Home...for now

I was released from the hospital yesterday and I am so thankful to be home! Brody was taking a nap and when he came walking out and saw me on the couch he melted my heart with the sweetest momma and loves on me for a good 10 minutes. It was definitely one if those priceless moments I will never forget.

I woke up this morning contracting so I'm going to soak in every day I get to stay at home and out of the hospital. I don't know what the next day might hold or even the next hour. Today I spent 5 hours on the monitors bc I was right at or above my threshold of 6 contractions in one hour.

I go to the doctor tomorrow so I'm anxious to see what her game plan is considering I'm already contracting again. Please pray we can get to 34 weeks so that Jaxson's lungs can have that time to develop

Hospital - Day 2

I honestly don't know how people stay in the hospital for weeks and weeks. I've been here for 2 days and I'm about to lose it!

I'm not going home today. My doctor came in last night and said she was going to take me off the motrin today and see how I do. If I didn't have any contractions she was going to discharge me tonight. Well she didn't relay this message to the nurses or on call doctor so when she came in this morning she said she was going to have me stay on motrin for today(my last day I'm allowed to safely take it) and then evaluate my contractions tomorrow to see how I do. I have a feeling I won't be going home til Monday when Dr. B can actually come up here during her rounds and discharge me. But I'm crossing my fingers, once again, for tomorrow night.

I slept a little bit better and got about 6 hours of sleep and the nurse took out my IV this afternoon which is such a blessing. The placement of the IV was very tender and it was hard to do anything with the IV pole and tubing. Now I can give Brody a big bear hug without either of us being scared he's going to hurt momma's booboo.

Last night was probably my hardest nights in a long time. I was exhausted for one. Brody was up here and getting tired so my parents were telling him it was time to go. So he was telling them bye bye thinking he was going to stay here with momma. Well when he figured out he was going bye bye too and leaving momma he had a melt down and then I had a melt down. It's so hard hearing your son scream and cry for you and not being able to even console him or hug on him because you are laid up in a bed that he's scared and unsure of :( it's even harder when you can hear him screaming all the way down the hall for you! My mom said he cried all the way to the car and then once they got going he was fine and zonked out shortly after. For the rest of the night I was extremely teary eyed and even swell up now just reliving it! He still so young and hasn't been away from me very often especially since it's been summer break and he's been with both Brandon and I all summer. I know he won't remember this time in his life but it's extremely hard living through it.

I did get to take a 20 minute wheel chair ride around the hospital which was extremely nice and refreshing even for 20 minutes! You go a little stir crazy stuck in a 10 x 10 room.

Jaxson has been moving around a lot better today so that is reassuring after yesterday's quite time that he was having and flat monitoring that he was displaying.

Til next time,
LeAnn

Hospital - Day 1

Well I survived my first day in the hospital. I got very little sleep last night as I think most due in the hospital. I slept from 4 am to 7 am. I had terrible heart burn last night which is a side effect of one of the drugs I'm on so I finally requested something at 1 am which helped. Then my IV pump began beeping at 2 am and vitals at 3 am. Hopefully tonight will be better.

Jaxson hasn't been very active today. He had a flat heart rate on this mornings monitor and then again at noon monitoring that they did because I wasn't feeling him that much, they wanted to be safe and check in on him. Luckily towards the end of the strip he decided to stir a little and pasted his nonstress test. He's definitely got momma on edge. I'll be addressing this with the doctor when she makes her rounds, hopefully later today.

My awesome friend Mandy took the morning off and brought me breakfast, magazines and my favorite must have munchie food. It was so nice to just sit and hang out. Great distraction. Then my Dad and Brody came up to visit. Brody is doing really well seeing momma hooked up to all these monitors, stuck in bed in a new place. He only gets a little nervous when the nurses come in to mess with me and he gets extremely clingy.

My cousin is a nurse at Harris so it's nice knowing family is in the building and she has popped her head in a couple of times. This afternoon my Gma came up and spent several hours with me as well. It's so nice to sit and talk with her whenever I can get the chance!

