My Birthday

I never could have imagined just how my Birthday was going to turn out. I had been anticipating it for some time. NOT because I was turning 32, but because I was having the ultrasound that would tell us if we were having a boy or girl. My ultrasound appointment that day was at 1:15. Chad and I met for lunch at 11:00 at Ted's Montana Grill. We were so excited and just could hardly wait for 1:15 to get here. We got right in when we got to Imaging Center where they do the ultrasounds. Everything seemed great......she was able to tell nearly right away that it was a little GIRL!!! That was incredible to find out and the rest of the ultrasound the baby was measured in every possible angle and many pics were taken. Everything seems perfectly formed:) The ultrasound tech said she was unable to get a good view of my cervix and told me she needed to do an "internal" ultrasound for a better look. I didn't think a thing of it. She seems to get what she needed and said she's be back after I got dressed. When she cam back she said that it appeared my cervix was shorter than it should be and that I needed to go straight to my midwife office to have them physically check it. I wasn't supposed to have an appt for another 2 weeks or so with my midwife. At that point I really wasn't terribly concerned.....but I also really didn't have a clue what a shortened cervix meant. So, when we got to the midwife she explained the concern of a shortened cervix and checked me and found that it was in fact too short. She immediately called their physician at Vanderbilt Hospital for a consult. Then came back and told us we needed to go right away to the High Risk Practice at Vanderbilt Hospital. That's when it kicked in. I was very scared at that moment. She couldn't really reassure us with anything at that moment because they just needed to look more into it to see what was happening. She mentioned the Cerclage procedure, but said that they would need to determine whether I was a good candidate for that. That day I was 18 weeks and 5 days along and that is typically several weeks later than one would normally have that procedure done. So, we made our way to Vanderbilt where they did many test and checks to rule out anything else. Sometimes an infection may cause the baby to want to be born early. I showed no type of infection. Thankfully, I was barely dialated and had no leakage of the uterus and there was just enough cervix for them to work with to feel that I was a candidate for the Cerclage. The Cerclage is a surgery where they literally stitch your cervix closed. By this point it was getting later in the day and so they wanted to wait until morning to determine our solution.

My Birthday night I had a little party in my room:) The picture posted is me holding some little desserts that Tara and Adam brought me and we put a candle in it. Tara and Adam, Jeremy, Greta and Micheal and Karin all came by to hang out and so that was a wonderful distraction from the stress of the day. I'm thankful for a wonderful family and friends!

We had a long night in the hospital with Chad sleeping beside my bed in a funny little pull out recliner chair. They took my vitals every couple hours and came in to listen to the babies heartbeat every so often. That was fun....I got good at being able to tell them about where to find her when they were trying to pinpoint her heartbeat. One time it was picking up all kinds of noise and she must have just been swimming around like crazy in there. So cute to picture:)

The next day we waited for the Dr. to make rounds to talk to us to figure out for sure out plan. I will say, I have a lot of confidence in Vanderbilt Hospital. I had more high risk OB specialists look at my case than I can even count. Our plan was to go ahead with the cerclage as soon as possible (later that day) and to start a weekly shot of progesterone to prevent early labor. I went in to surgery around 1:00. They initially gave me some relaxer drug through my IV, so I was pretty relaxed when they gave me the spinal to deaden me from the waist down. Right after the spinal, I was totally asleep and really remember nothing. They woke me up right after (at 2:00) and let me know that it went great! The scariest risk of all is the possibility that they could break your water during the procedure. So, I was so relieved to wake up and hear that they got a good knot and felt really good about it.

That night I finally got the feeling back in my legs around 5:30 or 6 and we decided to stay another night just so that I felt 100% before we headed home. I had no pain at all from the procedure and was really ready to go home.

The next morning the doctors finally made rounds about 9 and talked with me about what to expect from here. I need to be on bedrest until my followup appointment on February 3rd and then they will determine what I can do. I'm sure hoping to resume life at that point. I'm getting alittle antsy. Plus, I feel fine an that makes it hard to lay down all the time. But I have to keep the weight off the cervix for now. I'm at higher risk for delivering early, but ideally they will take out the stitch at 36 weeks (40 is full term) and then I will hopefully go into labor naturally sometime after that point.

So, the past week has been scary, but I am really thankful for many things.

1. We had the ultrasound early and caught this before it was too late
2. The radiologist caught it and took quick action
3. awesome doctors at Vanderbilt
4. a very healthy and perfect little baby girl
5. family and friends who prayed for us and are being so wonderful and helping out right now

I feel very positive and hopeful and am just taking it easy for this baby right now. My mom came right away to visit and is being such a great help around the house. Plus, we just moved into a new house yesterday (I'll post about that later).

Thank you again for your prayers. It means so much to us!

We got our baby bedding!

I've been searching for awhile for baby bedding. I wanted something that was fresh and modern and wouldn't lock me into a theme and I wanted something pretty gender neutral even though we will be finding out if we are having a boy or girl in just a few weeks. I had a few top choices and all of which were more than a little splurgy. So, I was super excited when I found this one on after Holiday clearance for 75% off!!!! I couldn't pass us up the good deal and got the crib skirt, bumper, quilt, pillow and 3 fitted sheets for a great price. The nursery is going to have a modern and colorful look. I'm excited to be in the new house and start putting it all together.

