Ben's picture

Ben came home today with his class pictures and his newest individual picture taken there too. So just to share and let everyone see how handsome he's getting, I'm going to post it here. I can't believe he's almost 7 though. Time really has gone by so fast. He's very smart and is a great big brother. So without further ado, here's Ben's picture.

Abigail Ann

So Thursday was the big day. Bryce and I got to the hospital around 7:00 that morning and checked in. We had to wait about 15 minutes for someone to come take us back to our room though. Shortly after we got to the room and I was changed into the hospital gown, my doctor showed up and broke my water. The nurse was trying to find a good vein to do the I.V. while he was doing that. I did warn her that I have hard veins to find, which she agreed with after attempting two times to get in the I.V. She decided to call in someone else to try to get it in, which that nurse finally did on the second try. So yes, it took 4 tries for the I.V. And yes, my arms are still bruised.

At about 8:15, they finally got the pitosin and the penicillin started (I'm Strep B positive too, which is why they need the penicillin) and we sat back to wait. It didn't take too long before the contractions were really starting to hurt, especially the ones that were getting me nicely in my back. They started to hurt more when they had me lie on my right side for some reason, but it seemed to help things progress better to have me there. So I was very happy when around 11 (I think) I finally got the epidural. At that point, Bryce told me that he thought that if I had to choose between having him in the room or having the epidural, that I'd choose the epidural. I couldn't disagree. I love the epidural. And the bonus this time was that it only took one try to get it in, unlike the three tries each it took with Chris and with Daniel.

After the epidural was in and working nicely, the nurse checked my cervix again and I was at a 4 and "really stretchy." This was probably a little before noon.
Before the nurse left the room, she said to let her know as soon as I started feeling pressure. Shortly after she left, my doctor came back in to check on me and told me the same thing the nurse had. A little before 12:30, I decided I'd better call the nurse. She came in and checked me and I was at an 8, so she paged my doctor. He arrived, they got everything set up and had me start pushing. Two contractions later, at 12:39, Abigail was born.

Because of the antibody in my system, they had the NICU nurses on hand to immediately check her out. They would ask the doctor questions, like what the biliruben count was when they did the amnio (which he hadn't really looked at because he was more concerned with other things). My doctor told them that the Delta test had showed that on a scale of 1 to 3 with 3 meaning that the baby needed to come out immediately, she was a high 2. So it was a good thing we were getting her out.

Anyway, she looked really good and healthy. She was 6 pounds, 3 ounces and 20 3/4 inches long. She was actually only one ounce lighter than Chris was when he was born, and he was only born 10 days before his due date instead of the 4 weeks.

She's been a really good baby and doesn't cry much. She did have to go under the phototherapy lights in the hospital and came home with a biliblanket since she was DCT Positive, which when I looked it up, looks like it's the same thing as Coomb's Positive, which is what the boys all had. The funny thing is that her blood type is A- like mine, so apparently she has the anti-E antigen in her blood as well. And of course my one girl has negative blood, so she gets to have the Rhogam shot when she has kids, unless they've come up with something different by then. On the up side, it meant I didn't have to have the Rhogam shot in the hospital. :)

Here are some pictures:

This was the first picture Bryce took of her. Yes, that's me holding her.

This is the second picture ever taken of Abigail. Not a great shot.

Because she was born at 36 weeks, they had to do a carseat study to make sure that position wouldn't cut off the air at her esophagus. This is her during the study. You can see the wires from the biliblanket they had her on then and the monitors.

This one was taken in the hospital. They kept her undressed for the phototherapy, so that's why she doesn't have a shirt on.

The rest of these are pictures I've taken since we've been home. My favorite is the last one.

Induction information

So my visit at the doctor today was pretty fast. My doctor said he was surprised when the results came back from the amnio that the baby was ready, since it's still so far until my due date.

When he was getting some things ready to check my cervix, the nurse came in with the results of the other test from the amnio. He was telling her that there's really no norm, that it depends on the age of the baby and that you have to graph it out to figure out what the results mean. He told me that they would have told him how soon he'd have had to do another amnio. I'm grateful he doesn't have to.

When my doctor checked my cervix, luckily I've already dilated to a 1-1/2. So apparently all the contractions I had yesterday after the amnio actually did something. My doctor said that the moon must have lined up for me with this one.

So on Thursday morning at 7:00, I go in to the hospital to be induced. She'll be exactly 4 weeks early, and I'm not complaining. At least we know that her lungs are good and she should do well.

