Ethan Update

Ethan is certainly growing up. Ethan and I were both on spring break last week, so I took the opportunity to really focus on potty training. Quite the challenge. We officially stopped using diapers and pull ups since Monday, March 24. He has been wearing big boy pants. We have, of course, had the obligatory accidents in the past week. He is about 50% trained, so we'll see if he gets the hint soon. He went to school today and was able to tell his teacher about the change. It has been nice not worrying about diapers or pull ups. We went to his pulmonary doctor last week and they said that we will try taking him off of his daily asthma med May 1st. We did it last summer and he did great. We will also try taking him off his reflux medicine June 1st to see if he still has reflux. He has been on meds for over a year and they said he could be better, but he may not be. There is no good way to tell other than to take him off the meds. His whole bedtime routine will be different because of the changes and maybe it won't take us so long to put him to bed.

I thought it would be fun to give you some of Ethan's favorite phrases.
"I can't like that" - For anything that he tastes or looks at and doesn't like.

"Mama forgot that way" - If I don't go the way home that he thinks I should be going.

"I can't believe it!" - For anything he is excited about.

"cuz" - We are surprised he is using that for because, I'm not sure when he picked it up.

"I can't do it" - Whenever he is not in the mood to clean up the mess he just made.

"Mama do it", "Daddy do it" - He wants us to do the work he is supposed to be doing.

"Carry" - When he is feeling way too lazy to walk up the stairs himself, so daddy has to be around to carry or we go through a huge crying fit because mama can't carry.

"I want to play clothes" - This is where he pulls the laundry out of a basket and dumps it all over the floor and rarely puts it back into the basket.

"I want to play doors" - He goes upstairs and opens and shuts all 6 doors. He can do this for a very long time.

"I want to watch Bay Einstein" - He has been obsessed with Baby Einstein videos over the last few days (he watches them while he does his treatments and then he want to watch them in between treatments, so this weekend when he got treatments every 2 hours, that meant that he was watching Baby Einstein nearly 24/7)

Ethan's titles for Baby Einstein videos:
Bear One - Baby Mozart
White Circles - Baby Bach
Elephant One - Baby Noah
Talking One - Baby Einstein
Shapes One - Baby Newton

While his speech may still be behind where it should be, he certainly knows how to listen and make his own phrases for different things :)

As for the new little one, I will be 11 weeks tomorrow. Things have actually gotten better in terms of the nausea. I've actually been a lot hungrier, so the baby must really be going through a growth spurt right now. I've been trying to stay away from chocolate recently, but this past week has been hard because I have been craving it. So, I've limited myself to little tiny pieces to get rid of the craving :) I've also been starting to feel a little less exhausted now that I have my C-PAP machine to help me breath at night. Before it, I would feel completely exhausted by then end of my lunch time and I had a physically difficult time standing to teach. Now, I just feel the pregnancy tired feeling as opposed to total exhaustion. I even sleep really hard at night, which has proven to be painful at times because my hips and arms hurt from the dead weight. I even told Matt today to wake me up when Ethan wakes up because he has had to do a lot of the night time duty since Ethan has been sick and waking up more at night. I literally hear Ethan cry, hear Matt get out of bed and I am already back asleep like a rock and never hear anything else. I can barely move myself at times, it's weird because it has been a really long time since I have slept that hard at night, which makes me wonder how long I have had this problem.

I go to the OB on Friday and I will give an update about the pregnancy at that time.

Chorioamnionitis

That's the name of the infection I had. I did some research over the weekend and knew I would recognize the name of the infection if I saw it. I really feel I need a lot of prayers for this. I have read that it can happen again with low risks. Anyone who knew my risks during the last pregnancy knew the odds were always against me. I was the 1 in a 1000 that something specific would happen. I was the 2% that had something. I am praying that the odds are not against me this time and that the odds are in my favor instead. I just put a post up on the March of Dimes bulletin board asking if anyone had suffered from this infection and I got a response from someone saying that she had it for the last two pregnancies. One she had at 32 weeks with no lasting effects to the baby and one she had at 29 weeks and the infection entered the baby's blood and she did not make it. She is now pregnant again and they are watching her very closely. She said the only way they know she has it is through amniocentisis but they won't do it unless her water breaks because that can give the baby the infection. It just seems like another risk that I really don't want to have to worry about right now. It's hard not to think about it. I'm trying very hard though.

I go back to the OB on April 4 and I'll talk to him then about it and hopefully, he'll have some answers for me. I am really just praying to have a healthy and long pregnancy this time and I need some help with that. I need the prayer warriors that helped Ethan to now help this little one. I just want to be happy and not have any worries with this pregnancy but it is so hard when I know so much about what happened the last time and the risks that it can happen again. I am trying to have a positive outlook on everything but there is always that little voice questioning me. I work hard to shut that voice up. We actually started to work on the room that will become mine in the next couple of months yesterday. We're trying to make it the most comfortable set up for me. The fact that we are moving a piano into that room helped us to get the changes made. I'm feeling pretty good about the changes and making a positive space for me to spend my bedrest in.

On a little bit more of a positive note, from what I have learned from a lot of women on the March of Dimes bulletin board doctors tend to watch high risks pregnancies very closely. I will most likely get an ultrasound every 2 weeks and I will be seen by a doctor at least every two weeks if not every week. I may also be watched by the maternal fetal medicine doctor that will be putting the cerclage in. So, in all of this negative information, I am finding that to be helpful. It will make me feel better to know that I will be watched very closely. The woman that responded said that with this pregnancy they were going to start antibiotics at 16 weeks to prevent the infection, so that is good news to hear. The only bad thing about that is that the best antibiotic to use for this infection is penecillin, which I am allergic to. I'm sure there is an alternative, so we'll see how it goes. If you want to read more info about this infection, click on the name to take you to an informational page. Chorioamnionitis.

