31.5 weeks

Date night for Jonny's birthday. We went to the Green Well and ate like kings :) He had a steak he's been craving for weeks and I had some yummy fish tacos.

Hi Jon! 

You look sweet too :)

Weeb and me at 31.5 weeks.

Since last week he has really gotten bigger I think.

Right now his favorite activities include toe touches, dancing the "running man", and general calisthenics. He does however work out too much often to the point of giving himself long bouts of hiccups.

My favorite activities include sleeping in well past when I should be awake, reading juvenile fiction, watching Animal Planet, cooking dinner and going for walks.

Jonathan's Big 26!

Happy Birthday Jonny! 

I have been 

*married to Jon for almost 2 years

*engaged to Jon for almost 2 years before that

*dating Jon for 4 years before that 

*been friendly acquiantances with Jon for at least 2 years before that

*known of him for 2 years before that

*met him a year before that

And I'm still figuring him out. For example yesterday I learned that he really appreciates 

broccoli as a vegetable. 

Last year I learned he loves funfetti cake. 

I relayed this info to my Mom who made him a funfetti cake. I had made him one earlier and so had his work. A grand total of 3 funfetti cakes were had for his 25th. 

Here's the first of his 26th birthday cakes

26 will be a BIG year. 

I bet Weeb will want a funfetti cupcake next year for his 1st birthday.

Help me up!

Sometimes when I try to get out of bed in the morning I feel like I can relate to this puppy.

Project Thank You

I watched a million and one episodes of Baby Story on TLC today and teared up like a fool every time. So instead of sitting there on the couch I got inspired to be a little crafty and make some thank you cards for my upcoming Baby shower. I saved a lot of the materials from my wedding invitations because they were so cute. I was happy to find them and use them in my cards.

I love the green and cream colors from the invites. I didn't use any of the pink left overs to avoid any confusion on Weeb's gender.

I wrote a variety of "thanks" with colored pencil 

 

I glued on the edelwise flowers and arranged them in different patterns

I am pretty happy with them, mostly because it gave me a fun little project to work on and I got to finally use up all that left over material!

 

Weeb and I say hi! 30.5 weeks

Walking

Now that my sever pain has all but gone I am anxious to get my body moving again. Last week I was able to do laundry, walking up and down the stairs to the basement without much issue. My leg still feels like it fills up after walking the stairs. The only way to relieve the pressure is to prop up my leg, which means sitting or lying down. A little frustrating when laundry takes about 6 trips total.

This past weekend I put my leg to some more tests. I finished painting Baby's walls, at least the 2 chocolate brown walls. This made me stretch on my feet and do some crouching for the low bits. Again I was forced to take some time outs. But hey, it looks pretty nice :) I think Baby will like it.
I also had a brunch date with Jon and friend couple of ours. Due to some restaurant choices we did more walking than expected, up and down Monroe Street settling on the new Mexican restaurant Cinco de Mayo. Pretty good food. The baskets of tortilla chips reminded me of my favorite Mex place in NYC. My friend Kerry and I would eat baskets of them and drink some yummy 2 for 1 margaritas.....oooooh so good. I miss that place!

Yesterday I walked to the hospital to get my blood drawn yet again, that tired me out. My legs are in recovery mode.

And now here I sit at Schuler's Book store, .5 miles away from my apartment. I am really happy to be out of the apt for a little! Plus I get to drink a nice Italian soda and peruse their magazines. I could live in bookstores :)

Moral of the story: I will get back to full mobility eventually. I think this experience will serve as a powerful motivator to finally do a marathon when I can!

Cravings

It has been a long time coming but I think....I am starting to get cravings. Sadly they are not for the healthy, baby-friendly foods I ought to eat like these

No, it is now for certain. I have a raging sweet tooth. I really really appreciate a good baked good or ice cream. Yeesh. These are the foods my taste buds cry for

Oh boy.

I think there are two mindsets the pregnant lady can take on throughout the time, a) you're preggers, deal with it and eat or b) lets try to maintain similar eating patterns and be health concious most of the time. I would say I subscribe to the second mindset (most of the time). 

I have always grazed throughout the day so my eating patterns haven't changed much, I still feel like I accumulate a good amount of food over the 24 hours. Most of which I would categorize as healthy. And yes, the pounds have slowly been accumulating. I kind of had an idea of the total weight gain I would like to see, but realizing I've never been here before I was, and am, willing to be flexible with myself. I just feel better having a range to try to stick to. While on bedrest in the hospital I was sure the poundage would overtake me as there was no way to move about. So I was a little surprised to step on the scale at my docs yesterday and still register where I had aimed to be at 30. *during the hospital stay they weighed me twice and I weighed a full 8 lbs more due to all those liquids and fluid retention!