Ben's award and some other pictures

This morning Ben had an awards assembly at school. This is the third one they've done this year, but Ben was getting an award at this one, so I made sure I could make it. The awards assemblies are a little on the boring side, just because you get to sit through all the other kids getting awards too. Luckily, the school divides the assemblies into different grades, so it's not as long as it could be.

Ben got the award for being a math whiz. His teacher said that he's always one of the very first done with his math assignments and she knows she can ask him any math question and he'll know the answer. I'm glad it looks like he's taking after his dad rather than his mom in that particular subject.

Here are some pictures I took there. Sorry, some of them are a little dark..for some reason my camera doesn't really like to cooperate in the school lunchroom:

These first two are of Ben sitting with his class waiting for his turn to go up and get his award:




Here's Ben standing with his teacher, Mrs. Cruz, who is actually a long-term substitute teacher for his usual one who is on maternity leave (this one is dark, but if you look close, you can see Ben on the left):



And here's Ben leaving with his award. That's as good as I got when I asked him to hold up his award for me:



Now for some random pictures. I'm not going to label them, just because I'm lazy. But some are from when the boys were playing in the waiting room during Alex's speech therapy and some are from our last trip to the zoo last Friday during Ben's Spring Break. It was really the one good day during Spring Break, so it was not an original idea.

More doctor stuff

So this morning at 8:30, the nurse from my doctor's office called. She said that my titer levels had "gone up significantly," so my doctor wanted me to go in the office today at 1:00 for an amniocentesis. If you don't know what one is, it's where they stick a big, long needle into your stomach to draw out amniotic fluid to test for certain things. That phone call upped my stress level a bit. I definitely was not looking forward to the procedure.

Since Bryce had the van today, I called him and asked if he could drive home at lunch and let me take it to the doctor. We decided instead that we would have him go with me. I was glad that he was going to be there, just for the extra support and so I wouldn't have to explain everything that happened to him later.

So we got to the doctor's office (again, a huge thank you to Katie who is so willing to watch my kids for me even on short notice like this was) and went back to the ultrasound room. The nurse had me sign a waiver thing since there are risks associated with the amnio, although she said in all the times they've done them, she's never seen any of them. She then explained a little bit about what they would do and said that I really should take it easy and try to rest for the remainder of the day and avoid lifting stuff. That's easier said than done when one has a 21 1/2 month old son. She said that she thought the main thing the doctor would be checking for with this was for the Fetal Lung Development, to see if it would be safe for the baby to be induced now. After explaining things, she went to see if she could find the doctor, who was finishing up doing a c-section. We really didn't have to wait long at all for him though. Oh, she also told us what the titer level was. It had gone from an 8 to a 16.

When the doctor came in, he said something along the lines of, "Problems. We've got some major problems here." He said I was his first Anti E patient who ended up with problems. He's had other antibodies do it, but I was his first Big E. Lucky me, huh?

To start the amnio, the doctor used the ultrasound to find a nice deep pocket of amniotic fluid and marked where he'd be placing the needle. Of course it was right by the one rib that the baby always likes to push on, so it was a bit uncomfortable to have the ultrasound scanner thingy pushed on there through the whole thing. Even though the amniocentesis wasn't pleasant, that was actually probably the worst part of it.

When the nurse arrived, they slathered the spot for the amnio with some betadine. The doctor numbed the area (that shot was actually worse than the amnio part, probably because I was numbed for the amnio), made sure the ultrasound was showing the right spot, and stuck the needle in. It did hurt a bit when the needle went into the amniotic sack. I had to try to hold as still as possible while he drew out a couple of vials of amniotic fluid. He was getting a couple of tests done, one was the FLD like the nurse had said, the other was called Delta 48 or something like that. He didn't really say what exactly that one was testing for, but I assume it was to test for effects of the antibody. He said that they should get the results of the amnio tonight, then we'll decide where to go from there. If the baby's lungs aren't developed enough yet, I "get" to have another amnio in a week and a half. And he did say that it's likely that I'll have the baby this week or next week.

After the amnio was done, they had me go with another person to go have a Non-Stress Test done. Basically I got to lie on an examination table with montiors on me for about a half hour. They had to come and buzz the baby because she decided she'd rather sleep than move though. She didn't like the buzz and jumped, but it did wake her up. And I had lots and lots of contractions while I was lying there. But everything looked good on the stress test, so that was good.

So now I wait for the doctor to call me with the results of today's amnio and I'm scheduled for another doctor appointment and NST on Thursday morning. I would definitely be fine with having her sooner rather than later, especially if this antibody could be hurting her.