I'm now relaxing and my mom and dad are on their way up with little man. Hopefully Dr. B will be making her rounds soon as well and I can ask her what the game plan is in 2 days.

Any prayers are greatly appreciated

In the hospital

I have landed in the hospital today. I really wish it hadn't come to this but we all know I'm not the one in charge. Like I've said before I've been living hourly this past week just trying to make it through each day. It seems one hour can be good and the next can be total opposite.

I didn't sleep real good last night, I just couldn't seem to fall asleep but luckily Brody slept in til 8:45 and that is when I do my best sleeping :) We got up and Nana was waiting to take him to her house for the day. I made some breakfast and hooked up to my contraction monitor for my morning session. I noticed I was having quite a few contractions and was feeling a lot more pressure. I also had the urge to go to the bathroom with each contraction but when I got up and went that urge disappeared as the contraction eased up. This feeling hasn't happened to me in the past so I took note of it for the home care nurse when she called. I always know when I have a bad strip because they call me within minutes of sending it. Well the nurse called pretty quickly and informed me that I had 17 contractions in that hour of monitoring. We went over the usual instructions: upped my terb dosage, give myself a demand dose, hydrate as much as possible in next 30 minutes, lay on left side and remonitor for another hour. I explained the feelings I was feeling and she said she would see how I did in the next hour. Well about 10 minutes later she called back and said she went ahead and called Dr. B because she was concerned with such an increase in contraction activity and Dr. B wanted to see me.

So in we went, thank goodness for my mom because I was just going to go by myself but she insisted that she come get me and take me in. They wanted to check my urine to make sure I didn't have the start of an infection that could be causing the contractions and that looked good. Dr. B also checked my cervix and said it's dilated to a 1 internally but externally still closed but very soft. She then informed me that I was going to be admitted to the hospital because everything else just isn't working.

She started me on steroid to help the baby's lungs develop, I'm on IV fluid and a form of IV motrin(it has another name but can't remember what it was called) I then get motrin by mouth every 6 hours for a maximum of 3 days because he can have an effect on Jaxson. It can lower his fluid level and cause a reverse blood flow within his heart. So she wants to monitor him closely while on this. The reason behind the motrin is that its been proved to relax the uterus a great deal and stop contractions but it just can't last long term because of the negative consequences to baby. But she wanted to try this until I get the steroids in me. After the 3 days are up I don't know what the game plan is. I'm assuming she will let me know.

Please say a prayer that we stay put for a couple more weeks so that Jaxson has more time to grow and develop.

The only pic I took today was of my IV, it took forever for them to get this started and they tried in 3 different spots. IV's are the worse and was the one thing I hated most about having Brody, I think it was worse than the epi and pushing him out!!!

31 Weeks

We made it another week! This week has been a lot better than last week even though I ended up in maternal obs for a few hours on Sunday. They upped my dosage of terbutaline which seems to be holding the contractions at bay for the moment. I honestly live my life in hour increments. I monitor for an hour in the morning and pray that strip comes back with fewer than 6 contractions so that I don't have to monitor again for another hour. I have my extra dosages at 8, 12 and 4 around the clock. I monitor again in the evenings for an hour and pray that one comes back good and then I change out my meds for overnight.

We went to the doctor on Monday and Jaxson is measuring right on track and looking good. He's head down this week as before he hasn't been. My cervix is still closed and I had another negative Ffn test! All great news, we are just continuing what we are doing until next week when I go back.

I'm going to get a belly picture this week! We have definitely grown since the last one.

