Starting to Shorten...

We had another sonogram/measure my cervix appointment on Monday (eclipse day!). Unfortunately I had to go to DC Monday night for work and just got back Wednesday night, so I haven't been able to blog the results, which, to be honest, are a little scary...

Baby still looked great on the abdominal ultrasound and his heartbeat was measuring perfectly. We didn't get much of a look because the doctor wanted to switch to a vaginal ultrasound to get a more accurate measurement of my cervix (yay.. the pants on streak has finally ended...). At the time, I had no idea what my previous measurement 2 weeks prior was - I only knew that the doctor said it still looked good. This time, she said it measured 3cm and that it had shortened since last time.

Cue the worry and I started asking questions. Apparently at my last appointment when I was 22 weeks, my cervix measured 3.7cm (according to the internet, a little on the low end, but about normal for how far along I was at the time). But in just two weeks, it shortened .7cm - and that seemed like a lot to me!!! At 24-28 weeks, "normal" is 3.5-4cm, so I was well below that.

My doctor didn't seem overly concerned and said that they will only start to worry if it gets below 2cm, which is when it could cause pre-term labor. That's all fine and good, but I'm sitting there thinking, "well... if it shortened by .7cm in 2 weeks, then it's going to be below 2cm SOON!"

As usual, I left feeling kinda freaked out even though my doctor didn't seem worried. We scheduled another appointment to measure again for 2 weeks later (Sept 5) and I went home to pack for my DC trip and later google the crap out of "cervix length during pregnancy." I also posted about my questions on my various Facebook groups. After some research, I felt slightly better...

Apparently cervical measurements are very inaccurate. They can vary day by day and even depending on which doctor is doing the measurements (I've had 3 different doctors all three times we've measured). Your cervix doesn't shorten at a constant rate - so even though it seems to have shortened a lot over the last two weeks, I could go on Sept 5 and it still be at 3cm. So, this was promising. 

At the end of the day though, while it's normal for your cervix to shorten as your pregnancy progresses, it's typically a third trimester thing, and mine is definitely shortening sooner than normal. This is expected, obviously, since my uterus is smaller, and we knew this was coming - it just sucks to hear the reality after all the good news we've had. So what does it mean? It means we keep going in for measurements to check on the status. If it gets under 2cm then more drastic measures will be taken. Potentially bed rest, or progesterone injections, as well as injections to help the baby's lungs mature quicker. It also means that it's possible for me to go into pre-term labor within these 2 week measuring breaks if my cervix shortens significantly before we know about it. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do now but just wait until Sept 5 when we measure again.

The good news is, we've reached viability. So a cervical cerclage (where they literally stitch your cervix closed - ouch) is out of the picture. They only do this prior to 24 weeks. Once you reach viability and the baby can survive outside the womb, it's not worth the risky procedure. The other good news is that I've been feeling great! I feel Coleson moving around so much every day and I know that each week that passes by allows him to grow more and more. I'm just praying my body can keep him cozy in there for awhile longer!

Luckily my work has been super flexible with allowing me to be home (or close to home) throughout my pregnancy. I've now reached the point where I literally don't know what each week will bring and so it's nice to be able to be home and near my doctor if something were to go wrong. Plus, I have doctor's appointments at least every two weeks, so I can't be gone long anyway.

I cannot believe how quickly the summer flew by and that it's almost fall! Fall is my most favorite time of the year, so I'm reallyyyyy looking forward to the next several weeks. Our baby shower is next weekend, my bestie's bridal shower is the weekend after that, and then we leave for a week in OBX on the 16th!! Once we get back I'll be in full fall mode and hopefully we will be able to wrap up all of our baby to-dos!

Oh and I almost forgot... I turned 27 on Sunday! It was pretty much the worst birthday ever because I had an awful cold and was in bed all day (p.s. you can't take NyQuil while pregnant....), but I did get to spend time with my sister and both of my parents on Saturday (and did lots of shopping!).

Proud of my uterus!

Yeah.. that's a weird thing to say.

