No baby today

Today my 5am wake up call consisted of at 12 hour fast, 6 viles of blood drawn, extra IV fluids, a shower and a shaved belly. All of this in preparation for my c-section.

Well, they wanted to run the blood test to make sure that delivery was still the best plan. The results were better than expected; my pre-eclampsia is mild enough to possibly wait a few more days. The parinatologist came in and recommended that we could wait until 35 weeks because the baby was still looking good and my blood pressure has been better. He needs to be delivered by 35 weeks because he is not growing at the correct rate due to my pre-eclampsia. My doctors were busy with several emergency c-sections this morning, so I had to wait a little while to learn what the plan would be.

Dr. Croland came in to tell me that our new plan was to schedule the c-section for Sunday unless my blood pressure readings were bad. I know that this will be best for the baby, but this was difficult news to hear after I had been completely prepared to have the c-section today. My tolerance for all the needle sticks is wearing thin and my emotional state was not too happy about having to endure 5 more days of pokes and new iv's. Hopefully these extra days of sticks and hospital time will make a difference in the baby's health at birth and that is what is important. My pregnancy hormones along with my fear of hospitals are starting to make me a little bit of a wreck, but I know that we will make it through.

We had a visit from a NICU new parent support person today and she was very helpful. I think we will be going on a tour this afternoon to see what we can expect when our little guy arrives. I appreciate that the hospital staff is doing everything to prepare us for our son to be born premature.

Through all of this I am feeling a great deal of support from friends and family which I appreciate very much. We have received many emails and phone calls of encouragement. Both Pastor Lightly and Pastor Johnston and Don and Jeanne have visited to pray with us. We feel very fortunate to have such great support from our loved ones at this time. I will continue to keep you all updated.

belly pictures

34 weeks 3 days
34 weeks 3 days in hospital

33 weeks 5 days

Hospital Day 2

I was woken up at 5 am this morning because the nurses needed to draw more blood. I then got to get out of bed to be weighed. 5am is so early for this! I am running out of veins now, so I hope they are about done sticking me soon.

John and I met with a perinatologist this morning to have an ultrasound and talk about how the baby is doing. Dr. Gross explained to us that I do have pre-eclampsia and it is starting to be a bad thing for the baby too. The baby's growth has been slowed because of his environment right now. He weighs about 3 lbs 11 oz which is behind about 3 weeks. His organs look good and are functioning well though. He is in a transverse position, so we will be having a c-section this week.

Dr. Gross said that babies born around this time tend to do well and that our baby scored an 8 out of 10 on his assessment today which is great. We could be looking at 10-15 days in the nicu after he is delivered, but he may be breathing fine we just won't know until he is here. Dr. Gross told me that one of my doctors would be talking to be later today to go over what we learned.

Dr. Mueller came in and let us know that we would be having a c-section before the new year and most likely tomorrow. I need to have one more steriod shot this afternoon (painful!) which will help his lungs even more. I will be put on a fast at midnight and then have more bloodwork checked in the morning to make sure we can go ahead with the birth that afternoon/evening.

My blood pressure is still high, so I am laying low and trying to get as much rest as I can before tomorrow.

Pre eclampsia

It's official, I have pre-eclampsia. I had to get a steriod shot to help the baby's lungs develop further. We will meet with a few doctors tonight and tomorrow to talk about what will happen when we deliver. It is looking like we will be induced before the end of the week. Please pray for our baby boy who is just of 34 weeks along.

OSF ...in December?

Well we went to our Doctors appointment this morning and after a visit with one of our Midwives we were sent home to rest some more and that our Doctor would call if we needed to do any thing about our test results. We had just left the building headed to our car when one of the Nurses came running out to us and told us that the doctor just called and wanted us to head straight to the Hospital! After a brief detour to our house we arrived at OSF and were admitted to the antipartum wing of the hospital. (I think that OSF is rather slow and has trouble communicating between departments on the low levels) So after a few surveys and specimen draws (three sticks with needles is not good for Julie) Julie is resting just waiting on the lab results of the blood work. She is starving but that is all part of what a hospital does right? Keep Julie and the baby in your prayers as her blood pressure and protein is still rather high. We are praying that we can hold out till the first of the year which will be 35 weeks. If the results come back for delivery today she already has her IV in.

