The Last Three Weeks

Well, I must say last time I wrote it was looking like this pregnancy was going to go better than my pregnancy with Kaylin, boy was I wrong........

On May 29 while at work I was in a morning meeting and passed out. So they sent me to the hospital ran some tests and everything came back normal, the only problem while I was there was that my blood pressure was high when I first went in (160/100) and then fluctuated the entire time I was there, my heart rate was fairly high too. So they sent me home and then I went to the doctor and they told me to take the next few days off and go back to work the next week. I went back to work and worked a few days and had to go back to the doctor for almost passing out again. So they sent me to the hospital and did an EKG and blood test to check my thyroid. Both tests came back normal. I went to work last week, having moments where I was feeling lightheaded, faint, heart racing, etc but made it through the week. Now the whole time this has been going on I have not been seeing my regular OB/GYN, he has either been on call or out of town. I was seeing another doctor in the practice who told me I need to sit more at work. Which would help if we weren't so short staffed and I wasn't having moments where I was by myself for up to four hours. He told me that I was probably okay and that it was just normal pregnancy stuff.

Needless to say this week did not go as well. Today while still at home I was not feeling very well and decided to check my blood pressure, since that seemed to be the problem the day I passed out. When I first checked it my BP was 144/88, I rested for a little while checked it again and it went to 132/90 (now my blood pressure medicine should be keeping my BP regulated, it should not be fluctuating like that according to the doctor). Well, against my better judgement I went to work anyway was there for about 20 minutes and sent home b/c I was starting to feel worse. Put a call in to the doctor and while waiting for them to call me back rested (at home) and checked my BP a couple of times the first time it was 163/93, I laid down in bed for about 20 minutes and when I checked it again it was 146/92. When the doctors nurse called me back and I told her what was going on she asked me to come in right away. Thankfully Dr. Atkins was actually there today and I got to see him and fill him in on what had been going on the last few weeks. When I got to the doctors office my BP was 142/88 which they weren't too happy about but it wasn't too bad. The doctor came in and we talked for a little while about my job status, whether or not I was still taking my medicine, and about everything that had been happening. When he went to check my BP again it was 140/94, and he was said those words that I had been dreading to hear this entire pregnancy BED REST! UGH.

Dr. Atkins had said that fainting in pregnancy can be common with all of the changes that your body is going through, however, my problem is worsened by my BP issues. He said that I am doing a good job of recognizing that when I am feeling faint I need to sit or lay down and rest but I can't do what I need to do at work. So my bed rest is not as strict right now as it was with Kaylin. I can still do things if I feel up to it, I am just not allowed to work. Good news in all of this is my job has short term disability that they will be placing me on (as long as all of the paper work goes through and they don't find a reason for me not to have it) so I won't be going the next five months without being paid (last three months of pregnancy and then two months after the baby). So please just keep us in your prayers, that everything will go okay and that the baby will stay healthy. Next week I go back to the doctor for my appointment where I take my glucose test. I will keep you updated as find out more information.

What a Week

So I know it has been a while since I updated, so I thought I would sit down and let you guys know what has been going on. I had my last doctors appointment on May 14th and it went really well. They did the 20 week sonogram and said that everything looks really good. They baby seems to be growing the way it is supposed to and they said it didn't look like the baby had any kind of defects (as far as they can tell from what they saw). They also confirmed that it is for sure with out a doubt a girl. As far as the actual doctors appointment went I still have not gained any weight, which is AWESOME!!! My blood pressure was also fantastic, it was 110/74. The doctor was very happy that it was down, unfortunately he didn't seem very optimistic that it would stay down. He said that at about the 20 week mark is when every pregnant woman's blood pressure is at its lowest, so he is anticipating that it will be going back up and that bed rest in inevitable it is just a matter of when. Kaylin and Jon went with me to my doctors appointment and Kaylin got to see the baby during the sonogram, which she was excited about for like 1 minute and then she lost interest. All in all it was a pretty good appointment. He also said that I didn't have to come back for another 4 weeks instead of the 2 weeks that we had been doing.

