16 weeks and kicking, well not yet but hopefully soon!

So things with Baby McGill are progressing pretty smoothly. I had an appointment with Dr. Bedia today (my regular OB) and everything looked good. It took the nurse a little while to find the heartbeat with the microphone (which caused excessive panic for Mike and I) but once she found it it came in at a strong 160 beats per minute. I've had a long talk with the baby and requested that at future appointments it would be great if he/she would get into prime heartbeat listening position so that we don't have to panic.
The only problem I've been having is pretty frequent headaches which Dr. Bedia said is partially a symptom of pregnancy but could be made worse by stress. He said if it is bad enough he could arrange for me to see a neurologist, but at this point I think I will just try Tylenol and to be a little less whiny.
We have our next appointment on March 10 which will be an ultrasound with Dr. Drake (the high risk perinatologist). We should be able to find out the sex that day, yeah!

all you ever wanted to know...

So here is some info about baby and pregnancy. After William died this summer I had massive amounts of blood drawn (well maybe not massive, but it felt like a lot!), and they determined that I have what is called antiphospholipid syndrome (click here to learn more). They believe that this was probably the reason for losing William, but they can't be completely sure because the hospital accidently threw away the placenta before it was examined. The good news is that the treatment for antiphospholipid syndrome is successful at eliminating fetal loss. The bad news is that there could be something else that caused the baby to die. So, the course of action we are taking is to treat the antiphospholipid syndrome with twice daily injections of a blood thinner called Lovenox and frequent visits to a high risk perinatologist to monitor the baby's growth and development. We have already had two ultrasounds and gotten to hear the heartbeat 3 times. So far everything looks great. We have been really blessed to have a great team of doctors that are so understanding of our anxieties and fears. And we continue to be grateful to all of our family and friends who are so supportive.

I'll end this post with a funny picture of Harvey. I have been having some pretty bad neck/shoulder aches lately that the doctor thinks is related to stress and nerves (imagine that!) and so I've had the heating pad out. I got up to go to the bathroom the other evening and Harvey discovered the heating pad. He thinks it is great and gets annoyed when I take it from him for my own selfish use. Finally, something to get him through these cold Iowa winters.

Until next time...
Mags