Wednesday's Dr. Visit

My doctor appointment on Wednesday was not until 2pm, so I had to lay around all day waiting to find out my test results. John and I went to the doctor and I had to have my blood pressure checked. Once again it was very high. They took me into an exam room and had me lay down on my left side for 10 minutes and checked again. It was still high, but had gone down. They did this another time to watch it improve.

Dr. Croland came in to tell me that the blood pressure was high and that I am done working. He also said that my blood work looked good (praise God!). He said that I need to be laying down all the time now and that he will need to see me weekly. The baby will need to come out sooner rather than later. He then asked me to take a urine test and this is when the fun part happens.

I took the test and he came back in to tell me that I am spilling protein in my urine which means that my body cannot be pregnant much longer. He said that he needed to run one more test and if that comes back with too much protein, that he will need to deliver the baby. For this test, I was given two huge jugs to collect all of my urine for the next 24 hours. John will have to take my urine to the hospital as soon as the 24 hours are done on Christmas Eve.

Dr. Croland said that it will take another day to get the test run, but when he has the results he will call us if we need to meet him at the hospital to be induced! It would be better for the baby if he could stay in for at least one more week, but if this test comes back bad, they need to get him out. I know that OSF has the facilities and that the baby is past the critical development, but I was not expecting this! The good news is that Dr. Croland will be the doctor on call, so if we have to deliver at least I will have my doctor.

Bedrest Blues

Pregnancy is a wild ride. Strange things happen and sometimes those things are dangerous. Well, on Tuesday I experienced some strange new pregnancy symptoms. As I was driving to work, I noticed that I was seeing spots out of my right eye. It wasn't like the little spots that you see when you stand up too quickly, but more like huge bright lights flashing. I could not see the cars on my right side without using my left eye. I made it safely to work and called the doctor's office just to be safe because I was also having a lot of swelling in my ankles and feet. (I had not been able to see my ankles or ankle bones in about a week.)

When I call the doctor, I usually have to describe my symptoms and the nurse will call me back later in the day. Well, Tuesday when I described my symptoms I was able to speak to a nurse right away who scheduled me an appointment with the doctor that morning. Since I couldn't see very well, my boss drove me to the doctor.

I had to get my blood pressure checked and it was high which is why my eye was doing weird things and my feet were swollen. They had me lay down on my left side for a while and it went down a bit. The doctor told me that he needed to have some blood work done and that I would need to be off work and on bed rest until at least 35 weeks. At this point I was 33.5 weeks. He then started to tell me that he needs to get the baby to 35 weeks and then we may want to think about getting him out! He said not to worry because he would run the blood test and see me tomorrow to make sure I was doing OK. He also told me about the possibility of being put in the hospital depending on what the test results were. He also said I might be able to return to work part time after I made it to 35 weeks. I left there pretty in shock! I was worried that I might have to be in the hospital over Christmas or that I might have the baby in 2 weeks or that I might go full term! So many questions needed to be answered by the blood test! Wow.

Needless to say, I went back to work, grabbed my computer and headed home. I laid on the couch all evening and followed the doctor's orders.

Nursery baskets

These are the baskets that we made to organize the baby closet. The little animals on them match the closet organizers in the hanging part of the closet. You can see that the green wall from when the room was our office is still there, it is just hidden by the new closet.

Belly Pictures

32 weeks

31 Weeks

30 weeks

28 Weeks

Bradley shower photos

Bradley Baby Shower

On December 5th my wonderful co-workers hosted a baby shower at Bradley. We had so much fun. The invitations and shower were jungle-themed to go along with the baby's room. It was so cute. They even bought us little wooden animals to decorate the walls with. The pictures are still on the camera at work, but I will upload them soon. I am so grateful for all the wonderful friends at work. They gave us our pack 'n play along with many other useful items for our little one. One really cool thing about this shower was that everyone brought books instead of cards so that baby Holmes would have plenty to read when he gets here.

Everyone kept asking what we were naming the little guy and we kept saying "it's a secret" and someone chimed in that his middle name was agent. So now I get periodic emails with secret agent theme songs and spy gear to go along with his new nick name.

Hobie and Mario Meet a Baby

Hobie and Mario met their first baby this week. Baby Lucas visited with his parents and slept the whole time he was here. The cats did not take their eyes off of him. It was pretty funny. They are in for quite a lifestyle change in just a couple months. I am happy that they did not try to touch or bat at the baby.

