knew it was high. THe nurses and the doc kept looking in our room at the monitor. I was ready to freak OUT wondering WTF was taking them so long to do something. I think I said to Dan "why are they just standing there."

They made the decision to cut the treatments to every two hours. Things are finally looking up. Her breathing is still labored, but her lungs sound much better.

My poor sad little baby girl has been put through the ringer. She's got all the wires strapped to her. She actually woke up after the 1 am treatment and was smiling:)

She's still naked, except for her diaper, currently sleeping wrapped in the blanket that a volunteer brought by. More later, but I'm hopeful to make it out of PICU today.