Welcome to the World Baby Girl

As of March 25, 2017, our family of three became a family of four. Baby girl (P) joined the outside world at 6:53 p.m. She weighed 6 pounds and measured 19 inches long. Her head was 32.5 cm, half a centimeter bigger than E's.

Birth Story

Despite having a scheduled induction for March 25, P was almost born on the 23rd. I am apparently incapable of having an uneventful OB appointment. My mom flew in on the 22nd, so she had E and hubs went with me to my NST appointment. Baby girl failed it spectacularly. Every time I contracted, her heart rate decelerated. My midwife said it was 50/50 whether I had a baby that day or not. 

I was a hot mess. This was my limit. We were scheduled to take family photos that very evening. I was so upset that we might not be able to take them. I'm not sure why this was the event that pushed me over the edge. I guess all of the issues coalesced and peaked at this moment. I was not ready to have the baby. I wasn't fully prepared for Saturday; I was not ready at all for Thursday. 

My midwife called my OB, and I was sent to L&D for more monitoring. P started to behave, and, after five hours of monitoring, L&D let me go home. As I mentioned in my last blog post, we did get our family photos done by Jackie Jane Studios. I absolutely love them. Here is my favorite:

The day before the induction, I called the charge nurse at the suggestion of my doula and OB. I asked about their wireless fetal monitor and if I could request it. I also asked that they charge it so it wouldn't run out of juice during labor. My OB told me to mention I wanted another unmedicated labor and to request a nurse who prefers that kind of labor. 

I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. on the 25th and called the charge nurse to see when I should arrive for the induction. She told me to arrive between 7:30-8:00. I couldn't sleep anymore, so I got up to eat and get ready to go. At 7:00, the nurse called me back and told me they had a lot of people come in and they weren't sure if they would be staying or not. She told me to call back at 8:00, and hopefully they could get me in by 9:00. I was already anxious (knowing when you're going to have a baby is the weird), so this just added to my nervous energy. I ate some breakfast and called back at 8:00. They told me to come in at 9:00. 

I said goodbye to E and my mom. Hubs and I checked in, but that took a lot longer than I expected. My nurse checked me and said I was a solid 4 cm dilated, 70-80% effaced, and P was at -3/-2 station. I gave my nurse a goodie bag at this point with a thank you note. I filled the bag with candy, cookies, and crackers with various filling (cheese, peanut butter, etc.). The thank you note thanked my nurse and OB for the care they were about to provide. I also apologized for any mean things I may say during labor, haha. This is an obvious bribe, but it works really well. The nurses don't get normal lunch breaks, so easy to grab snacks are always popular.

The nurse hooked me up to a wireless monitor (this is money, every pregnant woman should investigate if her hospital has a wireless monitor) and set my heplock. My OB stripped my membranes at 11:30 a.m. I got a breast pump at noon and used it for five minutes on, five minutes off until 1:15 p.m. That got rid of my irritability contractions and started up some stronger contractions. However, it was not causing regular contractions. The nurse checked me again and I dilated to 5cm and baby girl dropped to -2/-1 station. Progress, but I was not in active labor yet. 

At 1:30 p.m., my nurse hooked up my IV and started Pitocin at a 1. She put it on the slowest drip possible because I was concerned about the constant IV drip. My concern was if I had multiple bags of saline pumped into me, it would artificially bloat baby P. When she dropped the water weight, it would seem as if she was losing absurd amounts of weight. My nurse was phenomenal and worked with my requests. We quickly bumped the Pitocin up to a 2 then a 3. The 3 established active labor. By 3:00p.m. I was contracting every 2-3 minutes and they were noticeably different in character. Before, the contractions just felt like tightening. With Pitocin at a 3, they felt a little bit crampy like right before starting a period. This was the point where my nurse said we had labor started now. 

