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!
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!