My pump equipment

Catheter in my leg and pump

Mommy update:
I'm doing really good. This time around is totally different than with Brody. I think I was so anxious and scared out of my mind with Brody. Being a first time mom, first time pregnant, and never in the world expecting to be put on bedrest. This time I know what I have to do and what to expect. I prepared myself that this could possibly happen and I am just thankful for each additional week we can keep Jaxson cooking. Brody also makes the time go by a lot faster and I'm not as anxious or scared. I just take it one day at a time and roll with the punches.
Jaxson's development at 31 weeks:
This week, your baby measures over 16 inches long. He weighs about 3.3 pounds (try carrying four navel oranges) and is heading into a growth spurt. He can turn his head from side to side, and his arms, legs, and body are beginning to plump out as needed fat accumulates underneath his skin. He's probably moving a lot, too, so you may have trouble sleeping because your baby's kicks and somersaults keep you up. Take comfort: All this moving is a sign that your baby is active and healthy

What a week!

I can honestly say this has been the most challenging week I've had in quite some time!

Let's see on Monday I had my doctor's appointment and hospital visit. We had to decide what we were going to do with Brody and myself. Brandon is starting football so is never home. He has games on Monday, Tuesday and Friday and then practice Wednesday and Thursday. Game nights he's usually not home til 10 or later and practice nights he can get home around 6 or 7. He also has a few Saturday games as well.

So we decided to keep Brody out of daycare until I return to work. He wasn't situated with his teacher and it was all too new for him. I couldn't stand thinking about laying around the house while he was at daycare 30 miles from my house. Then there would have been the issue of who would drive him to Burleson and pick him up, illnesses, etc...

Then the next thing was to decide where we would stay. This week I've been at my parents because my mom took off to help me around the house. After being here all week I think it will be best if I stay here until I deliver. I need help during the day and at night and through the night. The medicine I'm on, at times, can make me pretty weak and unstable. The first couple nights I didn't think I would make it to the bathroom to bed because my legs felt so shaky and weak. It can also cause my heart rate to be through the roof and my blood pressure to be pretty low. On good days these side effects aren't as bad but on the days where I have to take extra medicine this is how I feel. I'm also having to monitor several times a day. I have a morning and evening session. If during these 1 hour session I have more than four contractions I have to give myself extra medicine and then remonitor for another hour. Yesterday I had to monitor 5 times, that's 5 hours!

My dad is able to come home for an hour at lunch to help me and I'm hoping that on Monday Dr. Bradford will let me have modified bedrest so that I can take care of Brody while my parents are at work, resting when he takes a nap, when my dad is home for lunch and then in the evenings when they are both home. If I'm not able to watch Brody on my own we will have to figure out a new arrangement because Nana can watch him but we are across town

Tuesday: my mom came over and packed up everything Brody and I would need and we headed to my parents to get adjusted. I felt pretty yucky that day because the Terb pills had pretty bad side effects.

Wednesday was very stressful. The home health was coming out. They had to put a rush on all my medicines because I was already contracting even though I was on the pill form of procardia. Once she got here we had to deal with cost and insurance. They tried to charge $50.00 a day for this set up plus my $500.00 deductible. Well that's $350/week + 8 weeks! I simply told them I couldn't afford that and they were able to waive that fee for me. Whew! I then had to insert my catheter myself and learn all about my pump. I have to change my catheter every 5 days and alternate legs and also change out my medicine every day. I also had to learn about my contraction monitor and how to send those in.

This is mainly for my memory but here's the low-down:
I get a continous dose of Terbuline through my pump.
I then get what's called a bolis every 4 hours. It's basically a booster. This is administer through my pump over 12 minutes
I also have what's called an on-demand dose. That is when I have more than 4 contractions in an hour, I can push a button and override the system to give myself a boost even though it's not scheduled.

Contraction monitor:
Looks like the one in the hospital except a little bigger that straps around my belly. I just push two buttons and on it goes. I sit around for an hour and can turn it off to go to the bathroom or rearrange and then turn it back on. It then beeps when my hour reading is up. I then attach it to the base which is hooked up to the phone line. I dial a number and wait for the fax machine sound and then push a button on the base and hang up. This sends my strip into the home health company that monitors it. They then call me back within 30 minutes and let me know how many I had. They consider a contraction to be anything that last over 40 seconds and then irritiability anything less than 40 seconds. If I have over 4 I am to empty my bladder, give myself an on-demand dose and then 30 minutes later start monitoring again for another hour. If I'm above 4 again they page my doctor and ask what they want me to do.

