RaeRae’s Pregnancy Journey

” All things are possible to him who believes” – Mark 9:23

Blood pressure update November 6, 2008

Filed under: baby movement, high blood pressure in pregnancy, third trimester — raeraegirl @ 10:02 pm

Today I went to my OB appt. and praise God my blood pressure has gone down! It was certainly not what I expected to hear given the pattern I had developed. It was 155/88 last time, today it was 142/80 so they let me come home!

Tomorrow morning we get the results of my protein check and depending on the results , if they are bad, I may be induced tomorrow. If the results are good, then I may go for another week with blood pressure checks every other day. At this point, they are preparing us for the real possibility that he will be here by next Friday at the very latest.

Needless to say that we are asking for continued prayer that my bloodpressure keeps getting better as that will only help make the delivery much safer. It would be wonderful to carry him another week to give him time to gain a bit more weight as well, however we know that God has already chosen his birthday so no matter when he comes, we pray for strength to be ready.

At this point they are also guessing he’s about 6lbs at 36wks.  He’s gonna be a little peanut but that’s ok! I”ll fatten him up :)

We’ll try to keep everyone up to date when we can. Thank you so much for your prayers!!

 

Babi Italia -Crib is up in one hour September 1, 2008

Filed under: babi italia, baby movement, nursery, pregnancy, third trimester — raeraegirl @ 6:44 pm

Ray was pretty proud that he put the crib together in just under an hour. Afterall, everything we’ve read and been told had us worried it would take NASA to set it up. Its perfect. Exactly what I wanted for my baby even before baby came to be. This nursery has honestly been the first room in the house where the planning of it couldn’t be going smoother (knock on wood). I normally am so indecisive on colors, layouts , etc. but one day I walked in that room and said “this will go here, crib there, armoire there” and in my mind it all fell into place.

I love how this looks now and it’s not even dressed up with the bedding yet. The armoire goes in  with the help of a neighbor who can assist Ray in moving it in. Solid wood furniture isn’t lightweight and I”m definitely worthless right now in the moving department. But I can make up for it with shopping and decorating :p

The furniture is from the Babi Italia Pinehurst Collection in espresso.

Because I”m using this journal to also document my journey towards motherhood, I’m going to write up the events of last night.

Around 7pm I started feeling symptoms of a UTI, but thought perhaps the time had come where he weighs enough that he’s constantly pushing on my bladder thus giving me the signal that I have to tinkle. But then I started feeling dull aches similar to a menstrual cycle and after a 3 hour nap woke up to a horrible radiating pain/cramp that only affected the 1/2 half of my torso. Literally from my spine , across the right and stopped at my navel. Baby boy wasn’t moving and I felt my uterus tense up. Naturally, I became worried after moving about 30 minutes and he wasn’t. My next door neighbor came over, who’s a nurse and checked my BP for me while I took a few minutes on the phone talking to my best friend who went thru a checklist with me of symptoms. Ray was trying to get ahold of the on-call Dr. and that is a whole story in itself but ultimately after 1 hour of constant pain we opted to go to the ER. It was midnight by then.

So there we go, in the car taking the drive into Austin. I thought to myself “this is what the drive will be like when I”m in labor, but 10x worse.” Thankfully we got there in under 30 minutes. I’m rolled up to the L&D and they strap me up to get the baby monitored. There is that sweet sound. 155 bpm. Normal. And now he hears the sounds of his own heartbeat and starts to kick and kick. The nurse tells me she must give me an exam to see if my cervix is dilated to determine pre-term labor. Oh and a catheter to see if I have a UTI. Someone shoot me. I HATE catheters. I’d rather be stung by bees.

Well after many attempts and failures nurse #1 is unable to reach my cervix and calls in another who after much searching determines that its way back and very closed. No pre-term labor. Thank God. Catheter is done in a matter of 15 seconds, but again give me bee stings anyway. UGH. Ray held my hand thru the entire ordeal talking to me and distracting me from the immense pain I was under. If I had any second thoughts of having an epidural they’re now officially squashed. I WILL have one. If they’d let me have two I”d take both.

