St. Patrick's Day, an ER visit and our 3rd anniversary

So typically St. Patrick's day is celebrated in our family by a few green beers, you know to pay homage to my Irish ancestors. The last two years have been pretty tame however because I have been pregnant. So this year I thought I would really spice things up with a visit to the hospital. We had a pretty quiet night at home until around 9:30 when I was putting a heavy skillet away under several other heavy skillets. I think I was bent into a funny position or something and I felt a little muscle pull in my upper abdomen. It wasn't really that painful and no big deal at the time. About an hour later I think that pesky little muscle started spasming because I was convinced I was near death. My pain level was sky high and I was pretty sure the baby had burst out of my uterus and was trying to claw her way out via my sternum. Not that I was dramatic about it or anything! Anyway, after about an hour of this Mike decided it would be best to get things checked out so to the ER we went. Now, if you are ever bored on a St. Patrick's Day night around midnight, I would really recommend a visit to your local ER. We saw several poor souls dressed mostly in green suffering from various ailments ranging from bleeding faces as a result of bar fights to too-much-green beer-itis. Thankfully, the nice unit clerk wanted to save us from having to sit in the waiting room with these lovely people and had us shipped up to the labor and delivery floor. I was pretty confident throughout this whole process that everything was fine with the baby, but it was scary to be rushed back to that floor. To make a long winded story a bit briefer, I got hooked up to the monitor and everything was fine with baby. All of my blood work was fine and it turned out to be nothing more than a muscle spasm. The nurse said it was a good thing we came in though because the symptoms I was experiencing were the same as what is present with preeclampsyia. Anyway, we got to spend the first 3 hours of our 3rd wedding anniversary in the hospital, but were on our way home by 3:00am. By the next day, I felt a little sore, but overall was fine.



Speaking of our wedding anniversary, I would just like to take a moment to say I am really glad I married Mike. I have always known he is the one for me, but this past year has really made me realize how lucky I am to have him in my life as my husband and my best friend. I don't mean to be cheesy, well actually yes I do. Deal with it! Love you Mikey!

Wichita, part deux

While in Wichita we also got to spend some time with my brother, Charlie and his wife Amanda. They are expesting their first baby May 13. Amanda is one of those gorgeous pregnant people who most of us hate, you know she looks like she swallowed a basketball? Anyway it's a good thing she's a really nice person! :-) Here is a picture of Charlie and Amanda with their two dogs Riddick and Otley. It was great to see them, but really made us wish we were closer.



Finally while in Wichita, Mom and Annie and I did a little bit of shopping. Annie seems to be having some trouble controlling her impulses when it comes to buying baby girl clothes ever since we learned we are having a girl. This is a picture of a dance costume that she purchased. Now granted, it won't fit the baby until she is probably a year old, but it sure is cute. Annie promised to still love her niece if she turns out to be a tomboy who hates all things frilly. Oh, and she also bought two pairs of baby leg warmers.

these are the days of our lives.

We have had quite an eventful past couple of weeks so I thought I would post an update to fill you all in...



First a trip to Wichita to attend my baby sister's wedding shower. It was a lovely ladies-who-lunch type of affair in which Annie received some of her crystal and china. (I don't think we could be much different in terms of the gifts we like to receive, but I can't wait to attend a fancy dinner at her place). Here are some pictures from the shower:

Mom, me and Annie

Annie and my Grandma, who we call Duck

Annie's China and Crystal patterns along with her engagement picture (that's David, my future brother in law).

A really cute cupcake display that was delicious, well the cupcakes were delicious, I didn't actually taste the display.

another fantastic ultrasound...

Here she is, Miss McGill! We were very excited to learn that our little lady is doing great and is right on schedule to be joining us in August. The ultrasound was wonderful, we had a student technician learning so it took twice as long (which might have annoyed some people, but I loved it because it means that we got to spend twice as long watching our little princess dance around). And dance she did! She seems to have some of the tendencies of her older canine brother Harvey because she did not appear to enjoy being bothered while she was trying to rest. Her little fist kept jabbing at wherever the sensor was. It was pretty cute. Also, we learned that she is quite a modest little lady because it took several minutes for her to show her lady parts, which made her dad and her Aunt Karoline very proud. All in all, it was a great ultrasound and we continue to be both excited and terrified.

p.s. Oh yeah, I almost forgot...we are having a girl.

Wonderful news!

A while back I blogged about a sweet woman who had a very similar experience as I did losing a baby boy, Henry, at 30 weeks. I have never actually met her but feel like I know her because of our shared experience. She had earlier lost another precious baby to miscarriage. She is a talented writer and I enjoy reading her blog because she is able to state more eloquently a lot of the things I have thought. Anyway, she welcomed a beautiful baby girl yesterday and I am so thankful for the safe arrival of this little miracle. This pregnancy has been nervewracking for her and I can really relate to that. Stop by and wish her family well. http://rooneyslittlemusings.blogspot.com/

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