I thought naming our dog was hard, I was wrong. Naming our peanut was so hard and stressful. He didn’t have a name until when we were getting ready to be discharged from the hospital and I had to tell Carl to pick. Our top name was taken by a relative in the family and we had to go back to square one on our list. We had about 3-5 names and Cameron was in our top 3. That was the name that fit our little man the best. We wanted a name that when we were yelling his name in the neighborhood it would sound good. We wanted a name that when it was being announced at sporting events it would sound solid. So Cameron it is! His middle name is Carl’s middle name and Carl’s dad’s first name. When we picked Cameron, we didn’t know too many of them now we hear that name everywhere. He definitely looks like a Cameron. 🙂
Almost 29 Hours Later….
Tuesday 1/3/17 at 1:30pm checked into the hospital.
2:00pm we were in our labor room, I was in the awesome hospital gown, monitors hooked up to me, IV in arm and waiting for doctor. They don’t mess around. My body was not showing any signs of labor signs. My OB said we need to trick your body into thinking its in labor. So the plan was to do the cervical ripening pills, in order to break my water and then pitocin. My OB did a order for 6 pills, she said most woman don’t need more than 3 pills to get the show on the road. Well, I have never been like the majority, so why would I start now and my labor wouldn’t be. I had to have 5 pills, they put one in every 4 hours, I had to lay flat for the first hour after they put it in. They checked on me and baby almost every half hour.
This is still Tuesday 1/3/17-remember.
It was finally on Wednesday 1/4/17 around noon when my OB checked and I was only 1cm dilated, she broke my water. We thought ok shouldn’t be much longer-NOT!!! They started the pitocin it was then we started having problems. I had bad back pain, from the crappy bed and contractions. I haven’t slept at all because they kept coming in to check on me and baby. It was finally 2:00pm Wednesday that I said I would like the epidural, I needed to rest. I was so tired and exhausted when the guy was trying to administer it, I was falling asleep and I remember crying and saying I was sorry for falling to sleep. Once it was in and hit-holy crap-instant relief.
I was getting pitocin through the IV and baby was getting stressed from the contractions. I was on oxygen and fluids for baby probably 80% of the time during this process. It was Wednesday evening, when the nurses saw every time I had a contraction baby’s heart rate would drop and have to work hard to get back to normal.
At 6:30pm the on-call OB came in and said she isn’t liking what she sees and baby is becoming distressed that we are going to do an “immediate” c-section. AKA emergency c-section, the only reason they didn’t call it emergency was because they could schedule it. It was scheduled for 7:00pm.
I remember when the OB said this Carl looked at me and I saw tears in his eyes and he said holy cow, he’s coming, its real now. I told Carl he couldn’t cry, because I had to stay calm. He was a great partner during this whole process.
At 7:20pm on Wednesday 1/4/17 our beautiful healthy baby boy was born. He weighed 6lbs 5oz and was 19 3/4in in length.
We are so blessed beyond words!
“Hey Lady, Looks Like We’re Going to Have a Baby!!!”
If you have been following my pregnancy story, over the last 10 weeks I have been going to the doctor twice a week to do BPP ultrasounds to check on baby. I was sick the Thursday before and stayed home Friday. All sick I went to my weekly appointment, peanut passed all of his points in the ultrasound. The sickness took over me through the weekend, good thing Monday was a holiday. Back to work on Tuesday and another ultrasound appointment that morning. Our peanut did not pass all of his ultrasound points and they had to fit me into my OB’s schedule that morning, I was not scheduled to see her. Little did I know what was going to happen next.
My OB walked into the room and said, “Hey Lady, looks like we are going to have a baby”!
My reaction: I started laughing and said serious?! She was very serious. She said my amniotic fluid was low at about a 4 (I was at an 11 the Friday before), it dropped because my placenta was starting to age, therefore not getting the vital nutrients to peanut. It was now about 10:30am and she asked when I could be back to the hospital to get checked in to be induced; I said 3pm, she said no sooner, I said 2pm and we agreed. I WAS IN SHOCK! 8| I had to stop by work to pack up my desk and then go home to get Carl.
I only called my sister on the way home to ask her to get Arie. I felt like my emotions were in check the whole pregnancy; however, when we packed up the car and had to leave Arie home, I cried. He looked at us and knew something was up, he wouldn’t take the treat. He stuck close to me the whole weekend when I was sick, I’m sure he knew peanut was coming. I called our parents on the way to the hospital.
Let’s get ready for the roller coaster that is coming next!
End of the year odds and ends!
Life has been crazy. Christmas snuck up on us and then was gone even quicker. After Christmas I got super sick for over a week and being pregnant and sick is not fun. We didn’t do anything for NYE, I don’t think we even watched the ball drop. We are party animals can’t you tell. I haven’t blogged in a while so this is a hodge podge of photos.
The end of the year was good, minus being sick. The best was to come and sooner than we would have known. 🙂
2016 Christmas Photos
This year our Christmas/maternity photos were last minute and my best friend Teri took them again for our 4 year. She took them and had to edit them before she went on her trip to Hawaii plus she had a 2 month old! Can you say superwoman. We didn’t have much snow at the time and it was super cold. We decided this year to do it at a tree farm which was really fun! This is our last Christmas photo with just us and Arie.
