The FIRST Baby Boy...

My name is Winston, and I would like to state for the record that I'm sick of hearing about this baby. Please let it be understood that I am the FIRST baby boy in this family, and I will not be replaced or undermined by this "new" baby boy. I am pictured here making my position known...

What a Difference a Few Weeks Make

We had our follow up visit at the doctor's office today. I am happy to report that everything checked out well. The baby is doing great, and I have been complication-free for 9 days now.

Casey is also happy to report that he has done a good job trying to fatten me up for the past two weeks. (Seriously, you should see the portion sizes he's been giving me!!!) I have gained an additional 4 pounds in the past 2 weeks, and have now gained a total of 8.5 pounds. They say you should have gained about 10 pounds by the time you have reached twenty weeks (I am in my 20th week now), so I'd say we're right on track. My fundal height (distance from pubic bone to top of uterus) measured in at 22 centimeters. This was the first time they took this measurement, so I'm not sure what it should be, but is it just me, or does that seem like a whole lot? I have included a few "pregnant Kelly" pictures for those of you who keep asking to see my belly. Ugh!

In the past two weeks, I have also begun to feel what I am pretty certain is the baby kicking. It doesn't feel like true kicks yet, but I can definitely feel my stomach moving around. Feels kind of like little flutters. The doctor said it should begin to feel like unmistakable kicking in the next two to four weeks, and Casey should also be able to feel it by then too (right now, he cannot).

We have begun reading to the baby before bedtime. Hopefully he is enjoying the stories. Daddy is much more animated than Mommy, although I will admit that both of us seem to have a difficult time reading Dr. Seuss books -- very complicated words!!!

Happy New Year to everyone!

Sigh of Relief

We were back at the doctor's office today for another ultrasound. Very good news today: they found no evidence of any further bleeding, and therefore no cause for any more alarm. Bed rest is officially over! It also appears that I misunderstood something from our last ultrasound -- my placenta is NOT too low, which rules out placenta previa. Sorry for the false alarm.

Today's ultrasound was a very thorough one where they do all sorts of measurements to make sure the baby has all of his organs, that he doesn't have club feet or a cleft (sp?) lip or thick eyelids (which would possibly indicate down syndrome), that things are functioning properly, etc. Everything checked out very well.

The coolest thing of all is that the ultrasound tech caught a picture of Baby Otis sucking his thumb!!! It is so amazing, and as a friend put it, "makes him look more like a baby and less like a blob." Couldn't have said it any better.

We are extremely relieved following today's news. The only bad things to come from our appointment are that we are not allowed to travel for the holidays (we are so sad to not be spending time with our families -- what on earth are we going to do by ourselves???) and that I am still not allowed to go on walks with the dogs.

Back to the doctor in two weeks for another check-up. Will update again then, if not before.

Happy holidays!!!

Drumroll please

The one good thing to come from our scare is this: we had an ultrasound done a week earlier than expected. Guess what, IT'S A BOY!!!!!!!!!!!

Growing up a bit of a tom boy, this was a huge relief for me. I was envisioning days of braiding hair (I don't know how) and ballet recitals.

Casey is also pleased with this development, particularly since he has been coming up with Red Sox related names for the past few weeks "just in case". His favorite name right now is "Boston". When addressing my belly, he always calls it "Boston". As in, "Boston, isn't your Mom acting like a hormonal lunatic today?" I need to impress upon him the important fact that this baby will NOT be named Boston. After all, wouldn't that make his initials B.O.? That's just cruel.

One Crazy Night

For those of you who do not want to know yucky pregnancy details (do not feel bad, I am normally one of those people), do not read the next paragraph. Suffice it to say that I experienced some pregnancy complications on Monday night and Casey and I were given quite a scare.

[For those of you who prefer details, read on. On Monday evening, while I was taking one of my numerous nightly visits to the bathroom, I found that I had some fairly minimal bleeding. As I have not had any bleeding during either pregnancy prior to this, it was cause for much alarm on my part. Not knowing what to do, I got on the internet at 2:00 a.m. and tried to google my symptoms (after all, everything on the internet is true). What I found was this: most bleeding after the first trimester is indicative of serious problems and likely means that you are having a miscarriage or some complication that will kill you and the baby. Just what someone who has already suffered through a miscarriage and is already overly paranoid in this pregnancy wants to hear.]