We called my doula and let her know now would be a good time to arrive. She arrived around 3:45. I could still talk through contractions with no issue, but they were uncomfortable. We turned the Pitocin up to a 4 because I was still sitting at 5cmdilated. By 4:30, I no longer talked during contractions. I could if I had to respond to a question, but I preferred not to. I was also no longer sitting on my birthing ball, I wanted to stand. My doula suggested I get on hands and knees. We lowered the bed and put my birthing ball in the bed. I draped over and rocked slightly back and forth. Hubs did hip squeezes and counter pressure on my lower back while my doula rubbed a pressure point in the center of my feet with an oil. I also had a citrus-scented essential oil on a hand towel near my face. 

At 5:30, my OB came back to the hospital (she was on call). The nurse was about to call her in because she felt things were picking up when my OB walked into the room. Apparently, the OBs can see the fetal monitor strip from their home computers. Pretty neat. She checked me, and I was 7cm dilated and baby girl was at +1 station. She asked if I wanted her to break my water at this point, but I asked her to come back in a little bit to check again. I felt certain breaking my water would send my labor into hyperdrive and I didn't want to blast through the last 3cm. At this point, my hands started shaking. Endorphin release, huzzah! My nurse turned the Pitocin down to a 2 because my contractions were coming in on top of each other. 

I could tell transition was just getting started. I could no longer be hands and knees. I stood at the foot of the bed and leaned over the ball while swaying. Hubs and my doula alternated applying counter pressure. I started making my goat noises (labor is beautiful, right?), which indicate transition is in full swing for me. I warned my doula ahead of time that my sarcasm gets intense when I'm in pain. I did not, however, think to forewarn the OB.

My OB came back at 6:15 p.m. to check me. I was in the middle of a contraction and not up to talking. When it ended someone commented to the OB that the contraction was over to which I responded, "adios, butthole." My OB lost it and was cracking up, "What did she just say?" and the nurse (or maybe my doula? I forget, I was in a lot of pain) responded, "I think she just called the contraction a butthole."

I was 8.5cm dilated at this point, so we decided to break my water. My OB got everything ready and broke my water at 6:48 p.m. I felt a tiny trickle of water (low fluid levels, boo) and I could also feel a contraction gearing up. I cannot labor on my back. I don't know of many women who want to labor unmedicated while flat on their back. This was the only contraction that got away from me. This may not be the case for all women, but, for me, if a contraction gets going and I'm not mentally prepared, I cannot catch up to it. It's something that is happening to me rather than me working through it. I felt frantic and told hubs to get me out of the bed. He lifted me up, but my legs couldn't support me anymore. Hubs basically held me up through that contractions and then my doula suggested I get into bed to prepare for pushing. 

I climbed into the bed and draped my arms over the head of the bed like I did with E. This would allow me to rest between pushes. That was my thought process anyway. I announced to the room at large that I felt pushy and I felt a burning sensation. I realize now this is the "ring of fire" part of labor. Hubs told me after the fact that he could see the baby's hair, so she was crowning. The OBand nurses were clearing away the pads and towels from breaking my water when another contraction hit, I felt an overwhelming urge to push. I couldn't verbalize this, so I opted to shout "Pushy, pushy, pushy!" instead.

Hubs told me to push if I needed to. I didn't think the OB was behind me, but I figured E took me 20 minutes of pushing to birth. Surely, one push wouldn't be an issue. 

Wrong. One push and her head was out. Hubs announced, "Um...there's a head." My OB came rushing over and told me not to push. She checked to see if there was a cord around P's neck. There wasn't, so she told me to push when I felt ready. The next contraction rolled in, and, with another push, she was born at 6:53 p.m. True labor lasted about four hours (my labor with E was 9 hours). Only five minutes passed from breaking my water to holding our sweet baby. She started crying immediately. This was music to my ears. We were worried about her lungs, but she put those fears to rest immediately. 

I had no tearing, which is great. I had a "skid mark" as my OB called it. I had the same thing with E (in the same place, no less). I didn't require stitches either time, which makes me one happy momma. 