Thursday: we had a great day. I felt like the terb pump was making the side effects less dramatic or that my body was getting use to the meds. I had to monitor twice in the evening because the first strip showed 5 contractions but then the 2nd one only showed 1.

Friday: Urgh, the longest day ever! Brody woke up with a fever. At first it was low grade but quickly became 102-103. He already had his 18 month well baby appointment so I called the nurse because I knew he couldn't have his shots. She wanted to see him anyway to make sure he didn't have an ear infection. He was miserable! He kept telling me he had a boo boo on his head and then he must have a sore throat because anytime he would eat or cough he would cry. The doctor said he has a virus and it has to run it's course. I was also having several contractions. My first strip said I had 8 so they quickly upped my dosage I was receiving and had me monitor again. That strip showed 5 contractions so I did an on-demand dose. The 3rd strip showed 6 so they paged my doctor. She said to give another on demand dose and if that did not lower them I was to head into the hospital for a Ffn test and cervical check. Luckily the next one only showed 1 contraction and then my regular evening session showed 2. Whew!

Brody had a bath and then was so miserable he was ready for night-night. He quickly passed out and his fever kept climbing. It got up to 103.5 when I started worrying and was trying to cool him down. Luckily it was time for his motrin and that quickly kicked in. I was up every 3 hours alternating Tylenol and Motrin last night and his fever finally went below 102 about 3 am. He's doing much better today and his fever is staying around 100. I too am feeling better and only had 2 contractions on this mornings monitoring.

Once I get my computer up and running over at my mom's I will try and upload some pictures. I have a doctor's appointment on Monday at 2:20. Hoping for good news!
LeAnn

Bedrest

Well I'm offically on bedrest for the rest of this pregnancy(8 weeks). I went to the doctor yesterday and after telling her I was contracting a lot and the Procardia seemed to stopped working she hooked me up to the monitors. I was contracting every minute! Jaxson was also pretty mellow and wasn't moving as much as they liked. So she walked in, took one look at my monitor and said I was going to the hospital but first she wanted to check on Jaxson via ultrasound to make sure he was ok.

So I wanted probably 10 minutes in the waiting room for the ultrasound while making arrangements for someone to pick up Brody, which happened to be his first day back at daycare, so I was already emotional/stressed about that and then for someone to come be with me at the hospital because I knew I would be getting Terbutaline. This drug makes me very jittery and my heartrate go through the roof.

Jaxson looked great and was measuring right on track, thank goodness!

My friend Mandy came up the doctor's office to be with me while my mom went to pick up Brody and Brandon was wrapping up work to be with me.

The doctor had checked my cervix and it hadn't changed since last week. At the hospital I got 3 rounds of terb(the most that they can give) and the contractions finally slowed down. They never completely stopped but they did get very weak and weren't in any pattern.

I was sent home after 6 hours of monitoring on strict bedrest and the pill form of terb until we can get the home healthcare set up for a pump. The terb pump will be inserted into my stomach or thigh through a catheter that will continously pump the terb into my system. On top of that I will have a monitoring system at home that I will hook up to twice a day to monitor my contractions. This will be sent directly to my doctor via phone line. I will also see her once if not twice a week in the office depending on how I do on the terb pump.

Let's just say this was the last thing I wanted, any of us wanted but I'm just going to take it one day at a time. This time around everything has changed because of Brody. It's not like Brandon can just leave me and I'll be fine. So we are making arrangements to make sure Brody is watched.

