So yesterday, Jonathan and I went to see our fetus again. Here are some things we learned from the appointment:
Baby weighs about 15 oz. The Perinatologist (sp?) predicted that Baby’s final weight could be 8 lb, 8 oz.
Baby has my toes (the second toes are longer than the firsts)
My placenta is low lying. This isn’t a bad thing now, but it could be of a concern if it doesn’t move up later on.
Baby is breech now, which isn’t a bad thing now.
They didn’t see anything wrong with the kidneys, at this point.
I have another Sonogram scheduled for February, and I’ll probably get another one after that!
Here are some other pictures: Arm, Leg, Head & Chest
Last night, Jonathan felt Baby move several times for the first time! Yea!
And, we’ve decided to refer to Baby as JoJo, as suggested by Jonathan’s sister. I’m not sure of her reasoning, but here’s our reason: if Baby is a boy, his middle name will be Jonathan, and if Baby is a girl, her middle name will be Joy. Hence Jo for Jonathan and Jo for Joy, so JoJo.
I had planned on doing a post last Tuesday (which didn’t happen) and then today on how to make baby burp cloths, but seeing as how I’m STILL pregnancy sick, I cannot gather the energy to do that.
Instead, I will solicit your help . . .
I’m trying to be informed about the flu and swine flu vaccines, so I can make a good decision for me, my unborn child, and Abigail. I hear conflicting “evidence” as to the safety/harm of it all.
My OB said I should get the flu shot, but she didn’t mention the H1N1 shot, specifically. I got the seasonal flu shot last year to try to protect Abigail and ended up getting flu symptoms four days later only for a day. I predict that would happen again this time if I get the shot, but I wonder if that’s safe for baby if I show symptoms for a day?
And Abi hasn’t had her flu shot yet because they’re always out.
We live in Texas where 5151 people have been infected and 27 have died, as reported on July 24. And it’s only gotten worse since then. Two of Jonathan’s co-workers kids got swine flu and my hair dresser’s (who cuts hair in her home) daughter had it WHEN I WENT OVER THERE TO GET MY HAIR CUT . . . WITH ABIGAIL! Ahh, thank goodness we didn’t get sick. So, it’s not like it is not gonna get close to me.
Anyway, what’s your opinion on getting either shots? Especially if you have toddlers or are a pregnant, too, let me know.
Abigail had her 18 month well check up yesterday. Some things that happened there . . .
The Pedi said about 4-5 different times, “I’m very impressed with Abigail’s speech.”
She asked me lots of questions like, “Does Abby bring things to you if you ask, will she . . ., etc” to check her developmental skills. One thing she asked that I thought was strange was, “Does she walk backwards?” Uhh, I don’t know. So, we put Abigail on the floor, and the Pedi started walking towards Abby, and Abby took several steps backwards. Interesting.
Because of her kidney reflux, they have to start taking her blood pressure. Apparently it was too high at the Urologist’s office, so they wanted a better reading. But since Abigail is so afraid of Doctors now, they told me they’d hook her up, leave the room, and have me push the buttons on the machine. Okay, well, Abby hated the arm cuff. She cried and cried and cried. And they didn’t want me to take the reading with her crying. So, she’d calm down, then, I’d push the button, and she’d hear the machine and feel the pressure and start crying again. Ugh. At one point, I checked her arm, and it was completely red, splotchy, dotted, and purple. The doctor said it was petechia. Poor girl. So, we switched the cuff to the other arm. All in all, we had about 10 error readings. But we finally got it. She was happy to leave.
The Pedi said, “Since Abigail is so so advanced, you can start teaching her things, like, . . . “
Abby weighed 21 lb and 9 oz. She was almost 33 inches long.
I don’t know what else to say except please visit this blog and start praying for Brad (sweet, brave husband), Sara (might be brain dead, new mom with cancer), and Chloe (precious newborn).
Posted in Uncategorized on 09/18/2009 02:41 pm by lori
I apologize to my readers. I’m still here; just really busy, and blogging has not been my priority. Sorry. I will try to be better . . . maybe next week.
Some recent good news
We found out that my dad doesn’t have cancer . . . after doing several tests for the past 3 months. Praise the Lord. His lesion seems to have “disappeared”.
Also, we bought Abigail a cute outfit for Halloween; her Daddy picked it out. Maybe she’ll win another contest like she did last year.