They kept me in the L&D for 2 hours for monitoring all the while baby boy can’t sleep because of the monitor loudly echoing his heartbeat. I nap here and there and Ray’s trying to catch some z’s too , but everytime baby boy kicks the sound is so loud it wakes us both. So , the results. No UTI, no preterm labor, no infections. They don’t know what it was. Great. They advise me to call the on-call Dr. tomorrow (today) after 9am because “she’s probably asleep tonight and that’s why she’s not answering.” Don’t EVEN get me started on how I felt about that. Must be nice. We get home around 4am, woke up today at noon and all I want is bbq and a backrup.

I”m grateful that he’s ok, that it may have been a ligament stretching or just some crazy cramp or pinched nerve. but what a scary night it was there for a while. Just writing it out has made me tired again.

 

Step away from the fridge August 14, 2008

Filed under: baby movement, belly pic, belly pics, pregnancy weight gain, third trimester — raeraegirl @ 2:13 am

Today was our 24th week visit to the obygn and it was a quick, but informative visit.

  • My uterus is measuring 24cm and I’m 24 weeks – “perfect” said the doc
  • His heartbeat was strong at 154 bpm
  • My blood pressure is really good
  • um…..I gained 9.5 lbs in one month

Which brings me to 133.5 lbs at the 6month mark of this pregnancy. That was my pre-pregnancy/pre-workout weight back in September. I think that’s kinda funny actually. To pretty much come full circle on my weight.

The Dr. told me we need to “keep a watch on that weight gain” because no doubt that at that average I’d be up to 160-170 when my due date comes around and yea, that’s not happening. I completely blame this on my work schedule which resulted in me getting home every night at 9:30pm, eating a hefty dinner and then going straight to bed. No exercise, no walking..nothing to burn off anything that I ate. No bueno! Now that I”m getting off at 5pm, I shouldn’t have a problem maintaining a good average…and eating more salads!

We also went to register at BabiesRus today.

Someone please tell me how people managed to raise a child before this store existed. My god. The amount of stuff in there is UNREAL. The prices are just insane and by the time I left my feet were swollen and throbbing. Thank God for baby showers because we’re be in the poor house if we had to get all this ourselves. Whew!

 

Baby goes bump in the night July 24, 2008

Filed under: baby movement, pregnancy, second trimester — raeraegirl @ 5:11 pm

Sorry the video is so dark..it doesn’t help that I’m really tanned right now either hehe

 

I also remember attending this  concert w/ my brother Steven and crying through this song. This was almost 6 yrs ago, many years before I ever knew whether I would have a family, specifically now a son.  I adored this song and read that she wrote it for her son.

Now I plan to sing this to my own.

Godspeed little man. 

 

Let’s dance July 2, 2008

Filed under: baby movement, pregnancy, second trimester — raeraegirl @ 6:00 pm

We’ve got thumping! At 18wk3d I officially felt the first REAL thump while sitting at work.

At first, I thought it was just my tummy rumbling from hunger, but I felt it in one spot and then seconds later in another. I was wearing a skirt so I was able to maneuver my hand easily to wait and see whether baby was ready to play and sure enough “thump”. So I thumped back..and baby replied. We played this game for a few minutes and it was just the moment I realized “wow, there is life in there, not just a beating heart!” Later that night when I got home, Ray was sitting on the couch with me and we watched my uterus thump. I must have some really thin walls of muscles to be able to see this already but I didn’t want this to be a “power of suggestion” so I didn’t tell him where I was feeling it nor seeing it, I waited for him to point and he confirmed it each and every time. woo hoo! Ever since then I”m feeling the bouncing around more often. Seems like the baby loves it when I”m eating jello pudding snacks and is especially active around 11pm. I think its just digging the music mama listens to all the time. I can only imagine how active he/she will be when we’re in Cabo this coming week dancing to all that spanish music.

According to the pregnancy books, my uterus is the size of a cantaloupe right now and the baby is approximately 5-7 inches like the size of a can of soup.
So insert B into A and this is what I’ve got going on right now :)