@libbberty Yay, so glad to hear such positive news especially right in time for your anniversary and the holidays. Hears to hoping the news stays positive over the next few weeks, and you get to deliver your baby full term!
SO glad to read this update, momma! What a little fighter. I hope you and your H are able to enjoy Thanksgiving, still sending lots of creepy internet hugs to you guys and your sweet babe!
This is all such great news! I was so surprised to see your name as the most recent post in the sex reveal thread since you've clearly been Team Green, but that's exciting news too!
@witchwai thank you! Currently in the hospital overnight for monitoring. Baby seems to be fine, but at 3pm today I️ was bleeding for about 30 minutes. Very scary at first until baby started moving on way to hospital. They ran a bunch of tests and couldn’t determine if my water broke or not (because blood interferes with the test), but one was positive for amniotic fluid so they’re keeping me overnight. Most of the staff think it’s my “bloody show” but no one is super confident. It’s been quite the day! Grateful LO is moving quite a bit given the ambiguity around the bleeding. I️ wasn’t dilated or effaced at all so I’m hoping we can give LO one more week to bake!
Growth US from yesterday indicated baby is still huge (measuring 8lbs 4 oz at 36 weeks) and tumor size is stable. Less fluid in baby’s chest but still lots of amniotic fluid so we’re anticipating swallowing problems at birth (requiring a long NICU stay).
Thank you for checking in! Will update crew once we know more.
good news - I️t IS possible to pack hospital bags in less than 10 minutes
@libbberty thinking of you and LO! Hopefully you can convince him/her to stay put another week or more! And good to know about the hospital bag packing!
Jan '18 December Siggy Challenge: Christmas Movies
Home from hospital. I guess the temporary consensus is that it was bloody show, maybe. haha. Either way it was a good encourager to take my Hypnobabies practice a little more seriously! We got in a lot of practice while sitting at the hospital.
Thanks for the love, ladies. Here's my last two weeks update for anyone who wants a way too long distraction (was tailored for our family and friends - I'm too lazy to edit!).
34 weeks 34 weeks brought us an emotionally difficult appointment, which is why you didn’t hear from us – we needed some time to accept what’s coming. Despite a “good” physical checkup (stable on all accounts except for growth and a little more amniotic fluid), we had a tough conversation with our care team when we discussed delivery options and postpartum life. On the US, the highlights were seeing the baby open its mouth and hearing how much it grew – already estimated at 6 lbs, 10 oz, which is one big baby! We’re still estimated at the 96th percentile and grateful our LO is a tank – what it adds in discomfort for mom, it also encourages us that baby will have some more strength upon delivery. Unfortunately, baby was breech, so cue the at home exercises. Although there is extra fluid for baby to move around easily so this isn’t set in stone to last, there are big advantages to a vaginal delivery especially when baby has lung issues, so we really want to encourage it to flip!
When meeting with our care team, our fetal surgeon started the conversation on a positive note: that we could have a “quiet” delivery with our normal OBGYN. Upon dissecting what that actually meant on the patient side, it sounds like there will be 5-8 attendees in the room for baby and 2-3 for me. The good news is that unless our normal OB feels it is necessary/situation changes, we won’t have to schedule an induction or C-section. Also positive is that we won’t have to consider an EXIT procedure (if you want to freak out or nerd out, look this stuff up online and basically almost any traumatic birth story you’ve heard will probably seem slightly less awful). Upon delivery, baby will be evaluated for immediate issues at the warmer inside the L&D room. If baby is breathing okay, we’ll get 5 min or so of skin-to-skin contact before Christian and the neonatologists take the baby to the NICU. In that case, Mom will unfortunately stay behind for recovery while the baby is evaluated for swallowing issues (and alternatively, if baby has respiratory distress, there will be immediate intervention, either a tube or even surgery). Swallowing issues could be severe (baby produces a ton of mucus and can’t process any of it) or relatively “minor” (baby struggles with feeding) – so, baby will receive nutrition through IV for the first few days as they learn more and do some scans. The reason they believe there will be an issue is that baby isn’t swallowing up all of that excess amniotic fluid, likely because the tumor is pressing on its esophagus – but ultimately we won’t know until baby breathes and swallows in the outside world. Unfortunately, this means that my experience BFing will begin with pumping, which is less than ideal. We’re trying to stay positive knowing that we’ll get lots of support from lactation consultants, and keep in perspective that ultimately, we’re likely to have a healthy baby at some point, and we just have a more stressful path for getting there. The first few hours after delivery will be really tough for me, being separated from Chris and our LO and not know if s/he is okay.