Please keep us in your prayers. I'll update more later

29 Weeks: It Begins

It's been quite an emotional rollercoaster this week to say the least! Last week I knew I was contracting more but kept telling myself they would go away and not to worry about it. On Monday I had my doctor's appointment and gestational diabetes test. We also had our ultrasound and Jaxson is looking good. His head is measuring right on track but his stomach and femur bone is a week behind. Doctor isn't too concerned with that at the moment. He's about 2.5 pounds and very active. We then met with Dr. B and I explained to her that I was having more contractions. I thought they were once or twice within a 10 minute time frame so she wanted to see what I looked like on the monitors. Well as soon as she hooked me up I was contracting and they were every 2-3 minutes. She came in and said Wow, that's a lot of uterine activity and by the look on her face I could tell she wasn't happy that I was contracting that much. She checked my uterus and it's soft but closed. This has me a little concerned considering it was always hard with Brody. Not too sure what the difference is but hard sounds a lot more secure that soft.

She did an Ffn test and sent it right over to the hospital, it came back negative!! This is a preterm labor test and if negative your chances of going into labor in the next 2 weeks are very low. She will perform this test every 2 weeks from here on out. I also pasted my GD test and all my blood levels and thyroid levels were right on track! Whoa

She put me on Procardia(same med I was on with Brody) and I went back in on Tuesday. My contractions were a lot less and she was very happy to see the Procardia working. Unfortunately, they have some yucky side effects. Severe headache is the main booger. It also causes me to feel jittery, anxious, nauseas and tired. It's a medicine for high blood pressure but because I don't have high blood pressure it causes me to have low blood pressure.

On Tuesday she said I could try taking the medicine every 8 hours vs. every 6 hours but I tried that and ended up contracting a whole bunch so I'm sticking to the every 6 hours. I'm also still on the low dose so we have room to move up if needed. Our only other option is a terbuline pump which is inserted into my stomach and/or bedrest.

For now she told me to get off my feet as much as I can and she will check me weekly. If I begin to contract frequently I'm to call her. So here's to keeping my fingers crossed!


I'm nervous because I return to work next week and I don't know how I'm going to hold up. I'm not in a position where I can just sit around all day at a desk. In fact that is the hardest thing to do as a teacher. I like to be engaged with my students and being up and in the mix of things is a lot easier for my classroom management than sitting down. I also have to get my room ready this week which requires a lot of up time. I guess we will see how I do, Jaxson's safety definitely trumps an organized classroom.

I am very thankful for a healthy baby growing inside me and even if I do go on bedrest at least I've gotten two weeks further along not on bedrest than I did with Brody, I went on bedrest with him at 27 weeks. I'm taking it day by day, that's all I can do for now.

Here's Jaxson's development this week:
At this point in your pregnancy, your baby's crown-to-rump length is approximately 10.4 inches and the total length of your baby is around 16.7 inches. Your baby weighs about 2.7 pounds and continues to grow every day, putting on approximately 1/2pound per week. Your baby will continue to open and close his eyes in the womb and may be able to see silhouettes of objects or even people in the right amount of light. Your baby should be moving many times throughout the day.

28 weeks ~ 3rd Trimester

Mommy update:

Well this was the first week on my own as Brandon had to return to work for football. Brody and I have been having lots of fun but I've also been having lots of contractions!! They are more frequent in the evening so I think my body just gets worn out chasing and picking up Brody all day. I also believe Jaxson turned head down earlier this week which is what I believe caused me to contracted with Brody so much(he was always head down and very low) Today they've been pretty constant so I'm getting a little anxious. My doc is on vacation this week so I haven't even bothered calling them because I know they will just send me over to observation to get monitored. I go on Monday for my glucose tolerance test and a biophysical profile of J so I will talk to Dr. B about it then. Until then, I'm trying to stay hydrated and get off my feet when I can.

Jaxson's Development this week:
By this week, your baby weighs two and a quarter pounds (like a Chinese cabbage) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. She can blink her eyes, which now sport lashes. With her eyesight developing, she may be able to see the light that filters in through your womb. She's also developing billions of neurons in her brain and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world.

Blood vessel in the umbilical cord. For several months, the umbilical cord has been the baby's lifeline to the mother. Nourishment is transferred from the mother's blood, through the placenta, and into the umbilical cord to the baby.

10 more weeks -- less than 70 days!!

Swing batter batter