2011 Mid-Year Update

It seems to me that time is on super lighting speed. Our baby girl somewhere along the way grew out of being a newborn baby into a new toddler. Right when Ryan and I think we have the parenting thing figured out, she learns something new and stumps us once again. While we highlight some of the fun and tender moments on this blog, we fail to completely capture all the details of the good and the not-so-good along the way. As life goes, there are ups and downs and plenty of challenges. Challenges with learning how to grow as parents with Em because every step of the way is still all new. Challenges with how to balance life with having only a finite amount of time with work, responsibilities, quality time with family, maintaining contact with friends and family, exercise (barely existent), and all the in-between.


Life is much much different now than 2 years ago (pre-Em) and I remember my own perspectives back then as I tried to envision life with a husband and a baby girl. I laugh now because it has been not even close to what I imagined being settled and having a family would be like. Let's just say, climbing Mt. Everest was fun, adventurous, breath-taking... but I can't even bring a fair comparison to any adventures I've experienced with the fun and adventures we have now with Em as we see a little of us in that strong and developing personality of hers. Every day holds something new and unexpected. I see a little Ryan in her as she tries to climb on EVERYTHING... or when she takes the avocados and arranges them in a neat line across the floor. I see a little bit of myself when she adamantly and stubbornly refuses to eat the blended kale porridge mix I make her.. or when she has that spark in her eye which I know means something has caught her curiosity. It is pretty neat to look and find similarities with our personalities and our little girl.


So, long story short.. our life is, and will continue to be non-stop adjustment. As Ryan also blogged a few posts earlier, our home has required just as much of his attention lately. He's been hard at work every chance he gets at maintaining it and trying to make it more kid friendly. The avocado harvest came and went and along with it, more maintenance for Ryan.

Surprisingly, I would have thought my priority on family would take precedence, and subsequently expect that my ability and drive for work would diminish. Not so, in fact, quite the opposite. I have a renewed focus with work, because work now matters even more as it will provide for my children's future. So, when not focused on family, the other portion of my time has been focused on work. I won't go into details, but work has definitely been a challenge trying to get where I want to be career-wise in this downturned economy. It makes me understand and appreciate how hard my parents worked, and also understand that as full-time working parents, we sacrifice being able to spend more time with our kids, to try to give our kids more for their future. It is a fine balance.

So... all in all, Ryan, Emilia, and I have all been keeping busy in our own ways. I guess it's just called Life. =)

The next BIG adjustment is right around the corner with the arrival of Emilia's little brother, our baby boy. Again, I can't imagine how things will be, but we're looking forward to his arrival. Here's our sneak peak at the little guy from a few weeks ago:

Midwife Checkup

Connie had her normal midwife checkup scheduled for today so we decided to stick with it even though contractions have begun.  Our midwife (Beth) felt that Connie is in the very early stages of labor.  The contractions can progress over the next few days or they may subside and it could be up to a week until she's in what they call "active labor".  They really don't want you to head to the hospital until you're at this stage.  We also have a doula (Diana) who's keeping track of where we're at.

Beth checked Connie's cervix, and she's dilated at 1 cm.  Unfortunately we don't have any previous measurements so we don't know if this is a change or not.  The contractions are about every 6-10 minutes for 20-50 sec.  They're also somewhat irregular which is another sign of early labor.

 

Uh, someone's looking a little too happy to be in labor.  This is Connie hooked up to the fetal and contraction monitors.  They basically monitor the baby's heart rate for 20 minutes, and also watch to see if there's any effect on the heart rate during contractions.  Apparently our baby has a good oxygen supply since the heart rate didn't change much during the course of the test.  Here's a look at the monitor with the baby's heart rate on the left, and the contraction level on the right.

Connie educated me on the contraction levels, and said that the values are just relative numbers.  They don't have a standard baseline they start from so the range will be different on each machine.  In this case, we saw values from ~18-45.  But you could definitely correlate higher values with Connie's discomfort.

They also did a quick ultrasound, and confirmed that the baby is still in the head down (vertex) position.  She's still high (hasn't "dropped" yet), but Beth told us not to be concerned about that.  She should move down with the contractions.  So we're basically now in the waiting mode - packed and ready to head to the hospital whenever the time comes.

Now if I can just get some plumbing work done before then...

Baby Face

Since the ECV, I go to the hospital twice a week for fetal monitoring to make sure she is still doing okay due to the short dip in heart rate during the ECV. For the fetal monitoring, I sit in a chair and hook up to a fetus heart-rate monitor and a contraction monitor. For a duration of 20 minutes, I count baby's movement with a Jeopardy-like clicker device that puts a tick mark on the fetal heart rate monitor so they can correlate the baby's movements with an increased heart rate. The room has four chairs to monitor up to four pregnant women at a time for various reasons. After the monitoring, I go to the next room and get an ultrasound to check on baby's position.