The time after the first 24 hours will be highly dependent on what the scans reveal, as well as the baby’s initial status at delivery. The doctors told us to realistically plan on giving ourselves a month of time after delivery for a NICU stay – this isn’t a guarantee, but they’re trying to help us set expectations of what is to come. Basically, if baby does have acute distress, the intervention will happen sooner (potentially on Day 1 or Day 2), which means a longer NICU stay but a smaller likelihood to come back for another major procedure. If the baby functions well at birth, it’s more likely we’d get home sooner but will return at some point (possibly 2 months) for the lung surgery to resection the lesion. We’re trying to stay optimistic that the surgeons consider the surgery to be relatively “routine” – so even though it sounds scary to us, it sounds less so to them. The appointment in and of itself probably was not really so bad, but based on the optimism/positive momentum from our previous meeting(s), we weren’t anticipating the return to reality. Looking back at my first email, it’s crazy to see how far we’ve come and we are so thankful for the care we’ve received – but it is also sad to know this challenging road is continuing (because we know parenthood will be hard enough!).
We were released from the meeting with the plan of seeing our surgeon next after the baby is born (with weekly scans until then that he’ll double check on his own time), which felt a little scary to leave without a plan for hand-holding up until the end. Knowing part of the reason we were released is because delivery will come sometime soon, we got our butts into gear with washing clothes and bedding, building the crib, and making progress on our “to do” and “to buy” list over the weekend. We even attended an infant care class at the hospital, and mom spent a lot (I mean A LOT) of time viewing the world from upside down (doing inversions) to encourage baby to flip. We’re also still dealing with the remnants of that DAMN COLD – and hoping none of you get it, because it is plain old awful! We’re trying to get in a better place mentally to prepare ourselves for the tough road ahead – there are of course some advantages to time in the NICU, but we’ve heard a lot about the emotional/psychological stress already.
35 weeks
This week, we just had a scan. It went well and baby passed the BPP quickly. Seeing baby practice breathing is always uplifting! The tumor looked slightly larger, but it was likely due to the angle for the scan – fluid looked about the same in baby’s chest, and was slightly decreased for me. We’re so lucky that the thoracentesis procedure had lasting effects for us – it’s definitely not the case for most people (they typically need the shunt or will do the drainage procedure weekly). The bonus news was that the baby flipped and is currently head down - my exercises paid off. We’re crossing our fingers that the situation stays this way as we get closer. All bets are off when it will happen (but the 17th keeps popping up in my mind for some reason!). We have an OB appt next week at 36 weeks where we expect to learn more. Our OB is pretty skeptical that we’ll make it really far with how large we are measuring (40+ weeks). I’m starting to get pretty uncomfortable with swelling and contractions (“practice waves” in Hypnobabies language), and Chris is definitely over my complaining but I personally think I deserve a trophy for essentially being the size of 37-39 weeks pregnant for almost two months now. We’re working like crazy on our to do lists and birth class materials so we can have the unmedicated delivery we’d like (we’ll see – definitely not putting pressure on myself after some of the traumas we’ve experienced so far).
