Second Time's A Charm?

I decided to take last Friday off of work to do my glucose test, which is what is done to check for gestational diabetes. My students were going on an outing to San Francisco, so there was no way I was going to be able to coordinate my test with being able to meet my students before they hopped on BART, so I took the day off. I got the call from my doctor's office yesterday afternoon informing me that I had failed my test.

Major bummer.

So, tomorrow morning, I get to go do it again. Only this time, instead of drinking the solution and waiting one hour for them to draw my blood, I get to have my blood drawn right away, drink the solution and then get my blood drawn every hour (on the hour) after that for 3 hours. That's 4 blood draws in 3 hours. Good thing I don't have a problem with needles! (Or blood, for that matter).

I really hope that I'm not diagnosed with gestational diabetes. I was told on the phone yesterday that they definitely weren't sure if I had it, which is why we're doing the 3 hour test. They look for your reading to be 140 or less. I read at 175. Apparently, if you reach a certain number, they stop testing you and you're automatically put on a special diet. I've already given up tuna and deli sandwiches...please don't take away milkshakes, too!

I'm not really complaining. I know this is important and I'm taking it seriously, but I'm not worried about it. If it turns out that I have it, I'll deal with it. I've been really lucky so far with my pregnancy and I have really enjoyed being pregnant. Up to this point, I have dodged so many things that other people have to deal with and for that I feel really lucky.

I have also started having some Braxton Hicks contractions. Boy, is that a reminder of what is coming soon! It just gets more and more real everyday. Love it!

Wish me luck tomorrow!

25 weeks!

I've had some people ask me lately to post a picture of my baby bump. Here is the first one! I'm almost 26 weeks along and I'm feeling really good. I'm a bit tired when I come home from work these days so I've been taking more naps in the afternoons. I only have 4 more weeks of work until summer break. I'm really looking forward to the time off!

Everything has been going really well with us. Last Monday, Lance was able to feel Logan move for the first time. It was so great for him to finally feel him move. He has been moving quite a bit. I think we're going to have a very active baby! My doctor even commented on how active he is. I've really enjoyed my pregnancy so far. I've been very lucky when it comes to so many things. My doctor is monitoring my blood pressure but after increasing one of my meds two weeks ago, she seems to be happier with my readings. I'm going to do my glucose test this Friday. Wish me luck!

Lance and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary last Tuesday. We decided to keep it low key and go to dinner at BJ's Brewhouse. Lance bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a Wolverine birthday card. Yes...a Wolverine BIRTHDAY card. It was awesome! He said it was because the store was out of anniversary cards. He didn't even need to give me an explanation. I thought it was pretty funny.

Freyja

Puppy Love

A quick update

Today I had a follow up appointment at my OB-GYN office to check my blood pressure. It was quite high at my last appointment so they wanted me to come in to see how it was doing two weeks later. My initial reading today was high at 160/90. We talked for a few minutes and then she told me to lay down so I could listen to the baby's heartbeat. I sat back up and after a couple more minutes, she took my blood pressure again. It went down to 140/82. Still a little high but much better! She consulted with another doctor in the office and they decided not to bump up my meds at this time. I gave her the rundown of how my readings have been over the last 2 weeks and since it hasn't been consistently high, they don't want to mess with my meds just yet. We wouldn't want my blood pressure to get too low, especially since my bottom number has been overwhelmingly good lately. I have another appointment with them in 2 weeks. This appointment will be for my 22 week check up and they will see how my blood pressure is doing then.

Tomorrow is the big day! As long as baby cooperates, we should know tomorrow afternoon whether we're having a boy or a girl! I couldn't be more excited.

Spring Break!

I really thought that this week was never going to come. Life has been crazy over the last couple of weeks for me. I have been super stressed about some things that have transpired in my life, although they have nothing to do with my home or family. Hopefully, some things will be resolved in the next couple of months. Until then, I keep looking forward to these wonderful breaks!

Lance and I had our 18 week appointment on March 24th. Everything checked out great! We got to hear the baby's heartbeat and all seems well. Bre was able to go with us to that appointment, so it was really neat for her to get to experience that as well. I had only gained 2 1/2 pounds since my 10 week appointment. I just don't have the appetite I did before getting pregnant. My blood pressure was quite high, though. It read at 160/96, which happens to be a new record for me. Instead of waiting to see my OB-GYN at 22 weeks, she is having me come back next week for a blood pressure check to see how it's doing. I have been taking my blood pressure everyday since my last appointment and it has been quite up and down. It is definitely on the higher side when I'm at work or have just come home from work and much lower when I'm at home. Hmmm.....