I got to do skin to skin and delayed cord clamping. We weren't sure this would be possible with P being premature. I didn't get to do the first check with her on me, though. They started getting worried because, even though she was crying, she was still purple. At some point, a whole slew of people came into the room. In addition to my nurse and OB, there was a pediatric team and a NICU team. One of them tried to take P from me. I curled around her and told the person "She's still attached." Hubs got to cut the cord. The OB and nurse both proclaimed it was a "juicy" cord, haha. 

They took P and she got an 8 out of 10 for both her one minute and five minute APGAR scores. She just would not turn pink. Finally, at 7 minutes, her color started to change. Hubs was with her and the doctors and got to see her color change. One by one, the NICU and pediatric team doctors left. This was great news because it meant she did not need immediate NICU attention.

Despite needing to induce early, I managed to achieve most of the things I wanted for labor and delivery. The wireless monitor was amazing. Even though I had to have constant fetal monitoring, it wasn't irritating because there were no wires. I had another unmedicated birth and got to labor/push in whatever positions felt most comfortable to me.

My nurse was really sweet and impressed with my labor. I remember saying at one point, "We should film this and show it to high schoolers to deter them from having babies." She laughed and said it would probably have the opposite effect and that I made labor look easy. My labor did go really well considering it was an induction. Inductions have a tendancy to be faster and way more painful than labor that starts on its own. My OB told me after watching my labor and delivery and seeing how well they went, she wants to try for an unmedicated birth with her next baby. 

Hubs called my mom and told her to bring E to meet her new little sister. E was initially interested but was quickly distracted by my lack of belly. She came over to prod at my stomach and ask, "Momma belly? Baby? Where'd it go?" She knew I was pregnant with a baby, but she did not understand the concept that the baby we were showing her was the same baby that had been in my belly.

We stayed the full 48 hours because P had to pass a lot of tests before they would let us go home. The first night she would not nurse. I could get her to latch, but she was so sleepy. I had some colostrum from pumping during labor and I pumped another 15 minutes that evening. I got 26ml in total, so they finger fed her 6ml at a time. She was riding the line for her blood sugar tests and ended up failing one of them by four points. They gave her some sugar gel and she started to wake up enough to nurse. Her scores improved dramatically, so they stopped pricking her before every nursing session. All that remained was the car seat test. She passed that with flying colors and we got to go home Monday around noon.

I wasn't sure how my body would respond after baby #2. I snapped back pretty fast with E, and I'm happy that the same is happening with P. Here is the belly four days postpartum.

Life adjusting to two littles has been a crazy ride so far. E is intensely jealous of P. She gives her kisses and loves on her, but then has epic tantrums over absolutely nothing. Her pediatrician told me it'll last for about two weeks. Then, it will be as if P has always been here.

P is doing great. She eats well and is gaining back some of the weight she lost. She dropped to 5lbs 8oz while in the hospital. She's up to 5lbs 10.5oz as of Friday. Her bilirubin levels are going down as well, so we don't have to go in every other day to get her foot pricked anymore. She's a tough little lady. 

Week 36: Final Projects + Getting Ready for Baby

It's so odd to think this is my last pregnant blog post. The next time I update, I will have a second child. Here are my comparison pictures. E on this left; this pregnancy on the right.

We managed to squeak in some family photos yesterday. I am so glad we got to capture our last days as a family of three. It almost didn't happen as baby girl failed her NST badly. I had an appointment at 0900 on Thursday for an NST and a biophysical profile. We ended up not leaving labor and delivery until 1515.

My OB and midwife are concerned that my placenta is crapping out on me. My amniotic fluid levels dropped a ton and baby girl's heart rate started decelerating with every contraction. I spent five hours on the fetal monitor. Once they repositioned me completely on my side, she started doing much better. They let me go home and we managed to get our family pictures taken. I am so grateful that Jackie Jane Studios was able to help us out last second. I reached out to one of my photographer friends from back home and she put us in touch, so thank you very much to Alex too!