I do realize weight gain shouldn't take center stage during pregnancy, and I promise I'm not being a total freak about it. But now that I find myself drawn to the sweet stuff I'm a little more wary of what this might lead to, gulp. For now I try to tell myself what comes up will go down (please!) and to be happy that my leg seems to be on the mend and my mobility is slowly improving with every day. However I might have to re-work my year's list and push back the marathon attempt one more year....:)

A-ha

Sister wants her daily post, so here you go :)

Now we have answers to my sad blood clot. I got my blood drawn AGAIN this morning with the help of my sweet Mom who was my chaffeur for me. After a quick nap we went to Baby appointment. He was of course silly and tumbly, but still quite adorable. After an extra large lunch at Arnies I said good-bye to Mom and drove myself home. Hooray, I can still manage to drive. Although hopefully I wont be doing much of that.

My doctor called me this afternoon to say my heparin levels were way high, meaning my blood was too thin. Ugh- too thin, too thick. He said I need to be careful and avoid trauma. So now I am lying on the couch and thinking I should rubber pad the entire apartment. In fact, I'll let Jon open the mail...in case of papercuts. Starting tomorrow I'm up to 3x a day heparin shots BUT less meds, so forget the 3 needles every time. Thank goodness. I can even skip tonites dose which will let my poor tummy heal from all those pokes over the week.

Now the answer. I have a genetic clotting disorder called Factor V. Now we know. I was really annoyed yesterday reading What to Expect When You're Expecting because they said DVT's were so rare only 1 in 10,000 pregnancies have an occurance. That made me mad. Now I guess there is a little more of an answer behind it.

Wheels are Churning

It's nearing that time of the year for me; the Spring itch. It's where my brain jumps into overdrive and I get really, really restless. I will inevitably research a million different job opportunities, look into a thousand schools and scholarships, and get really excited about one or two of them. Yup, I'm very nearly there. And because there isn't anything I can do about it I will let my brain run away with me. So, before I introduce the new Spring fever I will recap for myself what has come before.

Briefly, the following is a list of careers that have taken center stage in the past Springs:

- doctor; I enrolled in Chem and chem lab at UM my freshman year, wrote out an intricate undergraduate plan for myself. Ended up with a less than stellar grade and a new appreciation for anyone going that route.

-archaeologist; enrolled in some great arch. and anthro classes at UM, really interesting. Dream ended when I could not figure out what exactly I would do with that outside of play Indiana Jones and travel the world, which would have been awesome...

-sports management; I love sports, I love to train, training other people is fun too. Ended for me when UM told me to get in line, apparently lots of people like sports too

-physical therapist; I can still work with sports injuries! This spring fever has reoccured for several years, each time tempting me. Ended because by the time I looked at this I was a junior at UM and committed to the 4 year plan

-interpreter; languages are great! This spring fling began for me while I studied in Finland and worked at a language lab for interpreters-in-training. It amazed me how they switched from Finnish to Swedish to English, French and German seemingly effortlessly. That to me is talent! Which I just haven't grasped. I am however committed to getting at least bilingual with Spanish.

-Economist/Accountant; I also love playing with money, planning with it, projecting it and saving it. So why did I struggle so much with Econ 101, so much so that I have my one sad W on my UM transcript for withdrawal! Ugh. Shame. So shameful I went back and took it again...still struggled.

-teacher; never have I wanted to be a teacher. Honestly. I fell into this role because my sister told me about the program Teaching Fellows and I applied and was caught up. Caught up for 3 years teaching ESL in NYC. Low and behold I think I did a pretty good job (at least eventually, by year 3...)