As far as the rest of the week went it kind of stunk. My great grandmother passed away on Tuesday night (May 13th), they said she went in her sleep so it wasn't like she was in pain or anything like that which was nice to know. We had her visitation here in Arlington at Moore funeral home on Friday and her funeral was in Amarillo on Saturday. It was a sad week but it was also a happy week.

Getting Better

So I went to the doctors office on Tuesday. My blood pressure was okay, not great but it is definitely getting better! It was 126/90, like I said not great but getting better. The doctor did ask me if there was anyway that my job could put me in a position to where I would be sitting instead of standing all day. I told him that I didn't think that was possible and he said that may be something we will have to look more closely at in the coming weeks. My weight has been an interesting subject this time. When I was pregnant with Kaylin, I was gaining weight like no other. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't keep from gaining weight. Well this time I have not gained any weight, I have actually lost weight. And it seems like I will be all baby this time which will be AWESOME!!! I am feeling the baby move now which is fantastic, now it just needs to get a little bigger so that Kaylin and Jon can feel it move. I go back to the doctor in two weeks and they will do a sonogram/check-up and we will see if my doctor thinks it is a girl. I am holding out hope that maybe it is a boy. A girl can dream can't she. Jon's not as optomistic as I am which is out of the ordinary for us, usually he is the optomistic one. We will keep everyone updated though as soon as we find out anymore information.

Oh NO!

On Monday at my doctors appointment things did not go so well. I was feeling fantastic however my blood pressure was up, it was 158/102. So the doctor increased my blood pressure medication and told me that I would have to come back to visit him in two weeks. So my next appointment is going to be on April 29th and if my blood pressure is still high then they will be changing my blood pressure medication. Dr. Atkins is really wanting to get my blood pressure under control before I start the second half of my pregnancy. He is trying to prevent me from having to go on bed rest and hopefully it will work. Jon and I are trying to be optimistic but it is hard when we have already been through this before.

The Specialist

So today I had my doctors appointment with my high risk specialist. The doctor talked to me about why they are worried about my blood pressure being so high. He also explained to me what numbers were okay when it came to blood pressure. He didn't actually check my blood pressure since I am going to the doctors office on Monday. He did do a sonogram and said that the baby looked good and that the baby was the size that it is supposed to be, it looked to be about six ounces. They gave me a couple of pictures, that I will try to get on this blog as soon as I can find the wires that go to our scanner. So now the question that people keep asking me and are dying to know......Did we find out what we are having? Yes we did and........


It's a GIRL!

That's right another girl. Kaylin is going to have a little sister. So now for the next question what will her name be... well after a lot of condsideration I have decided to let Jon be the one to pick out her name. We were both hoping for a boy and I had told Jon that if it was a boy that he would be able to pick out the baby bedding and the baby name. So now that we have found out its a girl Jon will be naming her and I will be picking out her bedding. Now there is always a chance that the doctor could have been wrong and it could end up being a boy but the baby's legs were spread wide open and the doctor said it's a girl, there is nothing in between those legs. So my next sonogram will be around 18/20 weeks and we will see at that point if they still think its a girl. So here is what Jon has decided out new little girls name is going to be...



Lauren James Anderson

Now if for some reason we find out in a couple of weeks that the specialist was wrong and that it is a boy his name will be Graham Riley Anderson. The names we picked weren't necessarily the most popular out of the ones that we had everyone vote on but these were the ones that we liked. Now I know some of you are wondering why in the world we would pick the name James to be a girls middle name, here's why. James is a family name both for the Anderson's and the Armstrong's. I had a great-grandfather who died my second year of college who I absolutely adored his name was James, my grandfather who I also love dearly is named James. Jon's grandfather who is very ill at the moment is named James and it is also one of my brother in-laws middle names. Like I said it is a family name that we would like to pass down to our child. So we want to thank everyone for their prayers and ask that you continue to pray for us as we prepare for our new little one.