Ok, back to the story for all who are interested (no more gross details). After sitting in a total state of panic for a few minutes, I decided it was probably time to wake Casey up. To his credit, Casey remained relatively calm (bless his heart, he has a tendency to do this when I am freaking out) and convinced me that it was probably a good idea to call the after hours emergency nurse at our OB/GYN's office. So around 2:30 a.m., we finally got to speak with someone that has more medical knowledge than us (which is little, particularly in the area of pregnancy) and she decided that because I was having spotting and some cramping, I should probably get in to see the doctor as soon as possible. I was left with instructions to call the office at 8:30 to schedule an appointment. Fortunately, they were able to get us in at 10:00, so the wait was relatively short, which was what we needed after a sleepless night of worry.

Thankfully, the nurse who saw us knew how nervous we were that we'd lost another baby (perhaps it was the fact that I was crying???), and immediately took out the magic wand that lets you hear the baby's heartbeat, if there is one (to fully understand how excrutiating this process is for us, it was during this magic wand session that we found out that we'd miscarried during the first pregnancy). It was a total blessing to hear the sweet sound of our baby's heartbeat within what was probably 5 seconds, but felt more like 5 hours. The baby's heartbeat was very strong, and it was at this point that we started to relax a bit (more tears on my part and clapping and a sigh of relief from Casey's section of the room). The next step was to have an ultrasound done to determine the cause of my complications.

Let me just say a few things about ultrasounds in general. First, they are really cool. There's nothing more interesting than seeing your baby on screen. Second, in our experience the person performing the ultrasound (the ultrasound tech) has a troublesome accent and is almost always very difficult to understand. This has led to much confusion on our part as to what on earth we are actually looking at or being told.

The first thing that the ultrasound showed was a heartbeat. The second thing was a big blob that seemed to be shifting around a lot. As it turns out, the big blob was a view of the baby looking from the top of its head down (who knew). The last time we'd had an ultrasound done (which was when I was 7 and 1/2 weeks along, or about 10 weeks ago), there really wasn't a whole lot to see -- just a tiny thing that the ultrasound tech labeled "baby" and another tiny thing that she labeled "yolk sac" (I had never really thought about the fact that a yolk sac would be involved...). Well, let me just tell you how much changes in 10 weeks. We got to see a head, an elbow, hands, feet, eyes, nose, chin, etc. Even a profile of the baby's head (which, I will add, was difficult for the ultrasound tech to get because the baby kept moving around so much -- active little thing -- let's hope that means we have a future athlete on our hands). Like I said, so cool!!! We also got to see a view of the baby's rump, which allowed the ultrasound tech to determine the gender. I will save that detail for another post...

That part of the ultrasound was so amazing that we almost (almost) forgot the reason we were there in the first place. Unfortunately, the ultrasound tech brought us back to reality and tried (with the accent that we cannot understand) to explain the problem.

[More yucky pregnancy stuff, so the faint at heart should skip this paragraph. As it turns out, there was some hemmoraghing (fancy word for bleeding) going on with the placenta. Not knowing what a hemmorage was (or how to spell it!!!) and not really understanding a placenta or its importance, I had no idea what this really meant or the severity of it. I'm still not sure that I do. What I do know, however, is that the placenta is very important and it is not a good thing if it detaches from the uterine wall prematurely (can lead to severe bleeding and the death of the baby and/or the mother). Apparently the problem is that a small piece of my placenta has detached itself from the uterine wall (sort of like a flap). They do not know why this happens, but were kind enough to tell me that it definitely was not my fault (I hope that's true). There is nothing that can really be done to fix this, except to hopefully allow the bleeding to dry up and stop, in which case the problem isn't really a problem anymore. I think, but am not sure, that means that the piece of placenta that has pulled away reattaches itself. In addition to this problem, it was also discovered that my placenta is relatively close to the cervix. As with all things related to my body and pregnancy, I really have no idea what the cervix does, where it's supposed to be, or where the placenta is supposed to be in relation to it. But from what I have gathered, it is not a great thing if they are too close to each other. This is called "placenta previa" and, based on the number of my friends who I have talked to about this scare in the past few days that have received similar diagnoses, must be fairly common. 99% of the time it works itself out as the baby and the uterus grow (meaning that the expansion of the uterus causes the placenta to move farther and farther away from the cervix). Hopefully I will be in that 99%. If not, I think what that means is that I'll have to have a C-section, which although probably not ideal, is a whole lot better than some of the scary alternatives I had been inventing in my mind.]

Ok, back to non-yucky stuff. So, what it all boils down to is this... I am on bed rest for the remainder of this week, and possibly the beginning of next week, which explains why I have the time to post such a lengthy account of what happened.

