By now you all know, we're having baby number 7 (pregnancy #8).
I'd like to try to document this last (LAST) pregnancy as best I can. So first I'll give some background.
Sam (my oldest) (1) was born early, at 35 weeks. My water had began to leak while I was in my birthing class and they sent me down to be checked out. I was already dilated to 7.
He was, for the most part, just fine. He had jaundice and had to be on the billilight for about a week, we got to be at home though. Not bad. He was a little glow worm. We weren't sure what spurred on my early labor, but having a healthy baby, I didn't even care and certainly wasn't thinking of other future babies.
Baby #3 Elizabeth Grace (#3), was also early. My water broke at 21 weeks. To keep it short and sweet, I had a terrible headache, decided to take a shower and began shaking really bad. A few minutes later my water broke. I had the baby 2 days later. She was still born. They wanted to do an autopsy but the thought of my tiny little baby girl... I just couldn't.
Iris (#6) was our next early bird. She came around 32 weeks. It was then that I realized there was some sort of unusual trend. While she was in the picu they decided we should both do some blood work. She had very very low red blood counts, we checked for everything scary. Eventually they diagnosed her with Hemolytic anemia of the newborn. She had a few blood transfusions and was under the lights for awhile.
my blood work showed my white blood cell counts were incredibly high, usually a sign that your body is fighting off an infection, only my body was in fact fighting off a perfectly healthy little baby. This is called Anti E (or e). Iris took awhile to recover from her blood condition, she had her last blood transfusion right before her third birthday.
When I found out I was pregnant with Mae (#7) we ran a few blood tests (monthly labs to watch my titers) and kept a close eye on the baby, having ultrasounds every few weeks. However, I was negative for Anti E.
When we found out I was pregnant THIS (#8) time, I tested positive for Anti E and my levels were a bit high already.
I just decided instead of long, lengthy, complicated updates on facebook, I would document my appointments here.
12 week Appointment:
This is my first official OB appointment, even though since becoming pregnant I've gone in twice for IV Fluids.
At this appointment we spoke in length about my morning sickness and how we are trying to control it. I'm taking 10 mg of reglan, b6, and unisom. These are all quite safe to take while pregnant and are very routine. However, so far, none of this is really helping. On my good days I'm severely nauseous, on my worst day I've thrown up somewhere between 11 - 15 times. If the next two weeks don't go well we'll start on some heavier medication. As a quick explanation, if you become deficient in a certain area, your baby still takes all the nutrients they need from you, and you become severely deficient. So good nutrition (obviously) is pretty important! And staying hydrated!
We also talked about prescription medications that I take and if I should continue or discontinue them. I'll be switching my prenatal to gummy prenatal vitamins because I just cannot swallow those horse pills!
I have ADD so I have a prescription for that. I decided I would like to discontinue that myself, and my OB said if that's what I want then she would support that. (excuse me if I'm even more crazy than usual!) I also take an Rx for anxiety. I had also decided to stop taking it, mostly because it makes me SO sick to swallow anything at all, but since stopping them coping has been pretty hard, and I haven't been sleeping, or if I do sleep just have nightmares. She said I need to continue taking them. If I need to crush them up and put them in yogurt or ice cream or apple sauce, then do that.
I ALSO (jeez) take Pulmicort which is a lung steroid for my asthma. I could tell the day I stopped taking it. I woke up with gunk filling my lungs and have been having a cough since then. She also wanted me to continue taking that. phew. My only "with drawl" from all of the things I stopped taking was obvious, anxiety. And actually a headache for a day or two.
I was refereed to Maternal Fetal Medicine, which is the high risk OB at the hospital here. I will see them once a month and have ultrasounds to make sure the baby is growing, and that all her internal stuff is working well. If I start to have a reaction to her, the first sign will be my titers change, and a second thing will be her becoming anemic, so I will also have monthly lab work. Yippee. There's nothing like feeling like complete crap and getting your blood drawn. I almost always cry in my car afterwards, only because it's so crappy, not because it hurts.
An "interesting"/horrible things about Anti-E is that the further along you are, the more your baby is in danger. Under no circumstance will I be able to go to full term as the risk of fetal death jumps to something like 75%. So what will happen is that after 25 weeks we will be on weekly blood draws and if my levels or her levels get to a certain level, we will do a c-section.
I will have the baby for 100% sure by January 24th. We will do a clinical induction on the 22nd of January. And the day I'm really looking forward to: getting my tubes tied on the 25th of January. 2 weeks before my 30th birthday. HAPPY FREAKING BIRTHDAY!
We were able to hear the baby's heart beat, 150 bpm. it took QUITE awhile to find the heart beat and I was trying to stay cool, but my OB said, I can hear the baby moving, I just can't pin her down!
My OB's name is Dr. Johns and she is seriously the sweetest person, I also get my own team of Doctors at the hospital so we are in such good hands and they're all wonderful at communicating.
25 weeks left!
Comments
Post a Comment