But! It's true!! We just got done our appointment earlier this afternoon. This one was the "2 week check on the cervix" appointment that we scheduled after our anatomy scan. I wasn't really sure what to expect from this appointment cause I didn't know how they would measure my cervix, but I assumed it would be some combination of me in stirrups and something being poked up inside of me.

Luckily though, I was wrong, and my streak of appointments with my pants on continued! Woo hoo! Turns out they just use abdominal ultrasound and can see the length of your cervix using that! Which also meant.... a surprise peek at our baby boy!!! I almost cried when the nurse said "wait here we are getting the sonogram room ready for you" ... uh YAY! I felt jipped at our last sonogram, so getting another one so soon was super exciting!!!!

The doctor we had this time did a MUCH better job of pointing everything out to us. Baby's heartbeat was still perfect, he was measuring OVER A POUND(!!), and he was definitely still a boy :) My cervix was still closed and measuring long which is GREAT news!!!!! My deformed uterus is doing a pretty good job so far :) The placenta was still covering the bottom of my uterus (the placenta previa I learned about at the last appointment), but I learned it was only "marginal placenta previa" which means it's not completely covering my cervix - so at least that's better I think.

I got a much better feeling from this appointment that they are in fact monitoring me closer than I thought and paying attention to my uterus, so that made me feel better. The doctor is having me come back again in 2 weeks for another sonogram (YAY!) to check my cervix again. Depending on how it looks then, they will decide if they need to keep monitoring it or not. So, that appointment is on Aug 21, then I have another appointment scheduled for Sept 5 - this will be either a regular check up OR sonogram to check my cervix, and then two weeks after that (28 weeks) I'll do my sugar/glucose check to make sure I don't have gestational diabetes. So we got a good road map of what the next several weeks will entail. By then I'll be into the third trimester, so it looks like we will be doing appointments every two weeks from here until closer to my due date.

I feel super happy with how today went, and like I said, pretty proud of my uterus :) We are SO close to the 25 week viability mark which will be a huge relief for me. I can't believe how quickly the weeks are flying by!

In other news, we painted the nursery on Saturday (huge thanks to my grandma for coming and helping us with that!!). We also got the crib put together and a shelf in the closet. I'm doing some more updates to it this Sunday and then maybe I'll post some sneak peek pictures! Also I mentioned on my last post that we had our hospital tour on Sunday. That deserves a post all on it's own, so maybe I'll save that for later, but whew, that was an overwhelming trip. Long story short though, I did leave LOVING the Shady Grove Hospital and I think we are super lucky to be delivering there!

I think that's it for today! I just ate dinner so I'm off to lay down and feel this little boy wiggle around (SO much movement lately!!).

It's a BOY!!!

Not gonna lie, I was completely shocked because I REALLY thought it was a girl - maybe my "motherly instincts" haven't kicked in yet?? 

BUT! Even though it took a few hours for the shock to go away (I literally had spent the last 4 months looking at girl nurseries, names, and clothes - probably stupid, yes), by Sunday I was just so excited about finally knowing more about the little baby growing inside of me that I couldn't imagine it NOT being a boy. And yes, Kyle is OVER THE MOON happy.

My sister stayed the weekend with us and her and I spent all Saturday night planning out a boy nursery - it was so fun to FINALLY get to make plans and actually know I can go out and buy stuff now! Sunday we went shopping at Pottery Barn to take advantage of their Friends & Family weekend sale. We had already bought a crib awhile back on sale, but we wanted to finish off getting the rest of the big pieces now that we knew the gender. We scored a floor model "as-is" upholstered rocking chair for 50% off and took it home yesterday - so lucky! It looks brand new! And we also ordered our changing table/dresser which will be delivered sometime in September. Plusssss of course I found some cute pieces at the store that I had to pick up. We got a fitted sheet for the crib, a fleece blanket, and some curtains!

I felt so accomplished checking those big items off the list!!! And SO excited!!! It's so so so fun to be able to picture everything now and really connect with the growing life inside of me by referring to it as "he/him" and not "it" or "the baby." And we've started working on a name too :) We haven't decided 100% yet, but we have a definite front runner.

This weekend we are planning to start painting the nursery (and by "we" I mean Kyle, since I'm not really allowed to paint). We also have an appointment to tour the maternity floor at Shady Grove Hospital on Sunday!