DIY Home is Where the USMC Sends Us Plaque

One of my mom friends shared this idea on Facebook, so I had to take a crack at it. It's not done yet, but the hard parts are complete. I'm going to put a picture of each state we've been stationed in as well as interlocked rings for where we got married and little baby feet for the places I gave birth, I'm also going to include the dates we lived there. 

To make the EGA, I bought a stencil sheet and Exacto knife. I found a stencil online and traced it, then I cut it out. This gave me one giant red EGA. I wanted some definition for the ropes that wrap around the anchor. I also wanted to include North and South America. To do that, I took the piece I cut out initially for the main stencil then cut out holes for the parts that appear in white. I lined it up and laid it over the red once it was dry and filled it in.

To make the handwritten part, I bought some charcoal tracing paper and an ink pen. I found a font I liked online, adjusted it to the size I needed, and traced it onto regular paper. If my printer had ink, I would've just printed it. But alas, no ink, so I traced it. Then I laid the charcoal paper on the white board and put my traced letters on top of it. Then I traced over that once more to transfer it to the white board. After that, I filled in the tracing with a black paint pen.

Pregnancy Week 35: Cholestasis of Pregnancy

Here are my 35-week comparison pictures. The images with the white headband are with E's pregnancy. My brain is a little frazzled this week, so I swapped sides in each side-by-side on accident.

It would seem I need to keep my big mouth shut. Preterm labor reared its ugly head again. I felt off again over the weekend. On Monday, I started losing chunks of cervical mucus (most likely plug). Some of them had the slightest amount of blood. It was so minimal, I figured I would mention it at my OB appointment scheduled for the next morning.

I went in on Tuesday and my OB decided she would check me just to make sure nothing was going on. Before, I was 1.5-2cm dilated depending on who checked me. My OB felt I was 1.5cm. At this appointment, she noted I had dilated to 3cm. She decided to have me do a non-stress test (NST), and I failed it spectacularly. No sense in half-assing it, I guess.

Here is my print out. The top row is baby's heart rate. It should be in the blue. It obviously did not stay in the blue. The bottom row is my contractions. They were coming every 2-3 minutes, but they weren't particularly strong.

My OB sent me down to L&D for some monitoring. By the time I waddled on down there, I dilated to 4cm. Despite continuing contractions, my cervix held at 4cm for the remainder of my observation, so they let me go home. They noted I am 80% effaced and baby girl is still at -2 station.

Before going to L&D, my doctor had the nurses draw some blood. At my last visit, I complained of mild itching in seemingly random place: my feet, my wrists, and my jaw. The itching wasn't waking me up or excessive, so we decided to just keep an eye on it. A few days after that, the itching increased dramatically. I was drawing blood in my sleep, so I called again between my appointments to ask the nurse if this level of itching is normal. She gave me a few things I could try to relieve the itching, but nothing worked. I continued to complain about it at my Tuesday appointment, thus the blood test.

My OB called me on Wednesday with the test results. I have something called cholestasis of pregnancy. It's a condition where my liver stops processing bile acid. It happens in about 1 and 1000 pregnancies. The bile levels rise, causing the itching. However, it crosses the placenta and causes fetal distress. It also causes stillbirths.

I think my heart fell out of my chest when I got that call. Because of all the preterm labor issues I've been having, I received the steroid shots to rapidly develop baby girl's lungs at 30 weeks. I will receive another dose in the next week. I will be induced shortly after that. We are not sharing the induction date with the public at large. I have yet to wrap my brain around this.

Wednesday and Thursday I was in shock. Today, I am angry. I am angry that my labor experience will be nothing like I wanted. I am angry at my body for its incompetence when it comes to pregnancy. I am angry that I cannot do the one thing my body was most definitely designed to do. I cannot carry this child to term. I cannot protect her. My body is trying its level best to hurt her.

Today, I am allowing myself to be angry. If I don't, it will bottle up and explode and I do not have time for that.

