Update 1/13/11

Ok so I finally get a chance to tell you ladies about my crazy day. Let me just start off by saying that prayer and positive thinking works.
So as you ladies know, 4 weeks ago Monday my water broke. I was down to 1.8cm of fluid and pretty much told to go home to wait to lose my baby. I was doing the weekly follow ups with my peri and my OB and just praying against hope that things would go well. Every week it seemed that more fluid was building so I just kept praying. Last Wednesday at my last Peri appointment I was told that my cervix was at 2.2cm and that I needed to have a cerclage done because we needed to do everything to keep this baby cooking. My fluids were up to 17cm as well. So it seemed like one problem "controlled" another problem starting. So on Monday I went to THE hospital that does the cerclages downtown to meet with their doctor, made my mom and David both come for support. I have been researching cerclages after pPROM and everything I read said that it wasn't done because of risk of infection. I figured I would go in, listen to what was said and make my decision. Infection is my biggest risk right now. So we get there and they want to do some measurements before starting anything so David and I get into the room and they do the abdominal ultrasound first. Baby girl looks great, growing perfectly, fluid looks great. Then the tech says it's time to do your transvaginal ultrasound and the doctor wants to be in there for that one. Ok here goes, I'm thinking what are they going to tell me now? While they are looking at the screen the doctor asks me, "Why do you think you are here?" So I tell him I have a short cervix. He says ok. Let's talk when you get dressed. I'm still paranoid thinking he's going to say it got shorter. My cervix is a freaking 3.9cm! Not 2.2cm like I was told a week ago. He says that just looking at my ultrasounds he never would have known I was high risk because my fluid is great and my cervix isn't short at all. He asked me was I sure my water broke and questions as to why they thought it was. He said he can't talk for the ER that I went to and because my subsequent ultrasounds showed low fluid that it appears that my water broke but it must have sealed over. He also can't explain why my cervix is longer today than last week. Basically he said that at the moment, he wouldn't consider me high risk however because there was this past evidence he would still make me take the bedrest precautions. He's going to pass this information to my peri and my OB but he says that things look great.

My Mom

I thought I would update and talk about the most important people in my life right now, not including the baby even though she is the most important. The first is my mom and that's only because she is my arms and legs for me right now. If it weren't for her support I have no clue what I would do. When my water broke, she "allowed" me to stay at her house for half of the week and go home for the other half. I say "allowed" because she actually demanded that I pack up (or that David pack my stuff) and I come straight to her house. Whenever I would go back to my place she would pretty much beg me to stay but I felt like I needed to be at home and spending time with David as well. When I got the news about my cervix on Wednesday, she put her foot down and I'm staying at her house until time to go to the hospital. This woman who is dealing with just being diagnosed with MS in June is now the one taking care of me. She works 8-10hours a night and then rushes home in the morning to make sure that I'm ok. She is constantly at my beck and call (and I try so hard not to bug her), she takes me to all of my doctor's appointments even if it means not being able to sleep much in time to go back to work. She had paid for some of the appointments because of losing my job, and has pretty much taken care of the nursery furniture. She is doing this because she is awesome! Yesterday she told me to stop saying Thank You to her because this is what she is supposed to do as my mother. When I'm in pain, she lays with me, when I'm sad and depressed she hugs and holds me. Sometimes I feel like a little kid but it's so important and I'm so glad that we have the relationship that we do. I don't know what I would do without my mom!

Rock bottom

Yesterday was a great day but today turned it around.
Yesterday I learned that my employment wouldn't be terminated from my job due to bedrest therefore my insurance is still in effect and I will be getting short term disability. I had been told last week that I was going to be terminated and my insurance discontinued on the last day of December. I was trying to figure out how I was going to do my doctor's appointments and save money while not working.
Today I woke up feeling positive, I had an appointment with the peri and because things had been going great, I foolishly assumed that things would be the same. My AFI is 17 which is great but they couldn't see my cervix on the ultrasound so said I needed a transvaginal one. I didn't want to because of my fear of infection but they explained that they needed to check my cervix. My cervix is at 2.2cm and now I'm being referred to the hospital for a cerclage. I know that if this can be done and I remain on strict bedrest things could still be ok but I'm so depressed because it's hard. I never thought during my first pregnancy that I would even be going through this. The worst feeling I have is that my baby is healthy and progressing the way that she should but that she might not survive because my body won't cooperate. I feel horrible because she is innocent and precious and I feel that I should be protecting her and can't cause of my body. I just don't know what else to do or feel.