The latest ultrasound, I was able to see a bit of baby's face. Still not so clear, esp in the still image, but it was exciting to see her little face peaking out on the ultrasound.. asleep and peaceful. =)

This Baby Has Been ECV'd

Connie went into the hospital this morning to have the ECV (external cephalic version) done. This is how she looked before they started. (Sorry for the poor iPhone photos. I forgot to bring the real camera).

Then they stuck this in her arm, and things got more serious. They told us about all of the bad things that can happen during the procedure, and had us sign a waiver. Of course, they have to do this even if the risks are minuscule. Worst case scenario we envisioned was possibly needing an emergency C-section.

Connie said that the IV was really painful. The nurse told us that they use extra large needles for pregnant women since they may need a lot of blood if something goes wrong. So they use large diameter needles to be able to pump in a lot of blood fast. How comforting...

They then administered a drug that relaxes smooth muscle. The purpose was to get the uterus to relax so it would be easier to turn the baby. A sign that the drug is working is an elevated pulse rate. Here's a shot of the vitals monitor just before they attempted to turn the baby. Connie's pulse is 111, and the baby's heart rate is 132 (it fluctuated between ~125-155).


They then hooked up the ultrasound, re-confirmed the baby's position, established a plan for rotating the baby, and began pushing. They started by ensuring the baby was up high enough out of the pelvis. This didn't require much as this baby has liked to stay high in Connie's belly. Next was to dig in deep, and start rotating. The following picture is when the baby was about in the horizontal position (rotated 90 deg CCW from her starting head-up, vertical position), and Connie was focused on that new test equipment she'd like to get at work ;^) Connie said that this was the most painful portion of the process. The last 90 deg of rotation happened so fast that I missed it. Overall the procedure took only a few minutes and was successful on the first try!


A cool thing about these dudes at UCSD (Drs. Kelly and Robertson) is that they monitored the entire procedure continuously on the ultrasound (unlike the YouTube video we watched in which they only did a before and after). This was much better because they were able to see how the baby was being re-positioned, and how she was responding. At one point her heart rate slowed (seen visually on the ultrasound) so they adjusted Connie's position, and it came right back up. However, since it did depress for a short while, they monitored everything for an additional 2 hours after they were done.

Overall it was a huge success, and went as well as can be expected. They were impressed by how well Connie tolerated the process (which isn't real pleasant for Mom nor baby). Now we just hope that baby doesn't flip back. They felt that Connie's uterus tone should be sufficient to hold her in position so they didn't recommend using any kind of restraint.

Next step: Drop Baby Drop.

Pregnancy Update: External Cephalic Version

Our last mid-wife appointment was on Friday, where we were hoping that baby would have moved from her head-up, breeched position to head-down vertex.

I have been seeing an acupuncturist and a pre-natal chiropractor, along with tilt exercises and alternative remedies (chinese herbs and moxibustion) every single day this past week to coax baby into turning around. However, baby is a stubborn little tiger and is comfortable in a 100% complete buddha breeched position.



The ultrasound technician was really patient and helpful this time, explaining what we were seeing and the position baby is in. Baby pretty much looks like the image above, except her hands are in front of her face. The technician also showed us something new! She showed us baby's chest/lung area where we could see some movement, which is baby practicing how to breathe!! She also told us that baby has a lot of hair on her head and we could see the strands on the back of her neck! That is pretty amazing!

The other news we have is that now at 38 weeks pregnant, with limited room left for baby, the chances of her flipping on her own are very small. After spending a week trying alternatives, it is highly recommended for us to try the External Cephalic Version procedure, which is a procedure done at the hospital where the doctor externally and manually presses and moves the baby. (Here's a Youtube video of the procedure with cheesy music).

It is an uncomfortable procedure with minimal risk, but there is small risk that something goes wrong and a C-section would be needed right away. Anyhow, the alternative of not doing the procedure would be a for-sure scheduled C-section. While lots of people get C-sections and are just fine, the benefits of a natural birth for both baby and mom helped lean us towards giving this a try. So, we go in tomorrow morning, Monday, for the External Cephalic Version. Turn baby turn!!

Baby Ultrasounds

Kind of late in getting these posted, but here they are.  The first set was taken at 13 weeks.  At that time, our little Walle (short for Walnut) measured 57 mm (crown to rump).  And yes, she does have a somewhat alienesque appearance.  The second set was taken at 19 weeks.  Unfortunately we weren't able to get any of the 3D ultrasounds like in the first set.  Also, our ultrasound tech was sorta lame, and didn't get any real good views.  But you can see the shape of her head, a hand, and a leg and foot.

13 Weeks

 

 

 

19 Weeks