Anyway, just a quick update cause things are busy around here, but we are so excited to meet this little BOY in December!!! :)

The Anatomy Scan!

If you want the short version: We can all breathe a sigh of relief because Baby G is healthy and developing normally!! YAY!!

Now the long version:

Apparently while I was doing the typical "pee in a cup" part of the OB appointment, Kyle overheard the receptionist say that the office accidentally double booked our appointment time with some other couple who also was getting an ultrasound.. ugh. SO overall, I felt like we kinda got jipped cause our sonogram time was so short. I had read online these usually take ~40 minutes, but although we were at the office for an hour, our actual sonogram time with the doctor was probably only 15-20 minutes. Sad.

But, even though it was short, the doctor did a good job of pointing out everything to us and it was SO exciting seeing our little baby wiggling around in there! The doctor took a bunch of measurements - fluid behind the brain, skull, spine, heart, stomach, kidneys, etc. Every time he would take a new measurement I felt like I stopped breathing until he would say "that looks normal!" 

We were so relieved to know that our baby looked healthy! Unfortunately, we did find out one complication with me though. Apparently I have what's called "placenta previa" which means the placenta has attached to the bottom of my uterus covering the opening to my cervix. This is a problem because essentially, it's blocking the baby from coming out, but more than that, when I go into labor, it can cause extreme amounts of bleeding. Since it's still early, it's possible that it will move further up the side of my uterus as my uterus continues to stretch and now my doctor will be monitoring that potential movement with more sonograms as we get closer to the due date (yay for more sonograms though!). If it doesn't move, most likely it will mean that we will have to schedule a c-section to avoid me going into labor naturally and losing too much blood. Although it's scary to add another complication to the mix, the doctor didn't seem too concerned, and the news of potentially having a scheduled c-section didn't matter much to me since I'm assuming I'll end up with a c-section anyway because of my uterus shape. Also, the good thing is I've had zero bleeding (minus the tiny bit I had at 5 weeks which would be unrelated to the placenta), which the doctor was surprised about - usually placenta previa causes bleeding throughout pregnancy, but it's good to know that if I do experience some I know what it's from.  I also wondered if placenta previa and a unicornuate uterus were connected in anyway, but the doctor said both conditions have nothing to do with each other - I guess I'm just that special - yay. 

The other piece of good news though is that my cervix is still closed which means it hasn't started to shorten at all yet and the ultrasound showed that my uterus is growing great and baby has plenty of space to move around! I was SO relieved about this!!!

We did end up with some pictures from the scan, but I was sad at the lack of good ones! Literally as soon as the doctor left the room I whined to Kyle, "we got NO good pictures!!!" to which he immediately replied, "the doctor just told us our baby is healthy and the first thing you say is we have no pictures?!" hahahaha... I guess he was right on that one. We didn't get the usual side profile view with the cute button nose that I wanted cause the baby wouldn't cooperate to get that angle. Instead we have pictures of the front view of the face, which, is honestly kinda creepy cause it looks like a skeleton hahaha, but oh well. 

We go back in two weeks because the doctor wants to measure my cervix again. He said if he gets two good measurements on it at this point, he's not worried about my uterus space. Which is great! Although I don't really understand it since the baby is still going to get significantly bigger over the next few months. Anyway, after that appointment, we will have our usual monthly check up on Sept 5 and then another ultrasound to check on the placenta movement at the end of September. I'm kinda glad we only need to wait two weeks to go back!

So what about the gender??? We told the doctor right away we wanted it in an envelope to take home, so he made us look away when he checked for a boy or girl. The envelope is currently sealed and sitting in my garage and it's KILLING ME. But I think since I made it through the initial stress of not peeking I'll be able to make it till Saturday. 

We are SO excited to have this appointment behind us, know Baby G is healthy, and now can look forward to our gender reveal with family this weekend!!!! CAN'T WAIT!!!

Boy or Girl?!?!

20 weeks 3 days, halfway, and the BIG DAY!

That rhymed :)

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S FINALLY JULY 25!!!