Bed rest... now, maybe it's just me, but this sounds like it should be AWESOME!!! Someone has actually given you a medical reason to sit in bed and relax all day every day. It is also a medical requirement that Casey wait on me hand and foot. Well, let's be honest, it is TERRIBLE!!! I am not good at sitting still to begin with, but trying to do this during holiday shopping season and while my house is a mess because I was sick last week is agonizing. I am laying in bed looking at a mountain of laundry that needs to be folded. Problem is that the doctor specifically forbid from carrying around any amount of laundry (how did they know???). Not to mention the horrible guilt I feel for not being at work (you would think the time off from work would be the best part of bed rest). Perhaps I will start feeling less guilty about this chaos surrounding me soon enough to enjoy watching daytime TV, reading books, shopping for Christmas presents (and baby stuff!!!) on-line, etc.

But enough rambling for today. I have a follow-up doctor's visit and another ultrasound next Wednesday, and hopefully they will have nothing but good news for us. Now THAT would be the best Christmas present ever!!!

Sweet Sounds

Today was the BIG doctor's appointment. The one that, if successful, would mean that we have made it through our first trimester without incident.

Our visit to the doctor's office began with some sort of wand thing that they move back and forth over my tummy to try to find the baby's heartbeat. The doctor says trying to find the heartbeat is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. The wait is traumatizing, but alas, there it is... the very fast thump thump thump of the heartbeat. Ahhh, a sigh of relief.

The heartbeat measures in at about 163. This is at the high end of the healthy heartbeat range, or so we're told. We have also been told that a quick heartbeat means it's a girl. We will see...

Next appointment is scheduled for December 17th. On the 17th, they will do the anatomy ultrasound and we will find out the gender of the baby. More waiting, more stress, but we are absolutely THRILLED that the baby is doing well and that we've made it through the first trimester!!! Chances of a miscarriage decrease significantly now, which is of particular importance to us.

For those of you who will be wondering, my first trimester was fairly tolerable. I have not experienced much morning sickness, only brief moments when I feel queasy if I've waited too long to eat. I have continued to run and play tennis. I haven't cried much. Only Casey will be able to truly tell you if I've been moody, but I think I've been pretty decent. I have gained 3.5 pounds so far.

Well, we are off to finally go share the news with our family and friends that we are pregnant. We were waiting to share the news with everyone (including our parents and sisters) until after we'd made it through the first trimester. Finally. Neither of us is very good at keeping a secret.

Testing 1-2-3

A few thoughts about pregnancy tests...

Don't even bother buying the ones that have lines or crosses that are supposed to indicate whether or not you are pregnant. In my very brief experience, the lines always seem to be faint enough to make you wonder whether it means the test is positive or negative. I don't care if they're cheaper, skip them. Go straight to the digital ones that say the result in words. "You're pregnant" is pretty hard to misinterpret, and you don't find yourself holding the dip stick in 50 different directions to see what the line looks like in different lighting. Just my two cents worth.

I have now taken 3 pregnancy tests today because neither Casey nor I could be certain that there actually was a line on the first two. It seemed like there might be a faint line, but neither of us could really tell. And we have a lot of years of education between us. Fortunately, I am cheap and decided to buy the box of pregnancy tests at the store that had the two "regular" tests plus one "free" digital test that told you the results in words (who can pass up 3 tests for the price of 2???). This digital test was a last resort for me, but it has confirmed that we are, in fact, pregnant!!!

It is going to be total agony not being able to tell my parents this news. They arrive in two days for the Bears-Panthers game. I wonder how I will fake my way through drinking at the tailgate?!?!

Ugly Handwriting and Poor Record Keeping

Let me confess two things: I have horrible handwriting. Also, despite good intentions, I am just not good at documenting important things.

Because of this, I have decided to create a blog in anticipation of someday having a successful pregnancy and a son or daughter who might be curious about his/her early days. Baby books are adorable, but I fear that I will not be good at keeping up with one. And even if I do keep up, the odds of anyone being able to read my handwriting years later are slim.

This blog shall also serve the purpose of updating our families and friends on what is going on with us. Our families and friends are spread out all over the country. (Actually, now that I think about it, all over the world.) As much as we would love to keep up with everyone, it seems that it is nearly impossible to do so. So to keep everyone that is interested in the loop, we will try to update everyone here, at least with the important things that are going on with us.

So here we begin our journey. Let's hope for a smooth road ahead...

Watching over us

It was with great sadness that we learned we had suffered a miscarriage back in June of 2008. This picture was taken by me during our trip to Nova Scotia to celebrate Casey's parents' 40th wedding anniversary a few days later, and as soon as I saw it the first time, I knew it would serve as a reminder to me that Baby Otis #1 will forever be in our hearts and will watch over us and his/her brothers and sisters for years to come.