Monday, May 14, 2018

Long Time, No Update...Until Now

I really slacked on updated this blog during my pregnancy! I am almost 8 weeks postpartum with a beautiful 7 week 5 day old baby boy. This will probably be the last entry I make in the blog as our Journey to Baby Kneeland has come to an end. We are now in our Journey with Baby Kneeland!

My last update I was 17 weeks pregnant, and boy did a lot happen since then! I started feeling little flutters around 18-19 weeks. I remember being at a Halloween party and feeling something funny in my belly. I turned to Steven and said, "I think I just felt him move!". It was another few weeks before I really started feeling kicks. They started off slow and every once in a while, and then over time became consistent and much much harder! I think it was probably around 24 or so week before Steven was able to feel him kick. I was carrying really low and he was breach for a good part of my second trimester so the kicks were down low by my pelvic bone. Since there is not much of a barrier there between baby and the outside world it was SUPER easy to feel him kick when it was that low. Steven said it felt like a little alien was in there!

Around 29-30 weeks we went to get a 3D ultrasound and we saw our baby boy's giant cheeks! This was also the first ultrasound where we were told that he had an above average sized head...that's what every expecting mother wants to hear before childbirth...right?


The next week we had an appointment with our regular OB for a measurement ultrasound/anatomy scan. This was our 4th anatomy scan because baby never wanted to cooperate. The first few we were able to see everything clearly except for the heart. So each time they tried to get a clearer picture of it. The 3rd scan they were able to see his heart and everything in it, but it was not as clear a photo as they wanted, so we were going to try again this time. This time he was cooperating more, but the ultrasound tech saw a white spot on the right ventricle. The doctor said that he wanted to refer me to a maternity specialist to do a more in depth ultrasound to check for a echogenic foci on the right ventricle. He did say that it could just be the reflection of the ultrasound on bone or just a bad angle for the photo- the specialist would be able to get a better view. So we schedule the appointment- a WEEK AND A HALF out! How dare they say something could be wrong and then not have an appointment for a week and a half! I of course enter panic mode for the next almost two weeks! Luckily, when we did go to the specialist, he said he couldn't find anything wrong with the baby's heart and he couldn't see a foci anywhere on the right ventricle. I was SO relieved. He did say that I had a high level of amniotic fluid though and would need to be monitored for that.

This started my weekly appointments to the OB. Every week I had to go in for a Non Stress Test. This is where they hook me up to a heart beat monitor and a contraction monitor-on my belly- and measure the baby's heart rate. They want to see the baby's heart rate spike while moving and then go back down to normal a few times. They monitored me for at least 20 minutes each time. After each Non Stress Test we would have a biophysical profile ultrasound. This ultrasound would let them evaluate the baby's breathing, movements, muscle tone and amniotic fluid. Each component of the ultrasound and the Non Stress Test are given 2 points for passing for a total of 10 points. If you got at least 8 points then you were good. Each time we got 8 or 10 points...even though on the first one he decided it was nap time and we almost failed the test since he had no interest in moving around (we woke him up with some pokes and lots of cold water!)

...In the midst of all of this I lost my very first fur baby. In December we had taken Gizmo to the vet because he had been losing weight ad had thrown up a few times. At first the vet thought it was just stress since we had started setting up the nursery and things were changing in the house. In January we took him back in because he was still losing weight and we found out he had an aggressive cancer (this had nothing to do with the lump that was removed earlier last year). Steven and I both took off work and spent a whole day just loving on him before we had to saw goodbye. He was my first baby and I will always love him. (I'm tearing up as I write this). In less than a full year I lost my Gizmo and Gadget (which you read about earlier). This was all so hard since Gizmo is what helped me get through the loss of Gadget. I was looking forward to our baby boy growing up with Gizmo and being able to love on him and drive him nuts! Gizmo was always so good with kids. ...It still hurts so much that its tough to talk about...