We've been waiting for this day for what seems like forever and to say I'm anxious/nervous/excited is a HUGE understatement. I don't even know how to describe my emotions for today. All I know is I'll be constantly staring at the clock at work today until I can leave at 1:00 to go home, wake up Kyle, change, and leave for our appointment!!

I had a very eventful weekend which has helped that past few days go fast! On Saturday I drove to Baltimore to go wedding dress shopping with my bestie!! We had the most amazing and relaxing morning - it seriously could not have gone more perfect! We had planned to go to two bridal salons, but ended up finding "THE ONE" at the first shop in the morning! Erin's dress is seriously so gorgeous and more perfect than anything I could have imagined her in - she's going to look like such a princess on her wedding day!! I cried, of course, but not because of the pregnancy hormones, just because my best friend looked so gorgeous and I can't believe she's GETTING MARRIED SO SOON!!! Since she said yes to the dress at the first salon, we cancelled the second appointment and instead had a long amazing brunch at Cheesecake Factory complete with fried mac & cheese :)

Sunday Kyle and I spent the whole day cleaning the house. Base boards, showers, everything that gets skipped in our usual short weekly cleaning chores. I wanted to get everything done around the house so that once we find out the gender we can get rolling on the nursery! Although my back was KILLING me by the end of the day, it felt good to have such a productive day!

Yesterday I drove to VA for work, which sucked, but made the day go fast and allowed me to get some extra hours to cover my half day for today's appointment :)

So now we're at today. I seriously can't believe we are halfway. I've had this secret goal in my brain since the beginning of this pregnancy - 25 weeks. That's when a baby is considered to be developed enough to be "viable" outside the womb. Not that I would ever, ever want to deliver that early, but of course I'm terrified of my deformed uterus, and making it to 25 weeks would be a huge relief. Now, we are almost to that goal, and I'm just realllyyyy praying that our appointment today shows that we should easily make it to that point.

Big things for today. Is baby developing normally? And is my cervix still holding strong? Those are the two main questions I hope to have answered! And yes, of course, we will get our gender envelope today too (ahh!!), but won't find out the results until we meet up with family this Saturday! I will be much more excited for that once I know everything today looks good!

I will be sure to post tomorrow once we get results from today's appointment! Wish us luck!! I cannot wait to see that little baby that's been kicking me so much lately :)

19 Weeks!

Tomorrow we hit 19 weeks which means we are 1 week away from the halfway point!!! I kind of can't believe it. According to my app (well, 3 apps), baby G is the size of a sweet potato and weighing 7oz! 

I'm feeling kicks every day, which is awesome for reassurance, but sometimes in the middle of the day I'll have a minor freak out if I realize I've gone hours without feeling anything. Stupid, I know, but it's fun to see what will wake him/her up. Sometimes drinking some cold water or poking at my belly will cause some movement. I still haven't gotten Kyle to feel it yet though cause it's so sporadic and hard to predict when I'll have a kick that's hard enough to feel from the outside. Soon though I hope!

I'm getting REALLY excited (and anxious) about our anatomy scan coming up on the 25th! Excited, because we haven't gotten an ultrasound to actually SEE the baby since 8 weeks! At that time, it was still a tiny little body barely resembling a baby, but now, we are going to get to see SO much more! Including the gender!!!! I'm anxious though because this is the big mid-way milestone where they will check every organ in the baby's body to make sure it's developing normally. I'm so terrified of finding something wrong. Also, this is the first appointment where they will check my cervix to see if it's shortening because of the lack of space in my uterus. We are getting to the scary point where it will start to become clear over the next several weeks how my weird uterus is handling this growing baby and if I have a chance to make it to full term or not. My understanding is that they will now check my cervix at each appointment, and the moment it starts shortening is when we will need to figure out how to keep this baby inside for as long as possible. Scary! I'm just trying to trust my body - it's done everything right so far - we just need that uterus to continue to grow normally!

I realize I haven't posted any "bump pics" at all on here. I haven't even really taken any at home! I'm so self conscious about my weight right now. It's so unnatural for me to feel OK with seeing the number on the scale go up even though logically I know it's supposed to and I'm right on track with weight gain. I think I'm just in this phase still where I feel like I just look fat and not pregnant. Ugh.