Here are some of our photos!
Little did we know that our peanut was going to be coming very soon. We made it home for Christmas. We did the drive in a day, we wanted to make sure we were close to home. What a year 2016 was, we purchased our house and 4 months later found out we were pregnant. We did not know that we would be spending a lot of our time the next 9 months at the doctor making sure our peanut was healthy and growing. We were so blessed in 2016 and didn’t take any of it for granted.
Baby Room
This room was the guitar room for Carl and workout room for me. It didn’t last long and it had to make the transformation to the baby room. We had it painted gray and were perfectly fine with that, we wanted pops of color with wall hangings to other things in the room. We wanted to make it easy to change as baby grows up. These photos are from early November, I will have to take an updated one with all his stuff in the room. I don’t know where to put everything. LOL 🙂
Baby Shower #2- Tacos, Margaritas, Sangria and Sun
My second baby shower was hosted by my best friend and we had it at my house. It was the beginning of November which in the Midwest, you will never know what weather you get. We lucked out, we had beautiful sunny, warm weather. We all sat outside on our deck, we needed sunglasses and probably sunscreen, I think a few people might have gotten sunburned. The weather was perfect with the theme of Tacos, Margaritas and Sangria. We did some prep ahead of time to make the day of easier. I was excited to have all of my favorites! My friend did an awesome job!
Here are a few photos of the day.
A Week for the Books…
This year we were busy the week of my birthday- we had something planned every other day.
October 30th- Sunday, we had tickets to the Amos Lee Concert, which was amazing! There is something about his music and something even more when it’s live. I am so glad we got tickets.
a few pictures, we had good seats
October 31st- Halloween
Loved our pumpkins this year
November 1st- my birthday Carl took me too a very fancy steak house- Ruth Chris Steak House I had lobster which was amazing and Carl had steak. Carl, got me a pedicure gift certificate, pretty earrings and tickets to A Christmas Carol play! It was a great birthday and very memorable.
What a great birthday! Thanks Honey!
November 2nd- I had gotten us tickets to tour US Bank Stadium, that was an awesome tour and well worth it.
The week was packed and it wasn’t over yet, on Friday I had to clean for our 2nd baby shower that was at our house that weekend! Needless to say, I was pooped by Sunday!
I am blessed by the memories that were had during our busy week!
Baby Shower #1-Wild Rumpus Here…
Our first baby shower was hosted by my mom and I know my pa helped a little! 🙂 I have called baby wild thing because he really likes to move and wiggle. My mom took that and wanted to do the Where The Wild Things Are theme for the shower, it turned out great! She was so creative and worked hard to find the cool decorations! We decided on soup, bread, veggies, hot apple cider and sangria. The guests had a lot of fun. My mom out did herself and it was such a special day! Our peanut is loved by so many and he doesn’t know it yet! 🙂
Here are some fun photos from the shower!
Thank You Mom and Pa for throwing us a fun baby shower!
We are so grateful!
The Journey Begins…
Based on the consult I had back at the end of 2015, the specialist from the U of M OB’s and my autoimmune specialist said that I would be considered a high risk pregnancy because the baby is at risk for congenital heart block due to my positive SSA/SSB antibodies. During a certain timeframe during pregnancy baby would be at the highest risk for me to pass those antibodies; so he needs to be watched carefully. My care team consists of the OB’s from the U of M, the Pediatric Cardiologist team from Children’s and then my high-risk OB at my clinic. The U of M team and the Pediatric Cardiologist team are who set the plan for baby’s care.
My plan consists of the following:
- Weekly doptones to assess fetal heart rate starting at 16 weeks to 32 weeks
- Fetal Echocardiograms every 2 weeks from 19 weeks to 28 weeks- this recommendation had just been increased by the pediatric cardiologist board. So in the off weeks I would have to go in to do the doptone testing
- Fetal growth ultrasounds every 4 weeks starting at 23 weeks
- Weekly Biophysical profile ultrasounds starting at 28 weeks
- 2x weekly Biophysical profiles ultrasounds starting at 30 weeks
Needless to say, I have spent a lot of time at the doctors office. We are very fortunate that they are watching baby very closely. It does seem that when someone new looks at my chart and the recommendations, they are surprised at how often I am in the office. Since 16 weeks, baby has seen a doctor at least once a week and I have seen baby on an ultrasound.
I have conflicted feelings about the frequency of the appointments- yes, we are grateful and it’s exciting, but every appointment I walk in to, I still hold my breath and hope everything is ok and have to wait for the doctors to tell us so. It makes me anxious, it is stressful and exciting all at the same time. There were times we would have to wait at minimum for an hour during an echocardiogram so they could get the right angle of baby’s heart to get the picture they want. It’s a little intense!
This is quite the journey that we are embarking on.
Here are a couple of photos from our fetal growth ultrasounds. It is pretty crazy the technology they have so you can see babies!
Go Blondie! 