Pregnancy Week 34: DIY Reupholstered Glider + Mounted Painted Mason Jars + Washi Tape Phone Case Makeover

Everything has been fairly quiet in pregnancy land. I go in for another prenatal appointment on Tuesday so I may have some more updates then. For now, everything is going smoothly! At 34 weeks, most babies are 19-22 inches long and weigh around 4.9 pounds. They estimated baby girl to be 4.5 pounds at 32 weeks, so 4.9 seems about right. She is about the size of a pineapple, and boy howdy do I believe it. My right ribs feel like they're going to bust.

With E's pregnancy, I had my baby shower around this time. We played a game where everyone cut a piece of yarn that they guessed was how big around I was at my widest point. Whoever was the closest won. The winner was smack on with my belly. I found the string in an old purse during one of my many nesting/cleaning episodes. I am slightly smaller this time around. Here are the comparison pictures. E on the left; this pregnancy on the right. My belly was much rounder and cute looking with E.

DIY Projects

I have the craft bug. I have it bad. I finished reupholstering the glider this week. I found a used one I liked for $30. I liked the glider itself anyway; the fabric had to go and the cushions needed adjusting because the top sloped funny. I ended up buying $30 in new fabric to reupholster it. I got too much (surprise), but I would rather have too much than not enough. Plus, $60 for a glider is a heck of a deal since most of them cost more than twice that amount.

This glider was a little more complicated to reupholster than the one I did for E's room. This glider had a base cushion with multiple pieces of fabric rather than one solid piece. I am way too lazy for that nonsense. So I got my seam ripper and tore that fabric off completely. That left me with one piece of foam.

I took the seam ripper to the top piece as well because it had a thick cord all the way around that I did not like. I was going to undo the seams holding together the individual pieces on the top, but that turned out to be way more cumbersome than expected. So I left it intact and just made a slip cover for it instead. I removed the velcro pieces that attach the cushions to the back of the glider and sewed them onto my new fabric once I was done. Here is the before and after.

I also made some changes to the hanging painted mason jars. I decided I didn't like them hanging from the ceiling. I already have two mobiles (one over the crib and one over the changing table), so it felt like too much. The jars also wouldn't stay facing the direction I wanted, so I decided to mount them instead.

I got a piece of wood from Michaels for dirt cheap ($3.60 after using the 40% off coupon they always have on their website). I also got some tube straps, screws, and worm clamps from Lowes. That was about $5. I eyeballed where I wanted the jars to go, then measured it to make sure I spaced the jars evenly. I placed the worm clamp inside the tube straps and screwed them into place. Then I adjusted the worm clamps until they were tight around the mason jars. I hid the actual clamp part near the back since it's the prettiest looking.

The piece of wood came with twine attached to the back already, so it was easy to hang up on the wall. This is a pretty versatile project. Instead of flowers/decor, you can use it in the bathroom to hold makeup/supplies or in an office to hold pens, pencils, etc. It would also be cute for a craft room to hold paint brushes, knitting needles, and so on.

My last small craft was more for functionality than anything else. Hubs and I both got new phones recently. Our cases are identical and he kept accidentally taking my phone. I tried a few DIYs to distinguish the cases from one and other, but I never cared much for the outcome. Then I discovered washi tape. Or, more accurately, mylar tape. Washi tape with scuff and fade with time since the design is on the outside.

The mylar tape I have is metallic and the color portion is on the inside of the tape. Since I wrapped it all the way around the case to hide the edges behind the phone, it is easy to tell our cases apart from the back as well as the front. Here is the final result.

Pregnancy Weeks 32 + 33: So Much Nesting

My uterus has finally calmed down! My last OB appointment was uneventful and my cervix is holding steady. The baby was measuring really small, but I was pretty sure that was because she dropped lower. My OB ordered an ultrasound as a precaution. Baby girl is measuring spot on with my due date and her fluid levels look good. As expected, she's just really far down. The ultrasound tech wanted to grab a picture of her face for me, but baby girl was too low for her to be able to see her face. So now I am back to biweekly appointments instead of weekly. Hooray for normalcy! Here are my comparison pictures for 32 and 33 weeks.