Feliz Navidad!

I should be saying Happy New Year, but since I'm a little behind on my blog posting.....I am backing up to mine and Chad's Feliz Navidad celebration. This is our own annual tradition when we celebrate Christmas and open our gifts from each other. Really the only thing that makes it Feliz Navidad is that Chad has a special Christmas music mix for the day of latin Christmas tunes and we go out for Mexican food. This year we celebrated a few days before we headed to Nebraska for Christmas. We decided to go to a place in east Nashville for dinner called Rose Pepper. Even though we had heard mixed review about the place, we both really loved it. Chad got his favorite Chicken with Mole' sauce and I got my favorite a chimichanga. It's making me hungry just typing about it. After that we went to a little coffee house around the corner where there was some live music playing and we split a lemon cupcake. Then, we went home to open our gifts.

I scored big this year with all my gifts having a kitchen theme. I got a new Kitchenaid Mixer in a fun yellow color. The kitchen wall in our new house will be green, so it'll look great up against it. I also got a ceramic pie plate and a orange tea pot and a cool "farmers market" theme calendar. He also got me a beautiful necklace! What a great gift giver.

Chad got some really cheezy stocking stuffers from me. Quality items like...peeps in the shape of christmas trees, transformer toys and probably some other silly things. But, I think I made up for all of the when he opened his new Apple TV.

It's fun how traditions start and how they really become something special you look forward to. We can't wait to have our next Feliz Navidad with our new little baby. I'm sure they won't quite enjoy how wonderful mexican food it, but I can guarantee they'll be wearing an adorable tiny sombrero for the occasion.

That Weird "In Between" Stage

Tomorrow will mark the start of my 2nd trimester! It feels exciting and like quite a milestone. We are 1/3 of the way there! I've been feeling so much better the past couple weeks. I actually had it pretty good in the first trimester compared to some people, but still....I did have mild nausea and felt extremely tired. But, now the nausea is gone....yayyyy! And, I don't conk out on the couch at 8:00 every night anymore. I'm also finally able to cook without feeling sick, so after about 3 months of either just heating up something frozen or eating out or hitting the drive thru, we can finally enjoy a nice meal at home.

I've gained more weight than I had hoped in the first trimester, but what can I do now? I'm now at that kind of awkward stage of.......is she pregnant or has she just packed on a few pounds? I guess I could wear a "baby on board" t-shirt.....but that's just not really me:) I'm gonna break out the maternity pants here in a couple weeks. My pants are a bit snug, but not quite ready to move on yet. I'm excited for my stomach to "pop" as they say and finally have that baby bump.

My next midwife appointment isn't until January 7th and then shortly after that we will be able to have our ultrasound to find out if we are having a boy or girl. I'm so excited for that. I'm so ready to start buying some things and to start being able to work on the nursery.

We've got a lot coming up in December and January. We are heading to Nebraska for Christmas and then celebrating Christmas with Chad's family over New Years. Then January 15th, we close on our new home and start the moving and settling in. Lot's of excitement and lots of change coming our way.

Thanksgiving in Chicago

We just got back to Nashville after a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend in Chicago with Chad's parents. They live in Newburg, Indiana which is about 2 1/2 hours from Nashville and then about 5 1/2 hours to Chicago. The night before Thanksgiving, Chad and I drove up to Indiana and spent the night with his parents and then on Thanksgiving morning we all headed to Chicago for the weekend. We had a nice drive to Chicago with only 2 bathroom stops.......not bad with a pregnant girl along:) We arrived at our very nice hotel - The Allerton Hotel around 3:30 and relaxed a bit before meeting to head to dinner. We had a little time to kill before dinner that night so we went up to the top of the John Hancock Building and saw a great view of the city at night. We ate at McCormick and Schmick which is a seafood restaurant, but they had a special Thanksgiving meal which everyone but Chad got. It was yummy and we all ended up ordering dessert that night.....so we were quite full!

On Friday we headed out to do some shopping at Crate and Barrel at 9:00 but found that they didn't open until 10:00. So, we went to an indoor mall on Michigan Avenue and shopped around a little before lunch. We headed to the area near Lincoln Park to have lunch at a place called Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinders, a place that I had been before with my brother and it's amazing! We got there early and walked over to Lincoln Park Zoo....which is free! I love zoos and we had a ton of fun checking that out until lunch. Lunch was wonderful and it was a hit with everyone. Thanks goodness, since I had really raved about it. After lunch Chad and I went our own way and did some shopping in the afternoon before we had a nice date night at an Indian Restaurant and then to see the musical "Wicked". We had a great meal and the musical was really fun!

