She's Here

Ali Anne made her debut last Thursday, October 15th, at 10:35 AM. She weighed 5 lb 6 oz and was 19 in long. I have NO IDEA where she was in my tummy!!

They tried the version twice to turn her. I do not recommend this. It was EXTREMELY painful. I have NEVER hurt so bad. It also didn't work. I ended up having a c-section. Everything went fine. My heart rate shot up when I heard her cry for the first time and it took the doctors a little bit to get it back down and then my blood pressure bottomed out so that was a little scary.

Ali Anne needed a little oxygen for just a few minutes after she born but then she was fine. Her glucose level was a little low (19) so she was on an IV for 36 hours. I didn't even get to see her until 5:00 that night because they were trying to get it up. They did stop by the nursery window when they were moving me to my room and let me look through the window. Burt and Mom stayed in the nursery most of the day with her.

She is absolutely beautiful and I stand in awe that she is real and actually mine. We are giving God all of the glory for this beautiful little miracle.

I will attach some more pictures later. But here is the one we took of her before we left the hospital. She was WAY too small for her preemie going home outfit so she wore a baby doll outfit.

We came home on Sunday and had to go back on Monday for a weight check and billirubin check. her bili was 10.5 when we left the hospital. On Monday she weighed 5 lbs and her bili was 11.6. They changed her formula from original Enfamil to Enfamil 24 calorie. We went back yesterday and her bili was 10.4 and her weight was up to 5lbs 2 ozs. We will take her back on Thursday to check everything again.

Oh and big news - at 32 hours old - Ali Anne flipped over from her back to her tummy. We thought it was just a fluke, but she has continued to do it every day - several times a day!!!

36w2d

Not much has happened the past few weeks. I saw Dr. Perry twice last week and he other than being very small, Ali Anne is doing GREAT. Last Monday she weighed approximately 4 lb 3 oz. Then I saw Dr. Connell twice this week and had 2 non-stress tests. Both were perfect.

When I saw Dr. Connell on Monday he checked me and said AA was still breech and that I had not dilated at all - I hadn't even thinned out any.

I was having a few contractions on Monday. I had like 4 in an hour but they weren't hard and then I might have one and then another one 15 minutes later and then another one 5 minutes later and then another one an hour later. I have been doing this most of the week.

Then I went back to see Dr. Connell on Thursday. He checked me again and said I have dilated some and he "THINKS" AA has turned. His words were "if she hasn't turned, her butt has gotten REALLY hard and skinny in the past 3 days"!! HA!! We had a ton of questions for him and he was SUPER patient with us. And before we left, we scheduled an induction day of THURSDAY, Oct 15th - 6 days from now!!!! I am so EXCITED!!! I can't believe she will be here so soon!!! I still have so much to do!!!!

We have to be at the hospital (River Region in Vicksburg) at 6 am Thursday for lab work and an ultrasound and if she is breech then he will try to turn her and if it doesn't work we will have a section!!!

34w1d

Had another non-stress test at Dr. Connell's office today. Everything looked GREAT again!! Only thing is I have lost 2 pounds (down to 140) in the past week. Even though I am eating everything in site. I have eaten like an entire cake in the past 2 days!!! I just hope Ali Anne is growing since I am losing weight. I have been measuring my belly every morning with a measuring tape and it hasn't changed in 3 weeks!!! It is still round about 34 inches!!!

I had a surprise baby shower at bunko Tuesday night!! It was so much fun and I got tons of cute things!!! I don't have pictures because since it was a surprise I didn't have my camera but someone else took pictures for me and said that she would send them to me this week.

Then Burt had a surprise shower over at his office yesterday. I went over and had some cake with them. Once again - no pictures!!!! Ugh!! We did get some nice gifts though.

Saturday is my shower with all of my friends and then Sunday is the shower at our church here in Greenville!!! Mom and Nannie are coming in tomorrow night sometime for the long weekend. They are staying over until Monday since the shower Sunday is not until 2-4 PM and then by the time we got home and got unloaded and got them loaded and something to eat it would be late and plus I see Dr. Perry again Monday morning. It only makes sense for them to stay!!! I am excited!!!

I already have so many thank you cards to write but I don't want to write them until I put all of the gifts away and I don't want to do that until Mom and Nannie see them. Maybe I can get a good many done over the weekend!!!

33w5d - Dr. Perry

We went to see Dr. Perry today. He said he was pleased with what he saw. He didn't take any measurements as far as growth is concerned today though. He said he likes to wait 3 weeks between checking that because of the margin of error. He said you can get a better picture of growth if you wait 3 weeks. So he will check that next Monday.

He checked umbilical cord blood flow and blood flow to her brain. Both looked good and we in the 50s - I think around 54 or 56. Her heart rate was 159. Her lungs looked good. The amniotic fluid is still on the low side of normal. Today is was 7.8 but he said that is ok. My cervix has shortened a cm. It is now 3 cm. Not a big deal. And she is of course, still breech.