Cerclage Update

Well today's consultation with the doctor about a cerclage was interesting. First, I was able to get another ultrasound, including 3D, which was of course, fun! I've attached one of the pictures where you can actually see it's legs and arms. It's amazing to see it in real life :)

As for the actual consultation, there were moments that I just wanted to cry. I was by myself and things got a little fuzzy for me at times. Basically, he looked at my records from Ethan's birth and said that when they tested the placenta, they found an infection. This could have been what caused me to originally go into labor. He also said that there may not be anything we can do to stop it from happening again. The cerclage could cause the very things it's supposed to protect me from to happen. So, in the end, he gave me the choice of whether or not to get the cerclage this time. Without a thought, I said yes because my OB is highly recommending it. The doctor was really nice but he just kept saying things like, premature births are a syndrome and every possibility leads to a premature birth. It just made me feel like there was no hope in the situation, which was very frustrating. In the end, he did start to make me feel some hope when he said that the cerclage certainly helps my chances and I could make it to my due date, of course this is after all of the other stuff that made me feel awful. He also recommended getting the progesterone shots, which I have talked to other moms about and they said it worked for them. He said that they don't hurt the baby, but they help to calm the uterus and keep it from contracting. So, on April 22, I will get the cerclage put in and a couple of weeks after that I will start the shots.

They tried to talk me into getting an early screen to check for some chromosomal abnormalities. I declined the test and said that I needed to make the decision with Matt. They looked at me like I was awful for making that decision. Their argument for the test was to actually tell me that before I go into a surgery, I may want to know if something is wrong with the baby and then she kind of gave a "knowing" look. The doctor had told me the exact same thing. Basically, what I got from that is that I may want to know so that I could 1) terminate the pregnancy, if I so choose or 2) it won't matter if I go into labor early because something is wrong with the baby, so it would be ok if it died. I was so disturbed by that, so I just told them "look, I'm going to continue with this pregnancy no matter what a test says and I'm going to also get the cerclage no matter what". Again, they gave me a look and told me that it would be good to be informed. As I looked at the paperwork, I saw that this test would only give a percentage of possibility the the baby could have an abnormality. So, it really doesn't do anything but worry both Matt and I. We discussed it and made the same decision that we made when I was preganant with Ethan. Whatever comes our way, we will deal with it at that time. We would never make a decision to end the pregnancy or to not give the pregnancy the best chance. We never expected what happened with Ethan, and we survived. Even if something more difficult would come our way, we will take care of it and we know God will help us through whatever comes our way.

WalkAmerica is now March for Babies

It is that time of year again and we are walking! WalkAmerica has changed it's name to March for Babies, which shows that we are now walking for ALL babies! Not only are we walking in honor of Ethan this year but we are also walking for the new little one we are expecting. We are praying for a healthy and long pregnancy this time and we couldn't do it without the research that the March of Dimes has done already. I have been using a lot of areas on their website to help us with our decision about having a second child. I have especially found their bulletin boards to be very helpful, because I have been in contact with a lot of moms that have gone through or are going through the same things. It has helped us to know how much the March of Dimes has done for Ethan and how much could be done now after almost 4 years! We have appreciated how supportive all of our friends and family have been over the last 3 years that we have walked. Last year, we raised about $4400, which was a huge accomplishment and we did it with your help! We have an even more important reason this year and that is to give this new child his or her 9 months. I want my nine months for my baby and for me! Please consider donating to the March for Babies this year and help us to support such a great organization! You can donate to my page by clicking on the banner on the right side of this page. You can also join our team using the same banner. Just click on it and click on Team Ethan Riledy at the top and then click on Join this Team and follow the directions from there to join our team. We thank you in advance for all of your support for this year's March for Babies!

Some Websites I'm using

For anyone that wants to follow closely, I'm including a couple of websites I'm using to help me through the pregnancy. One has all of my dates charted out for those of you that will be watching every week and later, every day! The second one has pictures of babies during each week of pregnancy, I've been using that to help Ethan understand what the baby looks like. He is still saying "What's That??", but he is starting to get the idea that it is a baby! I will list them over in the links section on the right hand side of the blog. Those of you that are pregnant or will someday be pregnant may also find them helpful. Tomorrow, I will be 8 weeks. The morning sickness or rather anytime sickness has been hitting me pretty hard at times. I have not really thrown up, just one time so far, but I feel awful and have not been able to move a lot for fear I will throw up. It only hits me at certain points and mostly right after I have eaten a meal. I've been trying to find ways to make it better for myself, like eating less, so we'll see how that goes :)

October 21st is the Big Day!

My due date is October 21st and I am about 7 1/2 weeks along right now. We heard some good news at the appointment about the bedrest. The doctor told us that I should be able to finish out the school year and I should be able to go on a modified bedrest from week 20 until about week 24 depending on how things are going. Then, I would go on a strict bedrest until at least 36 weeks. He also said I could go on bedrest earlier but we won't know until we get there, but so far the plan is at 20 weeks. I see the specialist about getting a cerclage on March 19 and then a couple of weeks later I will get the cerclage. I go back to the doctor on April 4. I also got diagnosed yesterday morning with sleep apnea. I have a C-PAP machine to help me breathe and sleep at night. I've heard that sleep apnea could cause high blood pressure and especially during pregnancy, so it was important that we took care of this now so that it may not be an issue. They told me we caught it very early, so that should be good. Hopefully, I will find my self with more energy. I've included at picture of Blobby Young. We got to hear the heart beat and even heard it move a little. It was pretty amazing.