Every other week we would also get a measurement of baby...and boy was he big! He was measuring in the 90+ percentile for everything and was always measuring 2-3 weeks ahead.Throughout all of my appointments my body never showed any signs of preparing for labor. No contractions, no dilating...nothing.  At this point my doctor talked to me about having a c-section. Baby's head was measuring full term at around 36/37 weeks and he was estimating that baby would be roughly 9lbs at 39 weeks. We weren't sure that the baby would fit if we opted for a vaginal delivery. He said that I could try, but if he got stuck we would have to do a C-section anyway. In that case I opted to have a C-section at 39 weeks...and boy was I ready! I was huge!

On March 21st at 5am I went to the hospital for my C-section. Even this far into my pregnancy I was so worried that I was going to come home without a baby in my arms. I am so thankful that my worries were just worries. At 8:11 am we welcome Ian Charles Kneeland into this world. He came out peeing...seriously, the doctor lifted him out and he was peeing! The doctor was honestly surprised at how big he was. They were estimating 8.15lbs at my appointment the day before, and when they weighed him he was 10lbs and 1 oz!

He is my everything. I am absolutely in love with this boy! I cannot imagine my life without him (I would be much better rested, but it would be much more boring). This whole journey has been the hardest thing I have ever done, but I would do it all over again to get my baby boy. Yesterday was my first Mother's Day- and it was full of being spit up on, peed on, pooped on, and definitely loved on!











Wednesday, October 18, 2017

17 Week Update!



It’s been two months since I updated my blog…long time right?! There has been so much that has gone on in the past two months. I have honestly been too afraid to update this just in case something went wrong or something happened. I didn’t want to have some great post about how things were going well and have to back track. It’s funny how even when everything you have been trying to so hard to get is right there…you can still be so afraid every single second that it will be taken away. I have struggled quite a bit to enjoy what I have been given. I have been terrified to get too excited or believe that it’s real because I didn’t want to be disappointed when it was all taken away from me.

I have yet to start decorating the baby’s room. I haven’t started buying any baby toys, or clothes, or diapers. Other than what my best friend has SO GRACIOUSLY lent me from her baby boy (I’m talking boxes of stuff!)- I don’t have anything of my own. Before we got pregnant I had actually bought a few things, a stuffed animal, a few outfits, and just random things here and there. But since we go pregnant, I have not bought a single item for baby. Again, I’ve been too scared to buy something specifically for him and then have him taken away from me. We have had a name picked out since before we got pregnant, but since it’s a name that we will use for a baby boy (it includes a family name), I have been too hesitant to call him by his name. If I do that and he leaves then the name leaves with him.

Don’t get me wrong, I am over the moon excited and happy that we have a 17 week baby boy growing! I love hearing his heart beat (158 beats per minute as of yesterday) and watching him wiggle in the ultrasounds. I just am also scared. It’s been a long, hard road to get to where we are and we have definitely struggled along the way. Between 7 and 8 weeks we lost his twin brother. We knew it was coming, but you always hope that things will change. We heard his heart beat at 6 weeks, and then slower at 7 weeks, and by our 8 week appointment his heart beat was gone. Each week since he has slowly disappeared from the ultrasounds and now we cannot even see him. It might sound weird, but knows that he ‘absorbed’ into his brother’s sac is a little comforting. Knowing that part of him will always be with his brother.

We’ve also had some scares with this baby too. At 11 weeks I started spotting. We went to the doctor and saw that the baby was alright. They guessed it was remnants of losing our other boy. The spotting didn’t stop after that. 12 weeks and 13 weeks it happened again. We went in both times, and finally they saw that my placenta was very low and, while it was not covering the cervix (which could have been bad), it was touching the very corner of my cervix and was most likely causing the irritation and bleeding. We were told that as the uterus grows the placenta will move up with it so in a few weeks it should be out of the way and not causing problems. Luckily, the spotting stopped and as of yesterday the placenta is no longer touching my uterus. 

 

So here we are today, 17 weeks exactly. We were able to confirm yesterday that Baby Kneeland is in fact a boy! Which is something we already knew, but it was nice to confirm it.


 I have not felt him move or kick yet (which is completely normal), but I cannot wait for that to happen. I still feel disconnected from it all. I can’t believe that it’s all real and that we will really end these 40 weeks with a baby to take home. I start to feel a little more secure as the weeks pass and my belly starts to harden and bulge…but I still wonder when I will really believe that this is all happening.