Okay! Pretty much up to date. So here it is, the new Spring itch is..........something in the medical field! Vague, yes? I have noticed my past itches have been quite specific. And over the years here is what I have learned as far as careers go;
1- my next one will be TRANSFERABLE to other states, period.
2- I will choose something that is growing and desireable
3- I will choose something that will always be around SOMEWHERE

So there it is. Let's narrow it down a bit. I will not be looking for ANOTHER 4 year degree, rather I'm thinking I'd like to add an Associates to my resume. I will not be giving meds or drawing blood (so no RN or nursing assistant for me). That's where I am now. I can't help myself, when Spring hits this always happens! But maybe, this will be my time :)

Sunshine and Nailpolish

Today started off brightly- really, the sun is amazing! Last night I told Jon I would make him pancakes for breakfast, he was really excited. This surprised me because 1) he doesn't love pancakes all that much and 2) he has never said "really!? when I've planned to make any food before. This makes me feel like he is being a bit neglected :) So  when his crazy alarm clock woke me at 5:30a I stifled my groan and got up. Mixed the batter, warmed the gridle, put on the hot water for coffee and served it up much like Betty Crocker would have. Then I went back to bed :)

I woke with renewed vigor at 8 (wow I sleep in now!). Showered, blow dried my hair (what!) and did my requisite drugs. I was on a roll and even put on makeup, for no one but myself as I am confined to my quarters. The grand finale was red nail polish, because why not?

Are You Scared of the Dark?

Yesterday was the first real day of me being here doing the "modified bed-rest" thing. On the whole it was a long day, kind of felt like work in itself. Probably the most productive thing I did was to almost finish baby's stuffed animal I'm making for him. Here is the little fellow sitting on my lap already befriending Baby. He still needs a face and arms.

Maybe I will finish him properly today. Or make him a sweater :) I also thought about making brownies for Jon, but that thought soon passed. Good thing too because I had two of the sweetest surprises come for me in the mail. One was a giant tin of brownies! Sent from two of my favorite New Yorkers. Delicious. The other surprise arrived from Chicago. An adorable little brown sleeper suit for Baby and just a sweet sweet card from the first of my friends to have a baby (who is now 2!) These gifts were so out of the blue, it felt like getting big hugs from all over. Hugs which I so needed.

As I neared the end of the day things sort of tensed up for me. I got a call from my doctor saying my blood levels were low, meaning it isn't at a therapeutic range to treat and stabalize my unfriendly clot. So she has doubled my dosage of heparin to 30,000 units every 12 hours. Which basically means I need to do 3 of these ugly shots every 12 hours. That's a lot of tummy stabs.

That news put me in a funk. Got me thinking too much. Why isn't my blood responding like it did last week on the IV? What happens to the clot if I'm not at therapeutic levels? Does it grow? Move? What will they want to do if my next blood draw shows no significant improvements? Why does my leg get a little bluish when walking? Should I really only be sitting?
These are heavy thoughts that prevent a sound sleep. Luckily I have Jon to talk me down during the scary dark hours of the day. But it is hard not to fear the unknown. It's hard to wait for answers and second guess pains and feelings throughout my body.
Goal of the minute, the hour and the day is the same: trust that the doctors are knowledgeable and doing what is right. Let go of the anxiety. Smile because Baby is almost 30 weeks and doing well.

An Ordeal in Pictures

Now that I am home and readjusting to a very sedentary lifestyle I think it appropriate to document my adventure through photographs. One more little project to keep me focused on breaking my day into manageable bites of time.

The ultimate goal is to avoid becoming one with the couch.

Here we go: my hospital staycation and new life with medications!

This sign in the room kept a smile on my face as the days past and the nurse's names changed. They all (Dad included) camped out on the uncomfortable cot by my bed at least one night to keep me company. Well, Baby was there the whole time! Jon was and continues to be an awesome husband and friend to me as I went through emotional rollercoasters  of being fearful.

Now this strange contraption is my little internal defender. After looking at my MRV the docs saw the clot was moving north on its path of destruction. In hopes to guard my lungs from the clot they maneuvered this metal guy (well, a different one) through my jugular into my internal vena cava vein. It sits there now and will remain until a week or two after delivery. He may look a little scary, but I'm glad he's there.

My drinks: saline solution + heparin. Delicious cocktail.

Uh oh- watch out tummy! My new drug regimine. Do you like my drug purse complete with syringes? It makes poking my tummy a little more glamorous. No noticeable bruising of the tummy yet, just burns when the meds go in.

Ah! The needle! 

My gift to you after having to see my tummy and a scary needle. Look at the pretty flower.

A Revised Plan of Attack

Okay! I am at home in our very very messy Grand Rapids apartment. I really can't complain about the mess, I would'v wanted Jon to be with me at the hospital like he has been than cleaning up here. Now I'm fighting the urge to get up and start cleaning properly. My leg is doing a good job of discouraging that clean behavior too. Plus it's really awkward to handle the crutches in the skinny hallways we have here. So for today I have agreed to fold a ton of laundry from my perch on the couch while Jon does the heavy lifting up and down to the basement.