32 weeks with E on the left; 32 weeks with this pregnancy on the right.

33 weeks with E on the left; 33 weeks with this pregnancy on the right.

Nesting

I have a crafting problem. I've made two mobiles, decorated a picture frame with gems, hung painted mason jars with flowers, and made another piece of wall art using mason jars for E's room. I also made block letters for the nursery, but I won't be sharing those until after I give birth.My crafts are spilling over into other parts of the house now (like E's room). I just want to organize, decorate, and clean everything.

Below is what I used to make the second mobile as well as a picture of the finished project (inspired yet again by my friend's mobile). I cut the flower bunches into individual stems so I could hang them with floral stem wires. I wrapped the uppermost part of the stems of the purple and white flowers and attached them on the inner most ring of the green wire. On the middle ring, I alternated between the smaller purple and white flowers. I also arranged them at varying heights. On the outermost ring, I attached the white flowers on ribbon.

I attached thin white ribbon to the center of each perpendicular bar to be able to hang the mobile. To hide the green and white wires, I wrapped the entire wire wreath with purple and white ribbon. I took care to not shift the stems so they stayed spaced how I wanted them. Then I used my glue gun to glue remanents of the small purple and white flowers to the top of the mobile.

Here is the first painted mason jar craft I did as well as the finished product.

I poured some paint into the jar and start spinning it to coat the inside. I added more paint as necessary. Then I placed them on some paper upside down to allow any excess paint to drain. I propped them up slightly to allow air in so they could dry overnight.

I took the top out of the mason jar and put the lid back on then I arranged the flowers how I wanted. I wrapped and tied the neck in twine, then hung them from the ceiling at varying heights.

Here is the second painted mason jar project.

I coated the inside of the jars in paint using the same method I described above. The wooden frame had hanging hardware so that it would hang like a portrait. I unscrewed it and reattached it so I could hang it like a landscape. Then I measured out where the center was above each empty square and put in a nail. Much like the first mason jar project, I arranged the flowers how I wanted them, wrapped and tied twine around the neck of the jar, and then hung them from the nails. I had to adjust this a few times to get them to hang how I wanted.

Michaels really needs to stop having sales and sending me coupons. I can't help myself.

Pregnancy Week 31: Another L&D Visit, Nursery Mobile DIY, and How to Fix Scuffed Heels

Here are my 31-week comparison pictures. This pregnancy is on the left; my pregnancy with E is on the right.

I'm looking way smaller with this baby for this week than I did with E. I think it's because this baby dropped to -2 station so early, so she's much farther down. I'll be interested to see what tomorrow's comparison pictures look like for 32 weeks!

It's been another eventful week, hooray. Hubs got home on Friday and we enjoyed a nice, relaxed weekend. He is still struggling with jetlag, but it's getting better day-by-day. Then Monday happened. Mondays are the worst, and this proves it. My stomach started to bother me Monday evening. At first, I thought maybe it was just gas. Then it became a full blown stomach ache. I threw up for the first time around 2300. It all nose-dived from there. I will spare you the details. Stomach bugs are gross.

I had an OB appointment at 0930 the next day, so I figured I could wait until then. I attempted to start my day at 0740. By 0840, I had managed to put on clean clothes and put my hair in a bun. I couldn't stand for more than 30 seconds at a time without feeling dizzy and nauseous. Hubs texted me to check in on me and I sent out an SOS, so he came home to help me get E ready and take me to my appointment.

My OB was originally going to let me go home and try to rehydrate on my own, but then she listened to baby girl and checked my stats. My BP was 90/64, my ketones were off the charts, and baby girl's heart rate was way too high. She called ahead to L&D and I waddled on down the hall. After three attempts at placing an IV, the nurse called in someone else. IVs are the worst. Once I got some anti-nausea medication in me, I felt significantly better.

