33 weeks 4 days

Another appointment today. The good news: The baby is great. He passed all of his test, including practice breathing. The bad news: My blood pressure is way up from last week. Almost 50 points on the top number. They took blood to test for pre-eclampsia, and I'm doing a 24 hour urine collection (fun right?) She also increased my meds from 100 mg twice a day to 200 mg. I think I'm probably fine, but will do whatever it takes to make the baby safe. She mentioned bed rest, to which I heard my inner scream say "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Eun and Emily will remember how much I loved it the last time... I'm not sure I can manage without Eun and Colin bringing me Chipotle and playing Trivial Pursuit with me to pass the time (Word to anyone who ever plays Trivial Pursuit with Eun...She cheats. A lot.)

Any way I'm going back in tomorrow with my big bucket of pee in hand to find out what the next steps are. If we do have to have him early, we are far along enough now that he should be fine with a little extra care. Of course that is not my preference, but whatever we have to do is fine, as long as he is healthy.

I'll update tomorrow after my appointment.

Happy Halloween!

32 weeks 4 days

We had the first of our ongoing biophysical profiles today. The baby is doing well. He is on track with his growth at 4 lbs 6 oz, already bigger than Zack was at birth! He passed all of the ultrasound measurements with the exception of practice breathing. I already know he is doing that because he gets hiccups occasionally and they tend to occur from the breathing. The tech was measuring his head and all of the sudden we saw a little foot pop on the screen. It was pretty cute. She counted and he had all 5 toes. Seems like an uncomfortable way to hang out, but I remember Zack chewing on his feet so they are pretty flexible little monkeys. Also she confirmed that he is still a boy!

He was being a bit stubborn for the non stress test. What they are looking for in the non stress test is to see his heart rate go up when he moves. Every time he moved he would move away from the monitor so we kept losing his heart rate, but he had enough variance in his heart rate that he passed. We also talked about how far she is going to let me go. She was pretty clear that she is not comfortable with me going past 39 weeks. Given my history with both Zack and the last pregnancy, I'm very comfortable with this. Of course I'd prefer not to be induced because of the worst pain in my life experienced when I was induced with Zack, but that's why God invented epidurals and narcotics. Yea for drugs!! If he doesn't decide to come before, he'll arrive sometime around the 15th of December. Zack's birthday is the 16th!!

Going forward I'll be seen every week on Thursday. Only 6 weeks left!!!

Update on everyone

We had a quick appointment today with a different Dr. in the practice as my Dr. is out on vacation this week. Everything was fine. I told her about my numb hands and she said it's a common thing in the third trimester. I didn't have numb hands with Zack so that was new to me. I didn't have an ultrasound this week so I don't have an update on measurements, but she measured my "fundal height" and I was measuring at 31 weeks, right on track. Next appointment is in two weeks and will be weekly after that until delivery.

We also have a very short list of names picked out and there is a front runner but have decided that we are not going to share until he is born. So don't ask! :)

In other news we met with an attorney last week to get the ball rolling on the step-parent adoption process for Zack. The attorney said our case was so straight forward that we didn't need to see him and could meet with his paralegal and save $150 an hour. The paperwork has been complete and she will be submitting that along with Zack's birth certificate and Brian's death certificate to Hennepin County shortly. She said the hearing will be in December or January and that will be it. I'm just hoping that I don't go into labor on the court date... We might push for a January date to be safe. After the hearing they will issue a new birth certificate listing Erik as the father and Zack's last name will be legally changed to Schefers. We decided that it was just easier for everyone, especially Zack, to have the same last name. Erik doesn't want him to feel different or not as much "his child" as Stitch because he has a different name. We will give him the option to change it back when he is old enough to understand what it means. Right now we just want to do what's best for him, and to us that means everyone having the same last name. He will always know he had a Daddy Brian who died before he was born, but that doesn't mean much to a 4 year old.... He is excited to see the judge and make it so Daddy is not his "illegal Dad" any more.

28 weeks 4 days

Stitch is doing really well. His growth is right on track and he weighs about 2 lbs 6 oz. He is gigantic!! I'll start going in every two weeks now and in 4 weeks we will have another ultrasound to check his growth. So far so good.

27 weeks 3 days

Not much to report. Zack has decided to call the baby both Luke and Stitch. First name Luke, middle name Skywalker.... The Star Wars obsession has begun... Oh boy. Stitch/LS is moving a lot. I can tell he is getting bigger as my whole stomach shakes when he gives a particularly big kick. I'm starting to feel him move around more as well, not just kicking. It feels like he is sliding around my uterus like its a water slide. I'm sure he's starting to get a little crowded. I feel as big as the side of a barn. I've been a lot better watching what I'm eating.. No more snickers from the machine at work...Well FEWER Snickers would be more accurate.

Now that I'm off the prednisone I worry (imagine that!) that my body is going to start attacking him like it did the last baby. My Dr. assures me that once I was past a certain point that it's no longer necessary and the baby will be fine. In fact the side effects of the prednisone become more dangerous (especially premature rupture of membranes) than the benefits of continuing. I trust her, I really do. But after losing our baby at 16 weeks, how devastating that was, I worry about everything. From talking to all of the moms I know who have lost a baby, I know this is normal....I just have to go forward with faith that he will be OK. That's all I can do at this point. I did start to do kick counts this week (Recording how it takes for him to move 10 times) just so I have a baseline to go by. I didn't really do this with Zack like I was supposed to, I was a bit preoccupied with other things at that time and highly medicated. When I think back it's a real miracle that he was induced when he was. I credit my wonderful OB for her careful management of the situation, so I will trust she knows what she is doing.

Next week is our 28 week check. We'll be getting an ultrasound to check his growth as well.

We have *about* 2 1/2 months left until Stitch/LS is here. I hope he will have a real name by then. Stitch would be a hard name to have on the playground... I'm just saying...

25 Weeks 3 day --Stitch update

Miracles do happen!! I passed my 3 hour glucose tolerance test and DO NOT have gestational diabetes. I was fully prepared to be test positive so this was a huge relief. I was even on the Internet last night trying to find sample diets that I could use. Amazing!

Everything is going well and we are looking forward to seeing baby Stitch via ultrasound on October 2nd!