A few days late...

I took this pic last week for my 17 week pic, but haven't had a chance to put it up here yet. I'm getting a little more round, and I'm hoping "the girls" will slow down in their growth because they are getting out of hand :)

I'm feeling pretty good most days. The morning sickness is almost gone, but my new bestfriend is heartburn. I pop tums now like M&Ms, but its all okay. Isn't the old wives tale that if you have a lot of heartburn that the baby is going to have a lot of hair? We shall see :)

Today's appointment

Today, we met with our ob-gyn and reviewed our appointment from Friday that we had with the perinatalogist. He is complete agreement with everything that was discussed, so the plan for the hospitalization at 24 weeks continues along with the hysterectomy.

I've had a few days to digest everything and we had a poignant discussion today about my age and how it must feel to know that this will be our last baby. Most women don't lose their uterus this young, and especially when there will only be one living child (Please God let Cooper get here safely!!!) The good piece of information that I gleaned today was that I will be awake for the c-section and barring any emergencies the c-section as well with the help of an epidural. I joked with my husband that I want to cremate my uterus and spread its ashes somewhere. I won't need hormone therapy because they will be leaving my ovaries, so I get all the PMS symptoms just no period.

Its only been 3 days since we last saw Cooper, but he again looks healthy and perfect. He continues to measure 5 days ahead in growth and weighs a whopping 7 ounces. Doc says that he needs to put on about 3 more pounds and we will be great with the help of the steroids. Its crazy to know that we will have such a small baby, and I've started buying him some preemie onesies. The preemie onesies are just so tiny!!! We got the best shot yet of Cooper's goodies and Daddy took it to work to show his friends :)

I bought Katy Perry's cd yesterday on a whim because I see her everywhere and I have to tell you that she makes me laugh. The lyrics for her songs are mad funny, and right now I need hearty, deep laughs.

We have such a long road ahead of us and thank all of you for your love and support.

Lily's brother~

I am going to post this on both of my blogs, but wanted to start here first because this where my journey with all of you began. There is good news and bad news that came out of the surprise doctor's appointment today. First, the good news....Cooper is perfect and (for now) the scar is looking good and the uterine wall appears strong. The bad news...the placenta has grown into my uterine wall. The same day that I have the c-section to welcome Cooper into the world, I will be saying goodbye to my uterus. I will have a hysterectomy during surgery which is scary due to the fact that that area of the body is receiving two times that amount of blood than normal. I will be admitted into the hospital at 24 weeks (Sept. 11th) for the reminder of my pregnancy. Lord willing, my uterus will be strong enough to get as close to 34 weeks as possible but they want me closely monitored at all times therefore the hospitalization is in order. And, Cooper will begin to receive steriods at this time, too.

Being me, I try to find the silver linings in all situations...no more periods...and, my honey won't have to get a vasectomy now...I think God knows how stubborn I am so He is removing the temptation for me to have more babies after Cooper.

Please, pray for me and our rainbow baby. To say that I'm scared is an understatement....

Surprise appointment tomorrow~

I checked my voicemail this morning and I have a message confirming my appointment with perinatal specialist tomorrow. So, I check my calendar and I don't have an appointment tomorrow to my knowledge. I call over there and after some confusion find out that my perinatal specialist wants to see my tomorrow because he called in another specialist to come and do an u/s to check out my uterus. My initial thought was that something must have come up on the MRI, but I'm trying to remain positive. They even cancelled appointments to block off enough time to sit down with us...

Please, think of me tomorrow and say a little prayer that this is just an extra precaution and another set of eyes on my uterus and that they're not giving me bad news...

First MRI

We had our first MRI yesterday to see the current condition of my uterine rupture scar. I've only had one other MRI in the past and it was on my head so just my head and my shoulders had to go into the machine. I had my entire body in the machine for this one and I almost had a panic attack. As soon as he started putting my body into the machine, I was like "whoa, how far are we going into this thing?" And, unfortunately, he still wasn't done with shoving me in there...ugh, I'm not a huge proponent on taking drugs as coping mechanisms, but I could've used a Xanax...

It was 40 minutes of not moving and feeling guilty that Cooper is going to come out deaf (while I had on ear plugs!)...but, this is all about keeping both of us safe and healthy. I have at least 2 more MRIs to go before Cooper makes his entrance. Please, pray that my uterus continues to do its job and stay strong for my little man...