As far as next medical steps here's the plan. I will be poking my tummy with heparin shots twice a day until baby is induced somewhere around 36 weeks (which is frightenly nearing). I will have daily blood draws at clinics daily starting this morning until my doctors are happy with my blood levels being at a therapeutic anti-coagulent level. Hopefully that'll settle down within a few days. And finally I will be making weekly visits to by OB doc to check on baby. He meanwhile is doing just fine. After breakfast yesterday I was put on the monitor to listen to him and the little boy was so squirrly it was hard to get a consistent heartrate. Then after 10 minutes of flips and rolls he chilled only to start hiccupping for the following 5 minutes. He is going to be such a silly little boy!

Now for the Laura sanity plan: I will take this time to finish my several crafts in the making including painting (from a chair) and finishing my frog man knitted stuffed animal. In addition, because I will have time, I will return to my secondary plan of relearning Spanish. Cross my fingers I'll be able to start taking a language class next fall. I would really love to add a bilingual extension to my resume (even if my ESL certificate is junk in MI) in hopes to rangle a job using both languages. Might as well use the time I have to focus a little. Because baby is coming.....so so soon!

Not so Fast!

Here I am......stillllllllll here.

Switched up the routine at the last minute. Goodbye lovenox shots, hello heparin injections. Awesome. Same result, different price tag. Substantial we hope.

So, today's goal remains the same as yesterdays. Get out! Oh, and decide how to make a few bucks while on medical leave from work....hmmmmm.

Ho hum, ho hum.

Bored.

Run for the Hills

As of right now I will be released after 4pm's blood draw to check my heparin levels. Hopefully a happy husband will great me and help load me and the garden into the car. I have some crutches now to help me walk a little easier- although it's a bit awkward and a little frustrating from the pain.

So, I've soaked up my fill of Animal Planet's 'Big Cats' series, eaten the last tray lunch and am more than ready to gather up and head home. Stopping only to fill a couple od scripts- I will have to syringe myself 2x a day for the foreseeable future....ew.

Let's get moving!

Psych

Hello Wednesday. Good morning flowers on my shelf- they really are lovely and the nurses say they smell wonderful (I'm a bit stuffed up so I will trust their judgement). I'm going to make other Michaganders sad in greeting the cloudy day with a welcomed smile. Yes I was really jealous that my leg choose the key sunny pre-Spring week of the year to be in hospital while everyone else caught some beautious rays. I could use a cloudy day to make me feel better about staying in here a bit longer.

As my physical self is slow to recover my mental self is getting pretty itchy at being confined to one place. I would never wish this on anyone, never ever.

Currently I am struggling with the ugly question of why. It's hard not to feel a "why me" moment several times a day. What a useless question to ask. There is of course no answer. Even the blood work is slow to come back and will likely be inconclusive as to a reason for this. So many women are pregnant around me, I can't look at facebook without seeing another announcement. And I am so so happy for them. I am so happy for the little families I see around me. It's so hard to not be able to feel that right now. I do trust our little family will be together, but it hurts mentally right now to feel insecure about the thing I want most.

This is hard now. I hope it will fade into a story that we tell Baby later on.

A "normal" day

Today's schedule is as follows:

5:45- Goodbye kiss from Jonathan on his way to work, poor boy had to sleep on the recliner by my bed, but I love that he stayed with me
8am- wake up from a Vicadin induced sleep (at least I got some!)
8:10- tray delivery: pancakes, bacon and milk
9- why am I watching Take 5 and Company?
10- baby monitoring #1, I get to hear baby randall beating away on the monitor for 20 minutes
11- team of doctors come to chat; do I get to begin the new injectible medication of blood thinner today? They'll squeeze and compare my puffy left leg to my normal sized right leg, ask about any chest pain and then give me the revised road map to the week (do I get out??)
12- tray delivery: it's a surprise
1- I pass out from a little Vicadin which I'll likely ask for at this point for the leg pain
2- work on knitting baby's stuffed animal- a large green frog with dangly legs
3- maybe read my magazines that Mom brought me
5- tray delivery- another surprise
6- a visit from Jonathan :)
7 and onwards......who knows..............any ideas to keep my sanity?

