Flashbacks: pregnancy and Jordan

I'm watching my baby sleep.  She's wearing a blue onesie with two pink birds and pink and white striped pants. Every once in awhile, she'll let out a deep sigh that lets me know she is sleeping soundly.  And then, every once in awhile, she'll sound like a dinosaur to let me know that shes restless.

I stare at her face and she's so pretty and perfect, and I can't believe she's mine. But instead of focusing on the present, I look at her and see monitors.

I'm strapped to the monitors, listening to her heartbeat and watching the machine pump out a strip that details her heart rate, her movements, and my contractions. Three times a week. I hear the busy nurses out in the hallway, tending to patients and making phone calls. A flat screen tv is to my left and the Food Network is on. I watch it, all the while extremely aware of how many times my baby is moving. Will she pass today?

I look at my baby and I see ultrasounds. Twice a week. I hold my breath during BPPs and hope that I leave with good news.  Her growth scans cause me even more anxiety.  I know every time I go, her growth will have slowed down.  At the end, it was practically at a standstill when she should have been growing by leaps and bounds. I see her on the screen, shielding her face by throwing her arms over it. I almost like it this way, like seeing her face will be a great surprise when she is born.

I hold my baby and I think of the weekly progesterone shots that were supposed to prevent preterm labor.  Without them, would I have gone into labor earlier than 34 weeks? Would I have delivered her as a micro-preemie, like her brothers?  What would her fate have been?

Sometimes she will smile at me, or let out a laugh in her sleep. "Ha, ha, ha!," she'll say to me. And I'll smile back at her, and then remember how her heart rate slowed down while I pushed to get her out. I remember being rushed into the OR and the nurses shielding the monitors from me. I remember her crying as they lifted her up over the blue curtain so that I could see my girl. She was so tiny. I remember my first question was "Is she okay?" but my first thought was "OMG. She is so tiny."  Dr. D, who delivered her, would tell me at my postpartum appointment, "I remember she didn't like labor... well, more like the pushing..." and he stared at her in amazement.  I know what he was thinking. How is she here, full term and healthy?

I think of the fertility treatments we went through. Our loss with our boys. A struggle to get back to normalcy. Throwing myself back into fertility treatments. Our chances of success with her cycle? Twenty percent. And she is here.

Maybe someday, I will stop looking at her and thinking of the struggle, the pain, and the anxiety of trying to get her here. But that has not passed just yet.

She is still sleeping in her pink rocker, her hair standing up and her arms down at her side for once. Her cheeks are chubby and full, very unlike the day she was born. I know she will wake up soon and fuss, but the minute I pick her up she will calm down. I cannot wait for her to wake up, kiss her chubby cheeks, and tell her how much I love her.

29 weeks

First, thank you to everyone who submitted their information to participate in Conner and Benjamin's RAOK for their birthday!  I am so humbled and so blessed to have such support from so many people - so many of you have given me strength this past year, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you, thank you.

If you tried submitting your  information via the contact form at the bottom of the blog, I just realized that it may or may not have worked. I apologized. You can leave your email in a comment and just indicate if you would like me to delete the comment as soon as I write down your email address.

I will be sending out the cards sometime next week - I am still waiting on people whose information is trickling in slowly.  That way, I can send out the cards all at once. If anyone still would like to participate, let me know :)

Kate, a fellow blogger and the HUGEST SWEETHEART, sent me this necklace for Conner and Ben's birthday. As you can imagine, I love everything about this - anything that reminds me of my boys is so special to me, and this even more so because it came from someone who has not only had a loss herself, but grew to know Conner and Ben through this blog. Thank you, Kate.  I can't even begin to tell you how happy this makes me!

In other news, Baby C is 29 weeks today!

I am obviously running out of wardrobe choices. But I'm getting ready for some NST time so I figured, welp, might as well be comfortable!

How far along? 29 weeks
What's happening with  baby? Baby weights about 2.5 pounds and is about 15 inches long (about the size of a butternut squash).  She is beginning to regulate her temperature and her bone marrow is in charge of producing her own blood cells!  She's also peeing quite a bit... and then swallowing it. Luckily, its just amniotic fluid :)
Total weight gain: 14 pounds
Maternity clothes?  Nope not really. Yoga pants are still my go-to! I'm not sure if I'll ever really wear maternity shirts - its hoodie season and they work perfect!
Stretch marks? Nada
Sleep: I'm peeing less in the middle of the night (*knock on wood) and I lost the extra sleep I've been getting because of it!
Miss Anything?  Being able to roll out of bed easily - Baby C is now in the way when I try to get out of bed, crouch down to pet Miranda, etc. Tim has to give me a hand sometimes - I laugh everytime he does. I have a feeling I won't be able to do certain things soon!
Difficulties this week:  Still wrapping my head around IUGR and the possibility that Baby C may be stillborn. But I'm on the monitor as I type this and I can hear her heartbeat and feel her moving away!
Movement: She is, as the nurse commented the other day, a mover and a shaker.
Food cravings/aversions:  Dare I say the dairy aversion is gone for good? The other day, Tim bought like, 10 boxes of fruit snacks.  Guess who is eating them 7 times a day.
Symptoms: Woke up this morning to swelling in my hands. Hooray for my sausage fingers.
Looking forward to: Getting to my original goal of 30 weeks next week! It seems like such a big number.

11 months. 28 weeks. Christmas. Big update on Baby C.