Anyways, there's lots to be excited for now that my work trip is over. We have SO much fun planned over the next few months including wedding dress shopping with my bestie next weekend, our gender reveal on the 29th, her bridal shower, my baby shower, my birthday weekend, and our yearly OBX vacation mid Sept! Plus I've signed Kyle and I up for a maternity floor hospital tour where we plan to deliver AND once we know the gender we have lots of nursery room prep to do!

Now we anxiously wait for July 25... 

Movement!!!

17 weeks 4 days and just a few days ago, I started feeling baby movements!

It was so strange because it just came all of a sudden. I felt a definite kick one night laying in bed and since then, I feel at least a few tiny kicks each night and some squirmy movement throughout the day. It's such a weird feeling - it's hard to describe! It hasn't been frequent enough to get Kyle to feel it yet. Of course every time I feel a kick I make him put his hand on my stomach and then nothing happens. Stubborn baby! But I'm loving the reassurance of movement and look forward to those kicks getting stronger (I'm sure I'll regret saying this a few months from now when it's keeping me up...)

I got back from my trip on Friday. My grandma and I had quite the nightmare getting home. BWI had a bomb scare which prevented our flight from leaving Birmingham and then we ended up getting delayed 2+ hours - fun! AND there was an active shooter lockdown on our base one of the days I was at my meeting - it ended up being nothing, but it sure made for an interesting day! Overall the trip went well though - I was SO glad to have my grandma there because there were a few days I didn't feel too great and it was nice having her to help take care of me! Also I survived 4 straight days of dresses and heels while pregnant which I was very proud of :)

My sleep has not been great lately. I usually sleep on my back or on my stomach (both of which you can't do while pregnant) so I've been super uncomfortable. I wake up basically every time I move in the night and then half of those times I have to get up and pee. I'm having lots of pain around my uterus whenever I move around just from it stretching and moving, but I'm adjusting  to it.

Now I'm just trying to get back into my normal routine after being away and the holiday weekend. Kyle and I did finally manage to switch our closets this weekend, so the baby's room is officially completely cleared out! I'm looking forward to finally starting on the nursery once we find out the gender in just a few weeks!! YAY!

4 Months

Well, tomorrow will be 4 months, but close enough.

It's been awhile since I've updated because there's just way too much going on. Our 16 week doctor appointment was supposed to be this upcoming Tuesday, but I have a work trip out of town all next week, so we bumped it up a bit and went this past Wednesday at 15.5 weeks, which was good, because I wanted to make sure all was good before I left on my trip.

Same drill as last time (our last one was at 12 weeks) - weight, blood pressure, and baby's heartbeat. I weighed 129 this week - which was only 1 lb more than my last appointment. I was glad about this because it's looking like I'm right on track to gain the recommended 10 lbs by 20 weeks. My eating has cut back a bunch since last month which has helped slow my weight gain. I ate SO much in the first trimester only because I felt extremely sick if I didn't. Now that I'm feeling better, I'm eating more normally. My blood pressure was still low and great! And it's getting easier to find the baby's heartbeat now! The doctor found it right away, and the shocking thing was, it was right in the center of my stomach! Last time it was way on the left (because of my left sided uterus), but finding it in the center is encouraging because that means my uterus is stretching and moving over into that open space.

Baby's heartbeat was 160 this time - still right on target. Last time it was ~170ish, but the doctor says it gradually lowers as the baby develops, so it's good news that it's gone down a bit. But! even though it's gone down, it's still on the higher end, which means my little sister is still convinced it's a girl from all her Googling. 

I leave on Sunday for my work trip to Huntsville, AL (thrilling, I know). It's actually my first work trip since September 2016 - pretty crazy considering I used to travel about every other month. Obviously I cut out all travel once I started all the fertility testing in November last year and then we went through IVF, so I've been out of the travel game for awhile. It will be nice to have a change of pace, but I am a little worried about being away from home. Luckily, my Grandma is making the trip with me so I won't be alone incase anything goes wrong and I need to get back quickly :) She's the best! 