Spring Break is going to be a very busy week for us, but in a very good way. I have been waiting for this week to come for so long now and I'm more than thrilled that it is finally here! On Easter, I will head over to my sister's boyfriend's parent's house for dinner with my family. Lance goofed and bought a ticket to go to the comic book convention that day, thinking that Easter was the following weekend. So, we won't get to spend the holiday together. On Monday, we are FINALLY getting our new dishwasher! I never thought I'd be this excited about getting a new dishwasher, but I really am. Oh, to have clean dishes again! I have a doctor appointment on Tuesday to check my blood pressure. I'm also going to a concert with my parents that night. I have two doctor appointments on Wednesday. The first one is my 20 week ultrasound where we will (hopefully!) find out if we're having a boy or a girl. Lets hope that baby cooperates! The afternoon appointment is for a Fetal Echo. They are doing this as a precaution. Lance and I are leaving town on Thursday and going up to Eureka for a couple of days. We have never been up that way before and we're really looking forward to just getting out of town for a relaxing and fun little getaway. Boy, can we both use it right now!

So....what's your guess?

As One Life Is Beginning...

A few years ago, I went and saw an Orthopedist because I had been having problems with my back. After doing some xrays, he came to the conclusion that I had a bulged disk in my lower back. That definitely explained why I was having a hard time going on walks with Lance and our dog, Argos. Even though I stopped going on those walks, I still daydreamed about the day when we would have a child and I could push the child in a stroller while walking with Lance and the dog. At work, I've never had a problem pushing a wheelchair for long distances, so I definitely thought that it wouldn't be a problem to push a stroller when we had a child. I knew that Argos would be so great with a baby and it seemed like such a perfect thing to look forward to.

Unfortunately, the day that I had looked forward to for so long will never happen. We had to put our sweet dog to sleep on March 6. After battling malignant cancer since last summer, we knew that we had limited time left with him. He had been such a trooper for the last 7 months after having a toe on his back foot removed. He showed no serious signs of slowing down until about a week or two before we had to say goodbye. He had a seriously gnarly looking wound on the back of his leg that wouldn't heal. We took him to the vet and we tried a honey treatment for a week before we saw the vet again for a follow up appointment. The news was not good. The wound was actually a tumor in his lymph node that, unfortunately, would not get any better and would ultimately just keep getting worse. We decided that we would take him home for one more night so he could get one last good walk in with Lance and so we could spoil him rotten. In what seems to be almost unbelievable timing, he was very happy and energetic until the next day around noon.

Lance took him on a walk in the morning and all seemed well. Then about noon, Lance and I noticed that he kept pacing around the living room and kitchen and would not lay down. All of a sudden, he started dry heaving, which is something that he never did. We let him outside and he started foaming at the mouth. I knew that this was not good. It was really shocking because he had been fine up until this point. I called the vet and told them that I wanted an earlier appointment that day (our original appointment was for 2:45pm) and they told us to come in right away. We left the house immediately and found ourselves saying goodbye to him about a half hour later.

It has been a week and a half and Lance and I are still trying to cope. He wasn't just our pet, he was part of the family. He had such a goofy personality and was such a great dog. He just loved hanging out in his yard and protecting us from all the people who walked along the hill on the side of the house. He had several friends, including kids, who he would see on his walks to the park with Lance. He had a permanent look on his face as if to say that every day was the best day of his life. Lance and I were so happy to be his family for the almost 8 years that he was alive. He is very dearly missed.

I meant to write a couple of weeks ago about my last doctor appointment, but Argos' situation was the biggest and most consuming thing that we have had to deal with. My last appointment with my OB-GYN was on February 23rd. It went well but was pretty uneventful. My blood pressure was higher at this appointment but it wasn't alarmingly high, so no worries. We got to listen to the heartbeat which sounded fantastic! That was about it. The only real pain that I'm dealing with is sciatica. I seem to be okay until about 3am and then my legs start bothering me big time! I feel so lucky that that is the only real thing I have to deal with. No nausea, no vomiting and no more fatigue! My next appointment with my OB-GYN is on March 24th for my 18 week appointment.

Argos - February 2006

Oh, Baby!

It has taken me a really long time to finally update my blog. Part of that is because I have been in a great deal of denial about what is actually happening in my life at the moment and the other reason is that I didn't feel that the timing was right to talk about it until recently. My world has turned upside down over the last few months but in a very good way. It feels absolutely surreal to talk about how my life is going to change in the next six months when Lance and I bring a baby into this world. After everything we have been through with the adoption, I still can't believe that it took only 8 months for us to get pregnant. I feel really, really lucky and grateful. I still can't believe this is happening!