Next steps:
Next imaging appt on Tuesday afternoon
OB appt on Wednesday morning
We want to thank everyone who keeps reaching out and making sure we’re doing okay. It means so much to us that with the holiday time and everyone’s busy schedules that they’re making staying in touch a priority. We’re trying to be more engaged when we can, but mobility is getting limited so we’re more homebound than we’d like. Just making a batch of cookies reminded me of how my body would feel after three 8-hour shifts working retail! Because Chris doesn’t get to see his family this holiday season, we’re trying to put more German touches into our life than usual – we made an advent wreath, enjoyed some homemade schnitzel and bratkartoffeln. But words really can’t express how grateful we are to all of you who stay in touch and check in on us.
Sending prayers that LO keeps baking and gets stronger . We are on day 23 of our NICU journey. It’s tough no doubt but I know my boys are safe and growing and most of the staff have been increadible!! Hopefully your LO is a rock star and gets out quick . They say white boys take the longest and girls are much stronger so that’s good for you just a note on breast feeding I have been pumping and have only had the boys to the breast a handful of times . Unfortunately from what I have read , the quickest way to get them home is letting them bottle feed only , because they can quantify how much the baby is getting . One time my babe A latched for 15 min. And they still have him a full feed through his feeding tube and then he puked of coarse , so for now I am just doing all bottles and I will put them to the breast when I get home
Thank you so much for the update!! Glad to hear you’re all hanging in there. How scary about the bloody show but glad you’re home now. Hope she’ll cook a little longer for you. And as hard as the realistic expectations are to hear and plan for, it’s better to have a case by case scenarios to prepare for in your mind. Still keeping you, Baby Girl, and hubby in my thoughts and prayers for the best possible outcome. Hugs and love!!
Re: Update - Possible TW
J18 December Siggy Challenge: Christmas Movies
DD1 EDD 9/29/2015, Born 9/24/2015
DS1 EDD 1/3/2018, Born 12/26/2017
BFP #3 3/21/2019, EDD 11/29/2019, MMC/D&C 5/7/2019
BFP #4 6/28/2019, EDD 3/12/2020
DS2: Jan. 2016
DS3: Dec. 2017
Baby #4 on the way!
Jan 18 December Siggy Challenge: Christmas Movies
Together Let Us Seek the Heights
Love your positive attitude about the accidental reveal, after all that work to stay team green
overnight for monitoring. Baby seems to be fine, but at 3pm today I️ was bleeding for about 30 minutes. Very scary at first until baby started moving on way to hospital. They ran a bunch of tests and couldn’t determine if my water broke or not (because blood interferes with the test), but one was positive for amniotic fluid so they’re keeping me overnight. Most of the staff think it’s my “bloody show” but no one is super confident. It’s been quite the day! Grateful LO is moving quite a bit given the ambiguity around the bleeding. I️ wasn’t dilated or effaced at all so I’m hoping we can give LO one more week to bake!
Growth US from yesterday indicated baby is still huge (measuring 8lbs 4 oz at 36 weeks) and tumor size is stable. Less fluid in baby’s chest but still lots of amniotic fluid so we’re anticipating swallowing problems at birth (requiring a long NICU stay).
Thank you for checking in! Will update crew once we know more.
good news - I️t IS possible to pack hospital bags in less than 10 minutes
Jan '18 December Siggy Challenge: Christmas Movies
Thanks for the love, ladies. Here's my last two weeks update for anyone who wants a way too long distraction (was tailored for our family and friends - I'm too lazy to edit!).
34 weeks
34 weeks brought us an emotionally difficult appointment, which is why you didn’t hear from us – we needed some time to accept what’s coming. Despite a “good” physical checkup (stable on all accounts except for growth and a little more amniotic fluid), we had a tough conversation with our care team when we discussed delivery options and postpartum life. On the US, the highlights were seeing the baby open its mouth and hearing how much it grew – already estimated at 6 lbs, 10 oz, which is one big baby! We’re still estimated at the 96th percentile and grateful our LO is a tank – what it adds in discomfort for mom, it also encourages us that baby will have some more strength upon delivery. Unfortunately, baby was breech, so cue the at home exercises. Although there is extra fluid for baby to move around easily so this isn’t set in stone to last, there are big advantages to a vaginal delivery especially when baby has lung issues, so we really want to encourage it to flip!
