Little Man

Little man is indeed little! As many of you know, I have several health issues that cause my pregnancies to be high risk. These, in return, put Landry at risk for something called IUGR, Interuterine growth restriction. Basically the baby doesn't grow well inside for several different reasons, one of which is poor blood flow through the umbilicord or because the placenta isn't functioning properly. We've been lucky to escape this with prior pregnancies but unfortunately it seems we've landed here with Landry.

Today I heard words such as liver isn't growing, small abdominal circumference, abnormal growth, fetal mortality. All very scary when a perinatalogist is talking about your baby. Basically, if you measure below 10th percentile the baby has IUGR and is at risk for things I wish not to think about.

The short version of what we learned to is that:

A) I grow small babies - given the fact that Brody was 6 lbs 2 ounces and Jaxson was 4 lbs 15 ounces so we don't expect Landry to be a robust 8-9 pounder.
B) Landry is even smaller because there is some restriction with my blood flow and my placenta isn't working like it should. He's at risk and we have to watch him very carefully. We will be having ultrasounds and non stress test twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays) and more than likely I will have a 3rd ultrasound once a week with the perinatalogist to watch the blood flow.

The hope is to get 2-3 weeks out of this pregnacy for Landry to gain weight and develop more. If, at any point he stops growth all together or my blood flow worsens he will be delivered immediately. So at any one of these appointments they could pull the plug and we induce right then and there (eek!)

Dr. Tabor (perinatalogist) will send this report to my OB, Dr. Bradford and we will decide on Monday if I should: get steroid shots to develop lungs quicker in case of delivery, go on bedrest to try and encourage growth and discuss fetal kick counts as they are below what they should be. I should feel 10/hour after eating and laying down and I only feel 3-4/hour, if that.

Stats (for my memory):
I'm 34 weeks and Landry's measurements are:
Head: 34 weeks
Belly: 29 weeks 6 days
Femur: 30 weeks
Weight: 3 lbs 10 oz
7th percentile on growth chart overall

To say I'm not worried would be a lie. I think mainly because I feel so helpless. We are in limbo and there's absolutely nothing I can do but pray! He's too early to deliver without being in NICU and having complications and he's not in that healthy of a place inside me. I'd almost rather be in the hospital strapped to monitors so that I knew he was ok in there vs. going 2-3 days holding my breath that he's ok. I don't even know if he will gain enough weight to stay out of the NICU if we do make it 2-3 weeks. At that point he might only be 4 1/2 pounds...so many variables and unknowns.

So that is where we are at. I will update Monday after my appointment.
Til then