When I first arrived, I was contracting every three minutes. This didn't surprise me since I was severely dehydrated. Baby girl's heart rate was oscillating between 180-200, which made me nervous. After two bags of fluids, the contractions had slowed to every 8-9 minutes and baby girl's heart rate decreased to 160-165. She is normally 145-155, so that was much closer to her norm. They let me go home and I started feeling much better the next day. Today, I feel completely normal and can eat regular food again.

DIY Floral Nursery Mobile

A friend posted her plans to make a DIY mobile for her nursery, and it inspired me to make my own. I can't seem to find purple decor for baby girl's room, so I'm just going to make my own. I went to JoAnn's and bought a foam wreath, two types of ribbon for wrapping and hanging (thick purple ribbon and thin white ribbon, various purple blooms, and a spray of pearls. I already had small push pins with pearl beads on the end to pin things in place. I also used my glue gun to attach the spray of pearls for hanging the mobile. I couldn't find my glue sticks, but my neighbor had some :)

I wrapped the white foam wreath in purple ribbon and secured it in place with two pins. Then I arranged and pinned the flowers one bloom type at a time to make sure I spaced them evenly. Then I hot glued the very last pearl on each strand around the outer rim of the mobile. This way, I could hide the glue globs behind the flowers. The last thing I did was wrap the stem of the spray of pearls with white ribbon and pin it in place. The stem was pink and competing with the purple too much for my liking.

Supplies minus the thin white ribbon.

Finished product!

Hanging over the crib. 

This was a lot of fun and now I'm in a pinteresty/crafty mood. I'll post any other creations I make as the pregnancy progresses :)

DIY Scuffed High Heel Repair

I have a pair of nude suede heels that I love. Unfortunately, the heel portion of the shoe became too scuffed to wear. I didn't want to throw out the shoes because I was pretty sure I had a pinterest craft lurking in the archives somewhere. With spring around the corner, I finally got the gumption to do something about it.

All it took was some mod podge glue, some extra fine glitter, and a sponge to apply the mixture. I mixed the glitter and glue, then applied it in a thick and even layer. I let it dry and repeated the process once more. It worked great and only cost me $4. Much cheaper than replacing the shoes :)

Pregnancy Week 30: Preterm Labor and More Dresser Updates

This has been the most eventful week of this pregnancy so far. Three visits to labor and delivery (L&D) as well as one visit to maternal fetal medicine (MFM). Before I get into the details, here are my progress pictures. It's kind of hard to compare this week to this pregnancy with E because of the angle I took the picture.

30 weeks with this pregnancy

This pregnancy on the left, E on the right. 

So, back to the busy week I've been having. Hubs left for a work trip about a week and a half ago. The next day (a week ago Thursday), I started to feel really weird. I didn't have an explanation for it, I just felt off. I even called my midwife's nurse about it, but it's not like they can test me for off-ness. I had an appointment scheduled for Monday, so we decided I would wait until Monday.

On Sunday around 1:00 AM, some contractions woke me up. I have contractions all of the time. Sometimes they get regular, but they are not very strong at all. These had a little more pressure behind them. It was enough to make me want to get out of bed and move around because lying down wasn't very comfortable. They only lasted for about 45 minutes, so I went back to bed. I figured if it was the real deal, I wouldn't have been able to make them go away by moving around.

Later that morning, I started bleeding heavily and passing vast amounts of mucus blobs. My friend and her husband came and stayed with E while I went to L&D. When I got there, they triaged me. They noted my OS (external cervix, essentially) was about 1cm dilated and funneling down to about 1/2cm. They also felt I was a little effaced, at about 20%. They brought in an ultrasound tech to try and find the source of the bleeding, but they couldn't locate it. They noted my cervix was 3.3cm long, which is still a decent length. They wanted it to be closer to 4, but anything over 3 would keep them happy. Based on what they saw coming out of me, they believed I had lost my mucus plug. Thankfully, that reforms over time.