The last 3 1/2 years have felt like a roller coaster for me. As most of you know, Lance and I have been neck deep in the adoption process since August 2006. Most of the time, I was on a high. I knew that we would start a family eventually and every day I woke up thinking that maybe that was the day, but it never came. The phone never rang with the news that we had waited so patiently for. After doing all of the interviews, paperwork, background checks, a photo book of our family, a profile, required classes and non-required classes, the call for us to be placed with a child never came. I know that it would have come eventually, but Lance and I finally came to the conclusion that even though we're still young, we're not getting any younger. It was time to try something else.

There have been some misconceptions about the way Lance and I went about starting a family. Just the other day, I told a coworker of mine that I was expecting and her response was, "Oh, Kirsti! That's so great! Now you guys don't have to adopt!" A lot of people, if not most people, think that we wanted to adopt because we couldn't get pregnant ourselves. This idea couldn't be farther from the truth. Lance and I talked about adopting a child way before we were even married. It was something that appealed to both of us equally. It was something we really wanted to do. I went to see my doctor in the summer of 2005 and I asked to be put on "baby safe" blood pressure medication. The medication I was on at the time was not deemed safe for pregnancy. We tried a few different medications and different combinations of medications for about a year. In July 2006, I had a doctor appointment to check my blood pressure. At this point, I had tried about every combination possible, so Lance and I knew that this would be a deciding point for us. We decided on the way to my appointment that if my blood pressure was still not responding to the meds, we would adopt. Simple as that. Needless to say, the news was not good. Lance and I looked at each other in the car on the way home. I asked him, "adopt?" He said, "adopt!" It was decided. The next month, our journey started.

In May 2008, I started to wonder why everything was taking so long. I thought we would have been placed by then. I started to wonder if there were any other options for us so I scheduled another appointment with my family doctor to talk about blood pressure medications again. He sent me to a Perinatologist to discuss any newer medications that may have come out since we tried switching it up in 2006. They told me about two medications that were safe for pregnancy. I was really excited about this, since I had not previously tried either of them. To my surprise, they worked. I went from being on three meds to two meds and they were baby safe. I was happy to have another option.

Lance and I started trying for a baby in March 2009 and I was pregnant by November. It all seems so surreal!

I went for my first appointment on January 25, 2010 when I was 10 weeks along. I was pretty nervous going into my appointment because I just wanted and needed to hear good news. Up until then, I kept thinking that maybe there was a chance I was NOT pregnant and that I had lied to our family. Silly, I know, but that was the denial I was experiencing at the time. To my total surprise, my blood pressure was fantastic!!! I read at 114/82. I don't remember the last time my blood pressure was that good. Lance and I were pretty emotional seeing the baby for the first time. My parents and sister were anxiously waiting in the lobby to see us and celebrate the good news. It was such an amazing day! It was one that I'll never forget.

My second appointment was with a Perinatologist for my first trimester screening on February 12, 2010. They took measurements of the baby, we heard the heartbeat and they took a blood sample from me. Everything checked out perfectly! Two hands, two feet and a very strong heartbeat. The baby measured 2 1/2 inches in length and seemed to be right on track with everything. At this appointment, I was 12 weeks along.

Today starts my 13th week and I am due on August 25. We made our second appointment with the Perinatologist for April 7, which is when we will find out if we're having a girl or a boy! That day, we also have an appointment with the Pediatric Cardiologist. He will perform a baby echo to make sure the heart is okay. This appointment is more of a precaution because of Lance's heart history. He was born with pulmonary stenosis and had to have open heart surgery when he was 3 years old. He hasn't had any problems in the 33 years since then. The doctor told us that our baby only has a 4% chance of having something wrong with it's heart because of Lance's condition, so that put our minds at ease instantly. We really aren't worried about anything.

So, that is where we are in life! I had been feeling pretty fatigued lately, but I think I may be moving out of that and into the "just tired" category. I had only 2 weeks of very mild nausea between my 7th and 9th weeks and a little problem with sciatica, but that is pretty much it. Lance has been so wonderful and loving. I really could not have asked for a better husband, partner and friend in him. I am a really lucky gal. Life really is good!

I promise to try and blog more as we progress in this new journey. Wish us luck!

Our first ultrasound! 1/25/10

Baby at 10 weeks

Baby at 12 weeks, 3 days