New Due Date: Feb 7th

It looks like baby Holmes will be a February baby after all. My doctor has changed his due date to be February 7th. Before, the doctors were concerned about his size because he was measuring so small at every appointment. They did not want to change the due date at my last appointment, but after he reviewed all the information, he realized that one of the techs had made a mistake at our first appointment, so the baby has been normal size all along! I am thankful that our baby is growing great!

28 Weeks and Hospital Trip

Baby Holmes had an eventful weekend last weekend, but everything is looking good now. I did most of my Christmas shopping on Saturday morning and wore myself out. I woke up at 2am on Saturday night in a little pain but did not think much of it. After tossing and turning for another hour I got up and tried to make the pains go away by drinking water, sitting on the couch and walking around. I finally realized that these pains were coming in waves from my back to my abdomen and were hardening my belly. I googled to see if maybe it was braxton hicks contractions, but the information I read pointed to labor contractions. By this point I got in the shower to see if that may stop the contractions, it did not. John woke up at this point and started timing them and found that they were between 4 and 2 minutes apart!

We were in no way prepared for any of this so we had to look through tons of papers to even find the doctor's emergency number. We called and waited 10 minutes with no answer! We finally called the hospital to see what they thought we should do and got the "why didn't you come in 2 hours ago! Come straight to ER answer."

We got to the hospital and went to labor and delivery where we were hooked up to the monitor for several hours. The good news is that I was not dilated. The doctors there gave me a shot to stop the contractions and then monitored me for another hour or so. The shot worked and the contractions stopped. They put me on modified bed rest until I could see my doctor on Wed.

My doctor said everything looked good on Wednesday and that I need to take it easy and not do too much at this point in the pregnancy. He also advised that I drink a gallon of water every day! I am glad that everything is looking good!

Nursery closet

We made some little wooden closet organizers to separate the sizes of clothes in the babies closet. John cut out little hangers and we painted them and put little animals to match the room.

26 and 27 week belly pictures

27 Weeks

26 Weeks

The belly is really starting to grow now! Here are my 26 and 27 week belly pictures. I can't believe that he will be here in less than 3 months now!

Shower continued

The day after the shower, I got out all of the gifts for baby. It was so fun to look at it all again. Baby Holmes is going to look so sharp in his cute outfits!

24 Weeks

Baby Shower

Baby Shower!

Gifts

The cradle is a family cradle that John's Grandpa built. Baby Holmes will be sleeping in the same cradle as John.

"Sand" cake

"Dirt" cake

Centerpieces

Last weekend we went over to the Quad Cities for a baby shower at John's family's church. We had a wonderful time. John's mom made tons of food and some cute bucket cakes that were "dirt" and "sand" cakes. Baby Holmes received many wonderful gifts. I can't wait to put him in the cute little baby outfits.

Sweet Treats

There was a wonderful treat in the mail for me the other day at work. John sent me some really good chocolate covered strawberries! What a nice surprise. The photo is of the berries when I got home after I ate one!

More Nursery Progress

Nursery Progress

We went shopping for the baby's nursery this weekend. After searching for bedding at every store, we still couldn't find anything that we loved. We decided to put our own set together by picking separate sheets, bumper and crib skirt that all coordinated with cute animal curtains and mobile. We want his room to have several colors. We still have a lot to do, but we are having fun starting to put it together.

Belly Pictures

23 Weeks

21 Weeks

Shopping for Baby

Last weekend we found some great garage sales. I found so many adorable baby clothes. We also found a nice tummy time mat that has toys hanging over it. John's favorite purchase was a stuffed character called Handy Manny. It is a little stuffed doll that has a toolbox of stuffed tool characters. There are 8 little stuffed tools for the baby to play with and help John when he is fixing things around the house.

Nursery

We have been working on getting the nursery together. We found a great crib and dresser/changer at Target that was perfect! it is dark brown and looks great. It even came with a free mattress. John put them together and the room is starting to look like a nursery. We are thinking about how to decorate and I have been searching for a good bedding set. I think we might be going with some cute animals for the decor. John finished the shelves next to the closet and we have been filling them with books. My mom has been working on filling those shelves with great baby books and she is doing a great job. I can't wait until we get to sit in the chair and read books with our baby boy. I really hope that he will love reading.