Baby dreams!

I have had baby dreams the last two nights, and I've woken up feeling all maternal and stuff. The first dream was about baby and I out shopping, I mean lugging the baby carrier around and everything. I even dreamt about having to find a baby changing station to change his diaper! The next dream was about coming home from the hospital and my sister was here and she was helping me learn how to breastfeed. My hubby was also in my dream and he was carrying the baby around the house in one of those Moses' baskets.

I like these dreams~ I can't wait until they are my realities :)

We got our money shot...

And, we are definitely having ourselves a little boy. I feel kinda guilty, but I did drink some coke this morning to get him riled up. He never has regular coke so I figured that this would do the trick. Everything was great at the appointment today and we will do our first MRI either Thursday or Friday of this week. The plan is to begin steriod treatments at 24 weeks, just in case and I will be immediately admitted into the hospital if any of the MRIs show any abnormalities in my uterus. Here are the u/s pics from this morning. We are still filing down names, but most likely you are looking at our little Cooper Henry...


OUR MONEY SHOT :)




He's facing downward, but isn't he just the cutest?

Still looking a bit like an alien, but a cute alien none-the-less :)

Do I look enormous for almost 15 weeks? If I don't, well I feel it! People told me that you get bigger faster with your second one, but this is crazy...

I will try to post more pics as we go along :)

It looks like we're batting on Team...

BLUE!

Doc says that he is 95% sure that Abebe is a boy because he is definite that there were no girlie parts. The way I look at it, one of us had to have a boy because pretty much all of the dbms so far are having girls (Come on Tamara, if you have a boy than Abebe won't be so lonely!) Heartrate today was 161 and still measuring about 3 days ahead in growth. Our NT scan came back beautifully. Our risk for Down's Syndrome is 1:1,200 (my age range is 1:440) and Trisomy 18 came back at 1:10,000.

I have NO good ultrasounds pictures to post today, but I will post a pic of my very first purchase for Abebe. I couldn't resist because this little lamb is just so darn cute!

Hello Second Trimester!

We are officially in our second trimester and I have to say, overall, that I am feeling better. I have more good mornings now versus bad mornings and the "girls" are hurting less. Those of us in dbml know that entering the second trimester is just a formality, but it does feel good getting out of the "normal" danger zone.

We have ultrasounds every two weeks and the doc is going to try to determine gender on Monday. He feels pretty confident that he can give us an accurate gender prediction as long as Abebe cooperates :) According to everything that I've read on the internet (I know, I know!) a trained professional can tell gender with about 80% accuracy at 14 weeks. So, in my mind, if there is a "hamburger" shall we say than I will be confident that Abebe is a girl. If doc calls boy, than I will wait to be excited because Lily was called a boy until we saw the "hamburger" at the 20 week scan. Anyhow, we shall see...

We stopped at a baby store in our area for the first time yesterday and it was very surreal. We shopped a lot for Lily at this store, and it felt a little strange shopping for a different baby. The store is super cute though with a lot of real trendy items. I saw two great things there that I will have to get before Abebe makes an entrance into the world. One was a breastfeeding cover that was pretty, and get this was called "Hooter Hider." I thought that was hilarious. And, a great sling to carry Abebe in that goes from 5 lbs. to 42 lbs., so we should get a lot of use out of that sling. At first, it looked really complicated to put on but the store owner gave us a personal demonstration and I'm pretty much sold on it.

I will update on Monday's appointment and hopefully will be able to post a good money shot ultrasound picture :)

Have a happy and SAFE fourth of July weekend!

Goldfish!

Two funny things about Goldfish:

1. Goldfish are great for those splendid moments of immense nauseousness. I now keep a bag right beside my bed so that the moment my eyes open, I can reach over and get a handful to pop in my mouth. Surprisingly, they work wonders!

2. You know how it feels when you can first feel the baby wiggle inside of you? I describe the feeling as goldfish and I have been noticing my little goldfish wiggling around in the last few days. Of course, its very sporadic at this point, but none-the-less makes all the body changes even more real and worth it. At our 12 week u/s we were able to watch Abebe dance all over the screen and its exciting to feel a few of the little flutters. The goldfish movements make my heart happy.

So, that is how goldfish have been affecting my life recently. I'm sure not many of you can say that, now can you :)