Yesterday, Conner and Ben had their 11 month birthday in heaven.  I cannot believe it has been 11 months.  Now that we are past this milestone, we are heading into their first birthday.  My mind still cannot wrap around the fact that they have been gone for so long.  It feels like just a few weeks ago that we were saying hello to them, and then saying goodbye.  You would think that losing them would get easier with time - but it doesn't. It gets worse. I'm beginning to forget what their baby lotion smelled like, what it felt like to kiss their little heads, the grasp of their fingers. Please God, do not let me forget these precious moments with my sons.

Just this week, I was thinking that our boys have not given us any signs from heaven lately.  We have been finding dimes every once in awhile in places that they shouldn't be, but that is about it.  I was thinking that it would be wonderful to get a big sign from them like when the smoke detector went off in their nursery, reminding me to put their urn in a fireproof box before we went on vacation.

So imagine my joy on their 11th birthday when Tim went to the FD and found these two dimes in front of his locker:

and then even more so, when I opened the door to our master bedroom and our smoke detector went off, signaling smoke that did not exist.  I have to admit, I was scared at first.  But then I was so happy that my boys read my mind - like, ok mom, you want another smoke detector to go off?  Here you go!

This morning, I dropped off donations at the hospital Conner and Benjamin were born at.  We are so blessed to have had an excellent nursing team with us during our stay there.  We also had numerous doctors who did everything they could to prevent the boys being born before 24 weeks, and then when that failed, they did everything they could to do right by the boys and by us.  My sister-in-law, Tim, and I bought preemie clothing for the NICU and bought "Conner giraffes" and "Benjamin puppies" for the Children's hospital.  When I went to drop off the box of donations, I made sure to tell the nurse that the giraffes and puppies were the same ones that we gave our babies in the hospital. We cannot get them many things for Christmas, nor can we celebrate with them the way that we could have had they been brought home. But I am determined to do good in their name, and I hope that every year we can donate to the hospital in their memory.

We donated two of Ben's puppies, two of Conner's giraffes, and two different puppies and two different giraffes

Ben's puppies

Conner's giraffes

On each stuffed animal, I sewed on a blue taggie with stars and moons. I love you to the moon and back, baby boys. 

Preemie clothes given to the NICU

Today also marks 28 weeks for their little sister. As our time without our boys grows longer, our time to meet our little girl grows near. I know it will be a difficult journey to be a mother to angel babies and a mother to living children, but I think that Conner and Benjamin will slowly show me how to do it.

Bonus: FD Christmas party bump!

How far along? 28 weeks.  If she were born today, she would have over a 90% chance of survival.
What's happening with  baby? Baby C is about 2 pounds, 4 ounces (per her ultrasound today) and is almost 15 inches long (estimate from Baby Center).  Her brain is starting to develop folds and is gaining weight quickly. She can dream!
Total weight gain: 13 pounds, although I ate my feelings today so probably more like 15 after dinner
Maternity clothes?  Not really.  I have a pair of maternity leggings that I wear, but they are still big! Luckily, I found a "new" pair of (non-maternity) yoga pants in the back of my closet that I must have bought when I was pregnant with the boys.  They fit perfect and give my belly lots of support!
Stretch marks? Surprisingly no.
Sleep: Up all night to pee, and tired all day (and still peeing)
Miss Anything?  I gave Tim my delivery day wish list last night: sushi, grilled cheese with bacon, California club from Jimmy Johns, and eggs benedict.

Difficulties this week: 

Well, today was the 28 week growth scan.  I admit, I went in optimistic that her head had caught up to the rest of her body.

I could not be more wrong. 

Baby C's head circumference went from the 11th percentile down to the 4th percentile this week.  Her BPD (Biparietal Diameter) improved slightly, from the 4th percentile to the 5th percentile.  But her abdomen was the big news - it went from the 33rd percentile to the 10th percentile.  Baby C now qualifies as having IUGR (intrauterine growth restriction).  This usually happens when the placenta does not implant properly.  Shitty luck, again.

So, the chances of Baby C being a stillborn are increased.  In an effort to catch any problems before something horrible happens, I am being monitored twice a week for NSTs and Biophysical profiles.  If the baby does not perform well on the twice weekly monitoring, she will be delivered early in an effort to save her. 

The good news? She rocked her NST today.  Her baseline HB is 150.  They look for her HB to raise to at least 160 every time she moves, and they want her to do that at least twice while I am being monitored.  She was monitored for about 15 minutes and she moved and her HB raised over FIFTY times.  The nurses kept walking in asking who was making all that noise!  Just this little bundle of energy over here!  

If she continues to do well on her monitoring, we won't have to deliver early.  Maybe she is just small.  But every week she keeps getting smaller and smaller (percentile-wise), and that is raising many red flags.  

Baby girl, hang in there. 


Movement: All the time for me!  Not really for Tim. Poor guy. Everytime he goes to feel her, she freezes.
Food cravings/aversions:  Eat all the sugar! And all the food in general.
Symptoms: Swelling.  Also, yesterday I almost passed out from being dizzy.  Luckily my home health care nurse was there.  I think I was just pushing myself too hard to get stuff done around the house and my body was trying to get me to settle down. I'm also now borderline anemic - they look for levels to be above 10.5 and I am at a 10.8, so onto iron supplements I go!
Looking forward to: My original goal was to still be pregnant on Christmas, which would be 30 weeks.  The more I think about it, my goal is really to get to February 1st (and beyond).  C'mon, February!

Little Munchkin