way to go cervix!!

This is the last week of the second trimester and my cervix is holding strong with good measurements! yay!

Baby girl is also doing well, she is measuring right on track size wise but weight wise she is in 75th percentile! Chubby baby. Last estimated weight at the ultrasound last week was 1 pound 14 ounces which is exactly double her weight from 4 weeks previous.  Heart rate was a little high at 179 but tech said it goes up and down.

After all the measurements were done I fished a little and the ultrasound tech (nicest one EVER) turned on 4d for us! We got to see her in 3d but LIVE, it was SOOO freaking cool!  She kept putting her hands up in front of her face but we got a few good pics.

If everything continues to be good I won't have to go back to the Maternal Fetal Care center anymore, I have another appointment with the MFM in September so technically I'm still high risk but all the docs are pleased with how everything is going. 

Pain wise, well that comes and goes, I have days where I feel almost normal then I have days where walking is almost impossible. I have found that I can't be on my feet for more than 20-30 minutes at a time and I can't bend from the waist, both of those things trigger pain.  I have Yoga tonight, I'll have to tell teacher I can't bend from the waist but I think the yoga actually helps so I want to keep going.  I need to start walking on the days I feel good but I'm kind of concerned with getting very far from home and having a bad pain episode with no where to sit down. 

Other symptoms, my hands have started to swell a little, blood pressure is holding steady and I drink tons of water so must just be pregnancy.  Its not bad, just enough to make my rings tight once in awhile.

I do seem to be on an upward trend for my weight, I have days where I am starving! Last night 2 hours after dinner I ate a bagel with cream cheese, a pickle, some grapes and a handful of nuts and then was hungry again before bed but didn't eat again. Guess little girl doubling her weigh every month will do that!

How far along?  26 weeks!  

Total weight gain: -7.6lbs!   

Baby is the size of: bowling pin

Maternity clothes:  bought a few new shirts last week

Stretch marks: None that I didn't already have

Sleep: what's sleep? I toss and turn a lot from back pain

Best moment this week: I was sitting in a meeting with my hands crossed across my stomach and she was kicking so hard she was moving my hands

Miss anything? Beer

Movement: She's quiet when I'm up moving but if I sit down and get quiet she starts dancing

Food cravings: green grapes

Anything making you queasy or sick? Not really

Labor signs: Nope.

Symptoms: Back pain, gas, heartburn, pelvic pain 

Belly button in or out? In.

Wedding rings on or off? On.

Happy or moody most of the time: Happy

Looking forward to: Getting the stuff cleaned out of the nursery room

Oh and here is a quick reference on the months/weeks thing

Glucose and pain and other what nots....

24 weeks, viability, yay!!! Now that being said, this little girl needs to stay in and cook longer! 

Since the last post I've been to see the chiropractor twice and been to pre-natal yoga twice, my back is not really much better than it was before. 

I've been having some issues with constipation (totally new for me) and that in turn is causing me a pain in the bum, like, literally. Sorry for the TMI. I've had this same pain twice in the past, once when I had a bout of colitis coupled with a ruptured hemorrhagic ovarian cyst and the other time after my IVF egg retrieval. It appears to be related to digestion coupled with swollen girly parts (inside parts), I guess it just happens that mine are swollen and full of baby.  Hopefully this passes soon, its a pain in the ass, ha ha. 

Baby girl has been moving around a lot lately, you can see it from the outside now pretty easily and Matthew finally felt her kick for the first time this morning 

I saw my OB last week and my MFM today, the only new issue to report is my groin pain (not the pain in the ass, this is an ache in my pelvic region at the end of the day) is my pubic bones separating. Apparently this happens to all pregnant women but is happening to me early due to my EDS. It's not so bad unless I overdo it.  My MFM said that while I was still at risk for pre-term labor due to my EDS that I was in no immediate danger since my cervix has looked good so far. He talked to me about what to look for in terms of contractions and said that most women usually begin to feel them by 28 weeks.  I talked to him about my anesthesia concerns and he advised me to talk to the anesthesiologist but that the kind they use for epidurals should not be affected by my EDS because its local not systemic. 

In other news I had my 1 hour glucose tolerance test today, and.... I failed it, by TWO points, 2 freaking points!  So now I have to go have the 3 hour test, ugh, not looking forward to that, that icky orange drink

makes me feel like crap the rest of the day.

Here is my 24 week belly

Oh, and here is when I'm sitting looking down!

Looks like I finally "popped"

So here is my weight change since becoming pregnant. It's pretty easy to see where the morning sickness kicked in. Lowest weight was at 18 weeks, I'm at 24 weeks now and have been on an upward trend for a few weeks but am still about 10 pounds down from where I started.  

Updates!

Okay, I won't make you wait this time since I've been bad about posting updates. Here is the ultrasound from June 9th.  Little girl is doing good and measuring on track. She weighed in at approximately 6 ounces that day.

My cervical length was good (4.8 cm) and all of her organs look good so far, they will do more checking when they do the next scan on the 8th of July.

I went in for an appointment with my MFM specialist today. I'd had an echocardiogram a couple weeks ago to check for heart abnormalities due to my Ehlers-Danlos and that looks good.

I also talked to him about my dizzy spells, they have gotten SO much worse, they are happening now even when I am sitting down, its disconcerting. He said there is nothing they can do about them, its common in pregnancy especially when then woman has low blood pressure to begin with. He said it should peak by 20-24 weeks (to which my reaction was "OMG its going to get WORSE???) then start to get better.   I'm starting to be concerned about driving, we'll see how it goes I guess.