Graduated!

I know it's not much but I officially graduated from once a week appointments to every other week. The latest AFI that we got today at the peri's office was 11.3 and my cervix is still closed.... My blood test results are also good so no infection. I will be having a blood test every week to check to make sure my white cell counts are staying low. Fun times. I'm staying positve and looking more and more towards seeing my little girl.

This week we started buying things and we ordered the bassinet. I'm lucky that one of my friends is giving me her baby clothes and my mom is putting the travel system and crib on layaway tomorrow. Yay! 

Anatomy Scan

I had my anatomy scan today. It was already scheduled before my water broke and I was nervous. I haven't been feeling the baby move much and since my mom took my doppler away (apparently I've been using it too much) I've been worried. So we get there and the first thing we see on the screen is a fibroid. Ugh.........Turns out I have a total of 4 instead of the 2 that we thought I had. Fibroids are known to cause the sac to weaken which gives us more to think about. That makes me more worried but we will deal with it as we can. The best news is that she is growing right on schedule and my AFI is now up to 10.65. This is supposedly in the low normal range. It's little steps like this that make me so hopeful and so happy that I wasn't asked to terminate. I went from 1.8cm 2 weeks ago to this. Just have to keep thinking positive. I still have to see my OB tomorrow and the peri on Wednesday but things are looking great now.

Christmas Morning.

Sorry for the lapse in updating. This past few days has been hectic and crazy. I found out that I have/had an infection on Wednesday which caused my world to spiral, luckily, it wasn't so serious that it could compromise me or the baby so I got the antibiotics that I needed and I'm good. Then Wednesday afternoon I was informed by my employer that because of my bedrest status being indefinite, they were going to let me go because I don't qualify for FMLA yet. I've only been there for 8 months and I understand that part but........I was hoping that the STD that I have been paying for would allow me some time with insurance and income. Unfortunately that's not the way it goes. I'm not going to stress or worry. I don't have time for that and it's not good for my baby. By the way, I feel that when I get to Saturdays that my week is almost over and it's so much closer to meeting another goal. We have the anatomy scan on Monday, my regular OB appointment on Tuesday and my now regular appointment with the Peri on Wednesday, very busy week. Ok all, that's it for my updates today, its 6am on Christmas morning and I should be resting because David is coming over for the holiday with my family and then I get to go home for 2 days! Yay!!! I hope everyone has a great day and remember to keep thinking positive.

Really good day today.

A quick update from me. I went to the ER around 1am last night because the pain was so unbearable. I had a pelvic exam done, everything looks good, so they gave me an IV to rehydrate and a vicodin for the pain. I fell asleep almost instantly. I hadn't slept since Sat/Sun night. I went to see my OB today and he gave me an Rx for the Vicodin to take as needed so at least I'll have something to help. We saw the baby on the ultrasound and there is more fluid there than last week. I love my doctor because he lets us be hopeful without hoping too much. He thinks it's great that there is more and I saw my little bean moving and waving. Went to see the Peri as well today and I really think I'm going to like him alot. The first step was the ultrasound room where I got to see my little baby. The baby was moving around pretty well and we got lots of great pictures. She calculated that my AFI was around 8 but did say it's a guess because it's too early to divide my abdomen into quadrants. She did find out that the fibroids are what's causing the pain, in fact when she was pushing on my sore spot there was a big fibroid. I also got to find out that we are having a GIRL!! I'm so excited! After the ultrasound, we met with the doctor. He was very informative and explained alot, even the bad. He didn't tell me to terminate or encourage it, he just asked what my thoughts were. I told him that I wanted to keep going until I couldn't go anymore and he said great. He says that he is happy to see the fluid, he says there is more than enough to help the baby's development. He did explain that the fibroids will cause the most problem, they are known to weaken the sac so we are watching the closely. I'll be seeing him every week until 24 weeks when we will decide if I need to be hospitalized.That's about it for now but at least we know that there is still hope.