I will have another NST on Thursday with Dr. Connell and then I will see Dr. Perry twice next week before he goes out of town for a week.

We also got to have lunch with my best friend from college - Meg - who drove up with her two precious children last night just to meet us for lunch today!! Her Mom - Mom #2 - as I have always called her also came too!!! It was so much fun!! I hope we can all get together again soon!! I miss you guys!!!

33w1d

Monday we went to Jackson to see Dr. Perry. He said that the umbilical blood flow and the blood flow to the brain in AA are still really good. I think in the brain it was 54 (whatever that means). The amniotic fluid was 7.4. He didn't measure her growth b/c I had just been there 4 days before and there wasn't enough of a time difference to tell a difference in growth. He still seems optimistic that I will make it to 36-37 weeks. I took the two steroid shots over the weekend for AA's lungs and I guess they worked b/c when she was awake on Monday her little lungs were inflating and deflating away!!!

I went to Vicksburg today to see Dr. Connell. I had another NST. It was great - in fact he said her heart rate was perfect. He said that she s supposed to have 2 iterations of 12 beats above baseline for 15 seconds or something like that in 20 minutes. Anyway he said she did and it was great and there were no decelerations. I think i had one contraction - maybe- the whole time. Laying on my back like that I couldn't really tell but the monitor did shoot up to 50 one time so even if it was real it wasn't anything to get excited about.

I will go back to Jackson on Monday and Vicksburg on Tuesday of next week.

I think I finally have all of my showers planned!!
September 26th in Greenville
September 27th at my church in Greenville
September 30th at work
October 4th at my Mom's church where I grew up

I'm so excited!!! I can't wait!!!

Oh and just for my information - my blood pressure was 108/62 and I gained one pound to 142 (16 pounds total)!

32w1d - Dr. Perry

Well I went to see Dr. Perry this morning. He did a complete biophysical profile and umbiblical blood flow test on Ali Anne. He said she is definitely suffering from growth restriction. He measured her to weight around 3 lb 2 oz as well. He said that physically she is fine just small, but her growth will continue to slow down. Right now she is measuring about 2 weeks behind. He found no genetic or birth defects nor any chromosomal abnormalities. He said that he believes this is happening b/c of my clotting disorder not letting the placenta give her all the nutrients she needs. I will see him every Monday until I deliver. Best case scenario is that I will make it to 37 weeks at which time they will induce. He said the risk of still birth is too great for me to go any further than 37 weeks. But with that being said even if I make it to 37 weeks she will not be the size of a normal 37 week baby. Dr. Connell will see me every Thursday for non-stress tests until I deliver. Our short-term goal is to make it to 34 weeks - that is less than 2 weeks away!!!!! I am going back to Vicksburg tomorrow to get a steroid shot for her lungs and will go back on Saturday morning to get another one. That is just in case I deliver early. Dr. Perry said at the first sign of stress in the baby we will get her out - if I am in Jackson at the time I will deliver at Baptist by the OB on call - if I am in Vicksburg I will deliver there.

So basically right now we are praying and waiting. I know that God is in control of this situation and He already has the perfect plan laid out for Ali Anne. we have packed our hospital bags and they are in the car. I am going to go ahead and put the car seat in this weekend - not that we will need it for a while even if I go ahead and deliver - but at least it is one less thing we will have to worry about. I am going to get the house good and clean this weekend and try to finish monogramming AA some things and see how many preemie clothes she has now.

Oh and AA is only measuring less than the 10th percentile.

32w

We went back to try the 4d ultrasound on Friday but didn't get any pictures. We had a WONDERFUL trip. I have been exhausted ever since we got back though. We got home about 10:30 Monday night. I will post pics as soon as I get some from Mom - I just used her camera all weekend bc it is smaller.

I went in for my regular OB appointment today. He found a few issues and I am headed to Jackson to see Dr. Perry (the maternal/fetal specialist tomorrow). My amniotic fluid level is low - not critical yet - but it is definitely low. I know it is lower than 8. He said that I may have just been dehydrated and it may come back up but he wants it looked at by a specialist. Ali Anne is also measuring a few weeks behind and only weighs 3 lb 1 oz and she should be weighing close to 4 lb. So that added to the low amniotic fluid level means that I am starting to have some growth restriction. He said that I would deliver sometime between today and 39 weeks. He said Dr. Perry would be able to tell us EXACTLY when we need to deliver. We went to the hospital and did a non-stress test today and everything was fine. Dr. C said I would have these at least once a week if not twice a week until I deliver. So I really don't know much tonight - I will know more tomorrow.

We did get some 4d pictures today. They are not real clear but we were able to see her on the screen pretty well. She looks like me!!! The us tech had to do it through the placenta and the low fluid level didn't help with the clarity of the images.