We've gotten two cute baby gifts so far, people are great.

Some progress has been made on cleaning out the room for the nursery but not much, gotta work on that this weekend, the dizziness makes that slow work.

All of my brain power is being taken by the fetus.  Getting dressed this morning, pulled a cardigan out of the closet then decided I wanted a different one. Placed the first one back on the hanger and went get the other one but instead took the first one out. Repeat 2 MORE times before I gave up.  I finally got the right cardigan when I started to walk out the door and realized I was chilly.

I think she's been sitting on my colon the past few days, had a bit of an IBS flare up and oh boy does THAT hurt!

Had my first pregnancy related confrontation yesterday, We were in the airport, not much time before our flight and dining choices limited. Decided to grab subway for hubs and I. Ask for Italian for myself and ask them to throw the meat in the microwave and heat it up before putting it on the sandwich. Girl, maybe the manager? Asks me why! First of all none of your business, anyway tell her I'm pregnant and it needs to be heated. She then tells me that is an old wives tale and she knows because she had 4 kids. My response, " you do what you want with you and your kids but this is me and my kid and I want the meat heated" Ugh. THEN I got back to my gate to eat and it was STILL cold! Double ugh!!

Regardless of your views on listeria and eating lunch meat while pregnant it's MY prerogative what I want to eat! I was so annoyed.

Oh, and I have the most awesome husband. We'd been away on a fishing trip for a few days and kept passing by a Dairy Queen, however whenever I decided I wanted it they were already closed. After we got home yesterday he went out and got me dairy queen!

So far weight has stayed about the same for a month. Still down 14lbs from pre-pregnancy. Maternity pants feel more comfortable every day though!

16 week update

Well the 4 month mark has been reached. Baby is the size of a orange (or a soda can maybe).  Things are going pretty well overall.

I had an echocardiogram on Monday to make sure I don't have any heart problems associated with my Ehlers-Danlos I'll get the results of that when I go back to the MFM on the 18th.

Next week is the first ultrasound to check my cervical length, I'll have at least 3 of those a month apart, if its all good after those 3 then I won't have to have anymore.   I need to find out who will be doing my anatomy scan, the MFM or my regular OB.

Oh, AND!!!!!!! We found out we are having a girl!!  The results of the Panorama test came back and everything was low risk (woohoo!) and showed female!

I've been having continuing issues with my blood pressure which is causing the dizzy spells. I've started drinking half of my fluids in a day in Gatorade and that is helping a lot.  Last doctor's appointment my BP was 88/52 and freaked the doctor out. Last night I clocked in at 94/56 so its coming back up.

I'm officially DONE with pants that button around my waist, while I'm still not really showing they HURT me! I've started buying maternity pants and that suck, you have to buy shirts too to cover the panel, who knew???

It's starting to hurt to sleep on my stomach, my regular position, so I am not sleeping well as I try to find a new comfortable position.

Today is day 2 with NO unisom!  The nausea seems to have departed for the most part but my appetite has not come back without the help of the Unisom.  Current weight loss is 15.4 lbs.

Here is my 16 weeks belly.

 

Appointments, appointments and more appointments

Wednesday I went and had the blood draw for the Panorama blood test which will tell us the baby's risk for the trisomies and also the gender, that takes 7-10 days to come back.

Then I went for another ultrasound at the Maternal Fetal Medicine center. I really liked the sonographer, she was super nice. Even though an NT scan had not been ordered she was able to get the  measurement and did it anyway (measurement was 1.8 and anything under 2.5 is good) and made a gender guess of girl! Baby is growing on schedule with the revised due date and looks good so far.  Heart Rate was 167.

After that I went up to see the Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist who is consulting due to my age and the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. He asked me a bunch of questions and seemed happy with how I was progressing. He ordered an echocardiogram to rule out any problems with my heart and I have to go back for ultrasounds once a month to check my cervical length (yay, more pictures).

So I have 4 appointments coming up in the next month, its a good thing my boss is understanding!

We did our facebook announcement while we were on vacation. 

 As of this week I've lost 14 pounds so far. My nausea is starting to get better, I've cut back on the unisom, that has increased my fatigue though which is weird because I didn't know it was helping with that. 

Oh, and I cry over anything now, hormones are crazy! I'm not a cryer but I cry at least once a day, so weird for me!

Skip-to-ma-loo my darling

Went in for my ultrasound and doctors appointment yesterday and not only is little bit doing well she is measuring almost a week ahead so my due date got adjusted to 11/16.  Heart Rate was 165 and length (rump to crown) was 4.1cm (around 2 inches). To put that in perspective the baby is about the size of a donut hole.  Doctor said we're doing well, she wrote me an Rx for nausea meds since I'm still struggling with that, although the unisom helps so much that I won't take the Rx unless it gets really bad, I mostly wanted it for a safety net while we are on vacation.

We will be doing the Panorama cell free dna testing for trisomys in a couple weeks. They take blood from me and a cheek swab from hubs and check the fetal dna present in my blood to see if there is a high risk of any of the trisomies and a few other things. As a bonus they tell you the gender!

I am being sent to see a Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist on 5/13 because of my connective tissue disorder (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome). They will do another ultrasound that day too. I'll post more about that then.

For now, still dealing with fatigue and nausea though that seems to be tapering off a bit.

Here is one of the ultrasound pics, it is SO crazy to see her jumping around on the screen. She looks like she has a horn because she kept putting her hands in front of her face.

Yes, today I am saying she, yesterday I said He all day, we'll see soon but until then I just mix it up. :)