Revised Goal for the Year: Be Flexible in all Things

I'm sitting/reclining here in the hospital bed, my home since last thursday. It appears to be a beautiful day out again, you lucky ones that can get out to enjoy it. I will likely be in here for the rest of the week, me and baby boy Randall. I don't think he minds so much. Twice daily I've gotten to hear him beat away at a pretty steady 140 range and do little flips and adjustments. He is awfully cute already, if not a bit silly :)

Our little family has been going through quite a few trials. How quickly things come out of nowhere to derail you and your expectations. Our biggest expectation, baby's big arrival into our waiting arms, has been pushed forward. Now I like getting presents early but babies are another story. They seem to have a estimated time of arrival that one doesn't want to rush. Baby Randall will with us a full month early as of now, scheduled for a 36 week delivery. Thus changing his birthday month from May to April. We are nervous now. I felt like I needed every week in preparation for baby, mentally and physically. Now I feel the countdown.

I know baby will be a strong little guy, I trust he will be up to speed and weight so he can comfortably be at home with us. What I'm worried about is me, will I be a healthy mom for him? This blod clot has done a number on me. Will I be back to normal-Laura body ever? Not just talking about about weight, but health and fitness. I saw the colorful clot-monster on my second leg ultrasound yesterday and it was really hard to keep it together. My entire left thigh up to my big central torso vein has clot. It looks scary. The ultrasound tech felt bad for me and scanned over baby to try to cheer me. He was of course cute as ever- even saw he has hair on his head! I knew he'd be a hairy guy. But it's hard not to be distracted by that ugly colorful picture behind the little baby.

I want to be healthy for me and baby. I wanted to do so many things this year. All I can see for sure now is the need to  keep calm and flexible. Both are going to be hard to do. But baby and I are in it together and Jon is being strong and supportive and we are surrounded by family and friends that want us to be well. So for the hundreth time today I will remind myself of the good things coming and positive things happening and try to steer clear of the unpleasant thoughts that loiter around my brain. 

Time Out

Well yesterday I was in pain with no answers and now today I'm in pain with answers and some nerves. I went in for the leg/groin ultrasound at 1:30 with a very patient husband coaching me down the stairs, across the sidewalk and into the car (a whopping 5 min procedure) driving me in and then caching/being a human crutch to walk to the entrance where thank goodness a wheelchair was parked and i gladly stole.

Pain. Lots of it. The ultrasound tech took pics and i wish i couldve interpreted them- all the blues, oranges and reds mving around. Ten minutes later she's back saying "there's a lot of clot from your groin to your knee, which means we're admitting you now".

Off we went via wheelchair, a little glossy eyed and into OB triage. Everyon wanted to talk to us. Vampira came a drained about 15 vials of blood! Texts flew off toward family members. Dad showed up shortly after complete with helmet fresh off the bike. Mom was there shortly after. Baby was monitored the whole while- at least he sounded happy.

Then came the IV with blood thinners. Then they decided to do an MRI(V) to look and see where these buggers travelled and how far up. 30 minutes later I'm shoveled off the MRI board onto a gurny for alittle procedure involving novacane, a catheter and a tiny metal umbrella. They noticed the clot was high enough to be concerning and guided in the little clot catcher umbrella through a catheter through my jugular. ugh, in my neck! First try was an ill fit so they did it once more til successful.

Now I lie here with slightly swollen legs, a sore groin and ouchy neck. But we are here, baby and me. We'll even see baby 2 weeks sooner than expected as they want to induce earlier at 38 weeks.

Moral of the story- figure out what is and isn't "normal" preggo pains.

Immobility + Pain

Things could always get worse from a situtation you feel is really bad. Last week I was struggling with a killer lower back ache, centered around couple of unhappy knots. So annoying was it that I began to compensate how I walked to make the left back feel less strain. This only worsened things it seems.

Today is my 3rd day off from work. I am to a point where standing vertically is a chore and walking is excruciating. I hobble, I limp, I drag my left leg around with me. The pain is radiating out of my left groin and hip, just where your hip flexor is. Mom took convinced me to walk in to my doctor's office to have it looked at. They were slightly concerned of a blood clot. My blood pressure was 30 points higher than normal which just hearing that stresses me out more. But they concluded I have acute back spasms playing tug of war across my torso. Another doc manipulated my leg this way and that, making my eyes weepy :( I think he was sorry to make me hurt, he even gave me a hug and a perscription of muscle relaxors.

This hasn't helped, its now 3 days later and my mobility appears to be be even worse. This makes me scared that 1) it will last for the duration of the pregnancy 2) it really is a blood clot 3)I just wont get better.

I miss my legs, I miss the beautiful pre-Spring days that have been going on lately. I need my mobility back, and I will never complain about a back ache again.