I went to the orthodontist, and he was talking about scheduling my next appointments. He said, “Make one for six weeks and four weeks, and they’re off.” I said, “Wait, in 10 weeks, they’ll be off?!” He said, “Well, that would only put you at having braces for 10 months, so maybe we better slow down.” So, I said, “But you think I’ll have them off by March (Abigail’s bday).” He said, “Before Christmas.” What what! Awesomeness. They had originally estimated 20 months, and it looks like I’ll be getting them off before 1 year. Yea!
Braves have won 7 in a row!! This weekend, we’re taking on the first place team in our division, so if we sweep them, and other teams do poorly, we’ll have a shot of getting into the playoffs. I never used to have to worry about that; it was always a given that they’d be in the playoffs, but in the last few years, they have disappointed me!
I made a 17 month movie of Abigail with Jonathan’s stupid Mac (only because it’s faster than my PC). But for the bazillionth time, it’s having trouble uploading. It strips out the video from the video clips, and it doesn’t include the music at all! Ugh. It never had problems uploading the movies I made on my PC. I hate Macs!!!!
Anyway, so I’ll do a “Happy 18 Months” post for her whenever I get the video straightened out. Until then, I’ll give you an update on her appointments today.
Abigail had a renal ultrasound done on her kidneys and bladder. She absolutely hated it. It wasn’t painful (maybe a little cold), but ever since her VCUG, she’s just so scared of doctors/nurses. I even was able to hold her the whole time, but she still cried the whole time! About 20 minutes or more.
Because of all her squirming, they couldn’t get a very good read, but they don’t think there is any scarring on her kidneys. They did say that her left kidney is larger than her right one. But her bladder looks okay.
So far, she’s doing okay on her prophylatic antibiotic, and we’ll continue that until her next VCUG in about 9 months.
Abby had an appointment with a Pediatric Urologist last week, and we feel a lot better having talked things out with the doctor.
Here are some things we learned:
She told us potty training might be different because Aibgail will have a tendency to hold her urine or only let little bits out at a time, not fully emptying her bladder.
Deflux is a good option for Abigail, but the success rate is only 80% (whereas Ureteral Reimplant Surgery has a 99% success rate). She said she wouldn’t be opposed to doing either of these, but she said if it were her daughter, she would wait it out a little bit to see if the Reflux gets better.
She said there won’t be any problems with Abigail’s fertility because of this.
We have to get a Renal Ultrasound done on Abigail next month, and then, we’ll have a follow up appointment with the Urologist to see if there is any scarring on Abby’s kidneys or if her kidneys are dilated.
On the advice of our Urologist, here are the reasons we might choose Deflux or the Surgery soon (which is a relative term): 1. If it shows that she does have scarring or dilation of the kidneys. 2. If she gets any breakthrough infections while on the Antibiotics. 3. If at her next VCUG, her Reflux Grade has stayed the same or gotten worse
I asked how long we would “wait and see” if the reflux didn’t completely went away. Would it be 5 or 9 years minimum before we started looking into corrective options? The Urologist said that she wouldn’t want to wait even 5 years; she thinks she’d want it corrected within 3 years. I think she’s confident that it should get better without corrective measures (not counting antibiotics). I sure hope so.
Some tips about requesting samples or buying anything online. I’ve never had any problems; these are just me being extra careful.
I always put Mrs in the “first name” column– not my first name.
I type in a fake number if they ask for a phone number.
I have set up an email account that I only use for requesting samples. Be sure to do this, so you don’t fill up your personal email account with newsletters.
I don’t give my correct birth date; I type the same year I was born, but I mix up the month and day.
Be patient for your samples, some of them take up to 8-12 weeks to come. Check out the past weeks’ samples, as many of them are still good.
I was going to write a post about movie reviews, but that will wait until next week, I guess. I just got off the phone with my lovely cousin and friend Katie. We were talking about her sweet, new, GORGEOUS baby girl. She reminded me about some feeding charts that I had made to keep track of Abigail’s eating/poops/wet diapers/sleeping times, etc.
In the hospital, they give you about 4 or 5 pages of charts. But, I had a c-section, so I was in the hospital for awhile and never got a chance to make a copy of an unused chart. Thus, I had to make my own.
So, remember to keep a clean chart from the hospital to make several copies. Or, you can use my charts that I made. This first one is the one I used for her first few weeks.
Once she was okay with weight gain, started eating less than 8 times a day, and didn’t need wet/dirty diapers counted, I started using this chart.
The charts will get bigger if you click on them. If you need the charts in Microsoft Word so you can customize them more, let me know, and I’ll email you copies.