On Saturday we started our day by going to Millenium Park to check out the bean sculpture. It's actually called "Cloud Gate", but it looks like a bean and people kind of just called it that. It's really cool and fascinating to look at. The park has such a gorgeous view of the city skyline. Then we checked out the Navy Pier, which was very chilly with the wind off Lake Michigan and not too busy in the morning. We were all starting to get alittle hungry, but didn't have a plan for lunch. We felt like Mexican food, but when you are in a big city you don't really know where to go. I had a little guide book in my purse and flipped through to see if there were any Mexican restaurants and I found "Frontera Grill", which is a restaurant owned by a chef that I know about names Rick Bayless. Sounded good to us and we hopped in a cab. It was delicious. Chad's dad thinks it's the best Mexican food he's had! After lunch Chad and I headed our own way, Chad's mom headed to Nordstroms and his dad back to the hotel. We all did our own thing for the afternoon until dinner. We went to Gap where I tried on some maternity clothes. They had a fake belly you could try on which was kind of fun and enlightening. After I picked out a few things there, we got alittle snack at Starbucks and then just walked around all over. We went down by the river which is such a cool area. A bit cold out, but invigorating as long as you kept moving. We wore ourselves out....or rather I got worn out and headed back to the hotel for a break. Chad headed back out to the Apple Store. That night for our last meal in Chicago we went to a famous classic restaurant called Gene and Georgetti's. We are pretty sure there were some mobsters there. It had that classic italian look with the red checker table clothes and a very lively atmosphere. It was yummy and once again we were full after a big meal. Back to the hotel for bed since were were heading out the next morning.

Sunday we headed out around 9 and our plan was to get to IKEA at opening at 10:00. We got there a little early and they have a cafe that was open and they were actually serving a free breakfast. Cool! We ate and then hit the shopping. We had a list of things we wanted to get, so we had a strategy that made us pretty efficient. We also knew we were limited by the amount of space in the car to get it all home. But, we wound up with a good amount of stuff for our new house and we were really excited! It was snowing when we left and had about 5 1/2 hours driving ahead of us. The roads ended up being fine, but it was a long drive home and we were all very happy to pull into the driveway that night. We got to hang out a bit with Braxton and Sarah (Chad's brother and our sister in law) and our little niece Jolie. We had some yummy tortilla soup that Chad's mom made and I was really to hop in bed by 10:30.

Today (Monday) we headed home for a short 2 1/2 hour drive back to Nashville. We had a wonderful weekend full of memories. But, it feels good to be home and have a little time to relax before getting back to real life. I actually have Tuesday off from work which is wonderful. It's been a nice break. Now it's December and it'll be a whirlwind month. I'm very excited to go to Nebraska for Christmas and then once we get back it's just a few more weeks until we close on our new home! Lot's of changes for us. It's been an exciting year and it's gonna be another exciting year in 2009.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Is There Really a Baby in There?

On November 6th we were able to get our first ultrasound. This was such a huge relief to me. I think once the initial thrill and shock of finding out we were having a baby wore off alittle, I started to feel worried about whether everything was okay. I kept having this horrible fear that maybe I was not really pregnant and that my symptoms were all in my head. I know it sounds crazy, but I couldn't help it. How embarassing that would be to have to tell people that we weren't really having a baby and that Oh, by the way....I'm a crazy person. So, when the ultrasound tech said the wonderful words of "There's the little baby", I think a 2 ton weight was lifted off of me. And to see the little flashes of light on the screen which was the baby's heartbeat. I think it made this all seem much more real to both Chad and I. The timing was perfect because we were flying to Orlando later that day for vacation and I just needed this reassurance that things were okay so I could relax and enjoy our trip.

I'll post the pictures of the ultrasound later.....Or feel free to check them out on Chad's blog.

First Midwife Appointment

Wow! So much has happened since my last blog post and I just haven't taken the time to sit down and compose my thoughts to write about it all. I'll take you back to October 31st, which was our first appointment with our Midwife. Once I found out I was pregnant I had to make a decision on a new Doctor. My current doctor was not an OB, so she could not deliver our baby. Plus, I wasn't too crazy about her anyway. I had heard about a practice here in town called the Vanderbilt Nurse Midwives and I checked out their website and tried to find out what I could about it. I was impressed with what I was reading and hearing and decided to go with it. I get major anxiety when it comes to doctors and hospitals and I wanted an experience that was more personal and tailored to us. Not knowing what to expect at the first appointment, I was hoping for an ultrasound and thinking it would be a full exam and everything. Well, turns out that day the midwife that we will be seeing had to be out on an emergency, so we met with another midwife and it turned out to be more of a consultation. It was great. We talked with her for over an hour and we had nearly 3 notebook pages of questions for her. Then, I found out that she actually went to college with my sisters. We asked many questions about how the process will be with a midwife versus a physician. We felt 100% comfortable with every answer and we were incredible impressed with the patience she had to address each and every concern. We will be delivering the baby at Vanderbilt Hospital and feel great knowing that it's such a reputable medical facility with the capability to deal with absolutely anything. I asked about getting an ultrasound and they send you to a separate place for that and she was happy to schedule one for me about a week later. They also drew lots and lots of blood. I don't deal well with that and had to lay down for awhile. We left feeling good about our decision with the Vanderbilt Midwives. Plus, Chad loves saying the word "midwifery", so that's just an added bonus:)