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Much Anticipated News...



To say the past few weeks/months have been a whirlwind is an understatement. We’ve gone through a lot and had a lot of different emotions running through our heads.

July 10th we transferred two of our embryos. Two little boys. Everything with transfer went very smooth and then all we had left to do was wait. We were supposed to not take a home pregnancy test (HPT) until after we did blood work (7 and 9 days after transfer) but I was impatient and started taking HPTs 3 days after transfer. On day three it was negative…to be expected. But then on day 4 there was a very faint positive! From that point on the positive got darker and darker! We were officially pregnant!!!

Seven days past transfer (July 17th) I went in to get my blood drawn to measure the HCG (pregnancy hormone) in my blood. My levels came back at 106.6! They considered anything over 5 to be considered pregnant. Then I went back in on 9 days past transfer (July 19th) to check to see if it doubled (they expect it to double every 48 hours). My levels came back 244.6. It had more than doubled! 

On July 27th we went in to have our first ultrasound. I was very nervous since I had been having cramps pretty badly for the past week. I was sure something was wrong. At this point I was 5 weeks and 1 day pregnant. At 5 weeks they expect to see a gestational sac and a yolk sac. We did a transvaginal ultrasound and we saw both gestational sacs and yolk sacs! Our doctor also said she saw a very small start to Baby A and Baby B. Baby A was measuring at 5 weeks and 4 days (so ahead of where we were) and Baby B was a bit small, but right on track at 5 weeks and 1 day. Fraternal twins! We were very excited!

From this point we go back to do ultrasounds every week for the next 5 or so weeks until we are released to my primary OBGYN. 

Baby A
On August 3rd we went in for my second ultrasound. This time I was 6 weeks and 1 day pregnant. Around 5.5-6.5 weeks you are able to hear the heartbeat…so we were really hoping that we’d be able to hear both heart beats! We went in and were met with some good and bad news. Good news was that Baby A looked great. He was measuring 6 weeks and 4 days and had a strong heartbeat of 124! That heartbeat was so amazing to hear! The other news was that Baby B wasn’t looking so good.

Baby B had actually started to split into identical twins but it didn’t look like he was strong enough. At that point I had 3 gestational sacs. Baby A’s sac was measuring 6w4d, then Baby B had split into
Left to Right: Baby B, Empty Sac C, Baby A
two sacs. One was measuring 5 weeks 3 days but it was empty. It did not have a yolk sac or a baby inside. The doctor said it looked like that baby never fully developed. The other sac was measuring 5 weeks 2 days and Baby B was inside that one. So in the week since our last appointment Baby B only grew one day. We were able to find his little heartbeat but it only measured 71 beats per minute (they want to hear over 100 if not 120+). So we were told that we’d likely lose Baby B. Since we were still so early in the pregnancy chances are we’d experience Vanishing Twin Syndrome and Baby B, and what would have been Baby C, would absorb into Baby A’s sac. 

We went into IVF transfer knowing that there was a chance of twins if we put in two, but we always said we wanted at least 1 healthy baby to come from it. But after seeing two sacs and hearing two little heartbeats it’s really hard to not want both babies to make it! While we were told we had one healthy pregnancy, we were also told that we’d miscarry/lose one of our babies (technically two since Baby B split) at the same time. This appointment was so exciting since we got to hear our babies’ heartbeats for the first time, but also so incredibly upsetting to know that one of those beautiful heartbeats might not be there for the next ultrasound. 

Baby A
Today (August 10th) we had our third ultrasound. Baby A is measuring right on track at 7 weeks 1 day and is now over 1cm big! His heart rate was 155bpm! So he is looking great! Baby B is still hanging on but he is still a week behind measuring around 6weeks1day and his heart rate was so slow that we couldn’t hear it. We anticipate that by our 8 week appointment he will probably be gone. 
Left to Right: Baby A, Empty Sac C, Baby B

We are VERY happy that we have one healthy baby growing and we look forward to meeting him in March 2018!
Baby A's Heart Beat (155bmp)