After a couple of hours of monitoring, they let me go home since I wasn't progressing anymore. They told me to follow up with my midwife. I went into my Monday appointment, and my midwife agreed with the dilation/effacement assessment. She decided I needed to start meeting with an OB ASAP. She also put me on nifedipine to try and shut down my contractions since she couldn't be sure which ones were causing the issues and which were harmless Braxton hicks contractions.

I met with an OB the following day and she wanted to check me to get a feel for where I was. She asked me to clarify what my midwife and L&D had told me. At some point in the 24 hours between seeing my midwife and seeing the OB, I had dilated and effaced more.

She sent me back to L&D, which was a bit of a process. Since hubs was out of town, I couldn't exactly drop off our daughter. After placing a few phone calls, one of hubs' coworkers was able to come get E for me. His wife came and stayed with my in L&D so I wouldn't have to sit there alone, which was nice. The nurse checked me and said I was almost 2cm dilated and 50-60% effaced. My OB ordered a massive amount of tests to try and figure out what was going on to make my cervix dilated and effaced this soon.

Everything has come back normal, so they are at a bit of a loss. I've had the steroid shots to rapidly develop baby girl's lungs as a precaution. My OB also rushed a referral for me to be seen by MFM. I was allowed to go home since my contractions weren't changing my cervix. The next morning, I started bleeding, passing blood clots, and passing mucus globs again. I called hubs' coworker again and he came and got E. He and his wife really, really helped us out. I don't know what I would've done if they couldn't watch E for me.

When I got to L&D, I had the same nurse as the day before. This was great because she was already familiar with my cervix. When she checked me, she noted I was still just shy of 2cm dilated, but I was now 70% effaced. Baby girl had also dropped to -2 station. I was also contracting about every 6 minutes by that point. I assume the nifedipine was helping reduce their intensity or something because they were not causing me to dilate.

I got an appointment to be seen by MFM and L&D let me go after giving me the second steroid shot. I was not particularly impressed with the doctor at MFM. She acted like she couldn't be bothered with my case. She wouldn't tell me how long my cervix was at first. She kept saying, "It's plenty long. It's fine." She also said she wasn't sure why I was referred to her and she would not be accepting me as a patient. She said there was nothing unusual about my pregnancy. What a load of horse crap. She finally told me my cervix was 2cm long. So from Sunday to Wednesday, I lost 1.3cm of cervical length.

At this point, I would rather see my OB and midwife anyway. They have never once made me feel stupid or acted like I was being ridiculous for feeling concerned. The reason they wanted me to go to MFM is my hospital doesn't deliver before 34 weeks. They wanted MFM to take me until I got to 34 weeks then they would have me come back after that point.

I'm still spotting, but it is nowhere near the level of bleeding I had on Sunday and Wednesday. Hopefully that stops soon. If it increases, I have to go back to L&D for another evaluation. My OB and midwife are going to trade off appointments so they can see my weekly rather than biweekly. I am hopeful that all of the eventfulness is over and that I can go back to regular third-trimester complaints like backaches and sore ribs.

Dresser Updates

In my last post, I included pictures from the DIY dresser refinishing project. While bumming around Hobby Lobby and TJ Maxx, I found some knobs I liked, so I swapped out the originals. I also finally put a picture of E in the carriage snow globe (only updated in the final picture--it's her strawberry costume picture because it's adorable). Only took me a year, hahaha. 

I also hung up E's shadow box and another picture from her hospital newborn shoot under the main picture on her wall. it looked like a big blank space because she used to have a chest of drawers rather than a dresser

Pink glass knobs on top, cream colored rose knobs with gold accent on the bottom.

Filling in the blank space. I need to update the picture in her shadowbox so it's not identical to the one next to it, haha. 

I also finally replaced the knobs on the TV stand in the basement. It is a heavy, solid piece of furniture, but I never cared for the tiny little brass knobs. So I updated those as well. 

The nursery is also arranged how I want it. It has no decorations yet, though. I'm supposed to be resting, so I can't really go shopping like I want to. I'll post pictures of it once it's complete.