This past week has been extremely stressful. Work has been crazy busy and I have to give a big presentation at this meeting in Huntsville next week. I kind of hate giving presentations lol... but it's part of the job, so I just have to get it over with. I will be SO happy when next week is over, I can be back home again, and can finally relax a bit.

Plus, July is an exciting month! Kyle will be off weekends again, I get to help my bestie pick out the perfect wedding dress, AND we find out the gender!!! Our next appointment is our anatomy scan on July 25!

14 weeks 2 days

Exciting things are being planned!!!

Now that the first trimester is officially done (WOO!) and I've been feeling pretty great (WOO!), I've had a lot more energy lately to start all the fun baby stuff! A few weekends ago I started cleaning out our guest room which will be the nursery. We got rid of our old mattress and futon in there, plus a bunch of other random things that had just been laying in there as part of our "storage room." I also organized a bunch of photo albums and memory box-type things I had laying around. [Kyle was sleeping that day and I literally spent 2 hours crying on the floor reading through old cards, yearbooks, photo albums, etc. Oh pregnancy hormones...]. The room is pretty much empty now which is a huge success! The last (kinda big) piece though is the closet. Kyle currently stores all of his uniforms, guns, etc. for work in there and obviously, that all has to get moved. After much debate, we've decided that we are going to trade our bedroom closets. I currently have the big walk-in with window and pink painted wall and he has a normal sized boy closet. I LOVE my closet, so it's really hard for me to give it up, but Kyle really needs the extra space with all his clothes plus all his uniforms. I made sure to tell him I'm sacrificing it for the baby and not him (hehehe!). So that's the next task - completely switching closets and getting all his uniforms in the bedroom. Fun stuff.

We've also made some headway on our gender reveal and baby shower! I mentioned we will find out the gender on July 25. We've officially decided we aren't having a big party, but we do really want to find out at the same time as our family, so we are saving the envelope to find out that weekend at a small get-together at my grandma's house. The baby shower is going to be a big, fun, co-ed shower that we are calling a BABY-Q (like, BBQ). And! It's going to be on LABOR day weekend, which, is just a funny coincidence :) I wanted to avoid a short 2 hour all girls event like most showers. Kyle and I are BOTH so excited for this and I want him and his friends to be a part of it too! My aunt is so kindly hosting it at her house and has been a huge help with the planning and food - we can't wait!!

Other than all that excitement, work has been busy for me lately. Which is good, cause it makes time go quicker, but I'm also usually REALLY tired by the end of the day. I'm going to DC this Wednesday for an all day meeting. Luckily, Kyle is coming with me and we are staying in DC Tuesday night so I don't have to do the rush hour drive. Then, I'm headed to Huntsville, AL at the end of the month for a week long meeting. I actually just got off the phone to reschedule my 16th week OB appointment since I'll now be away that week. Instead I'll be going in at 15.5 weeks so they can check and make sure all is good before my trip.

So! my next appointment is next Wednesday. It will be a short one like last time, but it will be good to hear the baby's heartbeat again and know that everything is still ok. Luckily moving that appointment won't affect our 20 week anatomy scan scheduled for July 25 - it will just mean more time in between appointments next time. 

Getting really excited for all that summer has to bring and super glad that I'm feeling more like myself again so I can enjoy all of it!! 

Pants

Maternity pants, that is.

I got my first two pairs and I've started wearing them this week. It's weird. I know everyone says they are SOOOO comfy and don't get me wrong, they are, especially after you've spent the last two weeks still trying to squeeze into your size 2 work pants, but at the same time, wearing them is a much weirder feeling than I expected.

They don't have zippers or buttons or pockets, and the "pant" portion cuts off super low below your belly and turns into a stretchy panty hose type fabric to go over your stomach. I knew this - most people know what maternity pants look like, but wearing them is a totally different feeling from normal pants. Why is this weird? Well, we are so used to buying pants and shirts that suck in the stomach and "love handles" that having something that cuts so low and is basically made for everything to hang out all over the place makes you feel naked. Literally there's nothing there to suck it in! You have to get used to just letting your stomach stick out - it's a weird and unnatural feeling that I wasn't expecting.

But that said, it's much better than being uncomfortable all day. 

Just my random thought today.