NOT SO GOOD

Okay, so I had my doctors appointment and it didn't go very well. They took my blood pressure and it was 180/110. YIKES! It ended up going down but only to 160/100. So, they have decided to send me to a high risk pregnancy specialist. I will still go to my regular OB but I will also see the new doctor too. They have also put me on some medication as well. So now for the good news (I guess), the doctor thinks that my blood pressure issue may be something that is not pregnancy related. He said that when you have pregnancy induced hypertension (fancy words for high blood pressure), it usually doesn't effect your blood pressure until later on it the pregnancy. He thinks that I have an underlying blood pressure issue that I have had all along that has just not been diagnosed. So hopefully we will get it under control and I won't have to go through the months of bed rest again. My next appointment is April 9 with the specialist and April 14 with my OB. Kaylin went with me to the doctors office and she did pretty good until they got out the little machine to listen to the baby's heart beat. She started crying and telling the doctor not to hurt mommies baby. It was very sweet. The doctor and I were laughing at her because she really thought that he was going to hurt me and the baby. Needless to say she won't be going back to the doctor with me for a while. The baby's heart beat was 169. I would like to ask that you all please keep us in your prayers. If we have to go through all the stuff we went through with Kaylin it will be a long and hard pregnancy, and most definitely the last. Thanks.

My Goal

Okay my goal for this pregnancy is to keep everyone up to speed on this website. So I am going to try to blog every time I go to the doctor and let everyone know what happened at my appointments and such. So here we go:

My first appointment was on February 12, they did a sonogram and found out that I was 7 weeks and 3 days, so not quite 8 weeks. They told me that my due date would be September 27th. I know another September birthday for the Anderson/Armstrong families, as if we didn't already have enough. For those of you who aren't family members we have 6 (one of those is Jon's best friend, so he's not blood family but family still), and we are adding in number 7.

I will pause here to add, before I had gone to the doctor I had been having dreams that I was having twins, and Kaylin kept insisting that mommy was having two babies not one. The sonogram technician said that there was only one baby in there, praise God, I don't think I could handle two newborns and a 3 year old.

So the sonogram technician said everything appeared to be okay and she was able to let me listen to the heartbeat and is was 152. It didn't really look like a baby, it was more or less a little blob. After my sonogram I went back to the doctors area and they checked my weight (and no I don't know what it was, I didn't want to know what it was, I think if I start gaining too much weight the doctor will politely say something but he didn't seem to have an issue with where I was starting out at) and they also checked my blood pressure. My BP was 116/70 which was fantastic! Then I went into his office and we had a little chat about my pregnancy with Kaylin and the issue I had with her. He told me that since I had BP problems last time that started around 20 weeks that we would start doing appointments every two weeks once I hit the 20 week mark, unless I have issues before then. He also told me that if I have BP problems then we would automatically do a C-section again but, if I don't have BP problems then I could possibly deliver naturally.

Now let me pause again to say that, a part of me would love to deliver naturally just to have the experience but...I will be doing another c-section. With Jon and I both working full time and having Kaylin it is just easier for us to know exactly what day this baby will be here. Plus, as my mother-in-law so wonderfully put it, people don't win awards for going through labor and to me it just seems like it would be easier to just do the c-section to begin with and not go through the laboring (like I did last time) and then end up having to doing an emergency c-section.

So after my little chat with Dr. Atkins, he did the rest of my exam and said everything seemed to be going well. I went and had my blood work done and went home feeling fantastic (aside from the nausea and vomiting). Unfortunately that didn't last....I had to go back to the doctor two days later because I was bleeding and cramping.

Come to find out I am Rh negative, which in the back of my mind I knew I had negative blood but at the same time kind of forgot. They did another exam and sonogram and everything looked great. The baby's heartbeat was 159 and I wasn't showing any signs of miscarriage (which is what I was worried about). The just gave me a shot and put me on some restrictions, which I've done pretty good with. So my next appointment is tomorrow March 10 and I will let you all know what the doctor says. Kaylin is going with me to my appointment so she can hear the baby's heartbeat and I hope she does okay and doesn't freak out.

By the way overall, this pregnancy has gone better than it did with Kaylin. I have been sick but not as sick, if you asked Jon he would say it is just as bad but what do men know. I have been extremely exhausted which I don't remember from last time but I also wasn't working 40 hours a week at a job where I stood all the time and I didn't have a two year old to take care of on top of that. All in all, I must say that this has been a somewhat pleasant experience up to this point and I hope it continues to go that way. And for all of you who are wondering what Jon and I are hoping for, we really would like to have a boy but seeing as we don't really get a say in it we will be happy with whatever God has chosen to give us.