It's a BOY!!
Cute baby foot

Upside down leg shot

Face

Fun Photos at 20 weeks

Profile View

3D photo

It's a BOY!!

Yesterday we had our big ultrasound. It was amazing. The baby was moving all over the place and showing off. I drank chocolate milk before the appointment to wake up the baby so that hopefully we could see the gender. It worked and he showed us that he is a boy! We got lots of photos of him moving all around. He kept putting his hands up and we counted 10 fingers. The 3D picture of him is really neat. I am really excited to know that we are having a son. It makes if feel more real now that I can start thinking of names for him. He looks perfect and all of the organs looked healthy. The doctor called me back in the afternoon to let me know that they need to do another ultrasound at my next appointment because they noticed that he is underweight. She said not to worry because we could just be off a week on his due date and John and I are both smaller people, so they just want to keep an eye on the growth. I get to look forward to seeing our baby again in 4 weeks.

dehydration

This past week was a difficult one for me. I was having terrible muscle and joint pain. I even woke up in the middle of the night a few days. I called the doctor and they had me go to the hospital to get a blood clot test done. I did not have a blood clot, which is good. They determined that I had been dehydrated and possibly had a lack of calcium. I have been feeling much better now.

Health Insurance

Bradley is changing their health insurance and I need to make a decision this week. At first I was pretty frustrated having to change midway through pregnancy. Now that I have done some research, I am excited that I now have the option to choose OSF St. Francis as my hospital of choice. I think this will be where I want to deliver because if anything goes wrong, the baby will need to be transported here anyway and I don't want to be in two separate hospitals. I am also glad that this insurance option includes the Children's Hospital; my old one did not. I need to start looking into some birthing classes soon because they will not begin any in November or December with the holidays and January is too late to enroll.

Belly Pictures

19 Weeks

17 Weeks

Crazy Cravings

We've all read about crazy pregnancy cravings. I had no idea how real they could be until I experienced my first real craving. The reason I blame this on pregnancy is because it was not something I normally eat. It was corn bread! I got so hungry for it that I called John from work last Wednesday night and asked him to make some for me. He did, and it was the best corn bread.

Growing and moving

I have been feeling the baby move on and off the last couple weeks. He or she loves to move around all day long. It is a fun feeling!

Shopping for Baby

Last weekend we drove down to Springfield to visit Babies R Us to start looking for a crib. There is so much out there for babies that it is overwhelming! We did not find the perfect crib so will continue our search over the next few months. It was fun to look at everything.

Third Doctor Appointment

Yesterday we visited the doctor's office for another appointment. Everything is looking good and today's heartbeat was 140. We met with another midwife who was very friendly. She shared with us that according to an old wives tale the lower heartbeats tend to be boys and the higher tend to be girls. I think ours is right in the middle, but today was on the low side of average, so we will find out soon if this old wives tale is correct for baby H. We scheduled our anatomy sonogram for the end of September and can't wait to find out if we will be welcoming a boy or a girl this winter.

Baby is now the size of an avacado!

John updating the nursery

Our office is getting a makeover as I have built a new closet to house all the baby stuff.

Fourteen Weeks

Second sonogram

You can see the toes and fingers! Looks just like Julie.

Sporting the Alma mater colors! At eight weeks.

First Doctor's Appointment

We had our first doctor's appointment on June 24th. We got to see the baby for the first time through ultrasound which was really amazing. The little heartbeat was moving right along at 158 beats per minute. I can't believe we could hear it already at just 8 weeks. I also had to have a lot of blood drawn and went through some family history information before meeting with the midwife.

4 Week Belly Picture!

Not much of a belly yet but it is coming.

A Normal Day of Folding Laundry

May 29, 2009. The day we found out that a new baby would be joining our family! I will never forget this day. John was out with a friend when I found out, so I had to think of a fun way to tell him the news. I went to the store and purchased a little bib that said "I love daddy" and hid it in the clean laundry basket. When he got home I asked him to help me finish folding the clothes. When he found the bib, he wasn't really sure why we had it and even asked me if it was a friend of mine's because I had just been there. I said, no. That's yours because we're pregnant! We were both excited and nervous for this awesome life change.