When meeting with our care team, our fetal surgeon started the conversation on a positive note: that we could have a “quiet” delivery with our normal OBGYN. Upon dissecting what that actually meant on the patient side, it sounds like there will be 5-8 attendees in the room for baby and 2-3 for me. The good news is that unless our normal OB feels it is necessary/situation changes, we won’t have to schedule an induction or C-section. Also positive is that we won’t have to consider an EXIT procedure (if you want to freak out or nerd out, look this stuff up online and basically almost any traumatic birth story you’ve heard will probably seem slightly less awful). Upon delivery, baby will be evaluated for immediate issues at the warmer inside the L&D room. If baby is breathing okay, we’ll get 5 min or so of skin-to-skin contact before Christian and the neonatologists take the baby to the NICU. In that case, Mom will unfortunately stay behind for recovery while the baby is evaluated for swallowing issues (and alternatively, if baby has respiratory distress, there will be immediate intervention, either a tube or even surgery). Swallowing issues could be severe (baby produces a ton of mucus and can’t process any of it) or relatively “minor” (baby struggles with feeding) – so, baby will receive nutrition through IV for the first few days as they learn more and do some scans. The reason they believe there will be an issue is that baby isn’t swallowing up all of that excess amniotic fluid, likely because the tumor is pressing on its esophagus – but ultimately we won’t know until baby breathes and swallows in the outside world. Unfortunately, this means that my experience BFing will begin with pumping, which is less than ideal. We’re trying to stay positive knowing that we’ll get lots of support from lactation consultants, and keep in perspective that ultimately, we’re likely to have a healthy baby at some point, and we just have a more stressful path for getting there. The first few hours after delivery will be really tough for me, being separated from Chris and our LO and not know if s/he is okay.
The time after the first 24 hours will be highly dependent on what the scans reveal, as well as the baby’s initial status at delivery. The doctors told us to realistically plan on giving ourselves a month of time after delivery for a NICU stay – this isn’t a guarantee, but they’re trying to help us set expectations of what is to come. Basically, if baby does have acute distress, the intervention will happen sooner (potentially on Day 1 or Day 2), which means a longer NICU stay but a smaller likelihood to come back for another major procedure. If the baby functions well at birth, it’s more likely we’d get home sooner but will return at some point (possibly 2 months) for the lung surgery to resection the lesion. We’re trying to stay optimistic that the surgeons consider the surgery to be relatively “routine” – so even though it sounds scary to us, it sounds less so to them. The appointment in and of itself probably was not really so bad, but based on the optimism/positive momentum from our previous meeting(s), we weren’t anticipating the return to reality. Looking back at my first email, it’s crazy to see how far we’ve come and we are so thankful for the care we’ve received – but it is also sad to know this challenging road is continuing (because we know parenthood will be hard enough!).
We were released from the meeting with the plan of seeing our surgeon next after the baby is born (with weekly scans until then that he’ll double check on his own time), which felt a little scary to leave without a plan for hand-holding up until the end. Knowing part of the reason we were released is because delivery will come sometime soon, we got our butts into gear with washing clothes and bedding, building the crib, and making progress on our “to do” and “to buy” list over the weekend. We even attended an infant care class at the hospital, and mom spent a lot (I mean A LOT) of time viewing the world from upside down (doing inversions) to encourage baby to flip. We’re also still dealing with the remnants of that DAMN COLD – and hoping none of you get it, because it is plain old awful! We’re trying to get in a better place mentally to prepare ourselves for the tough road ahead – there are of course some advantages to time in the NICU, but we’ve heard a lot about the emotional/psychological stress already.
35 weeks
This week, we just had a scan. It went well and baby passed the BPP quickly. Seeing baby practice breathing is always uplifting! The tumor looked slightly larger, but it was likely due to the angle for the scan – fluid looked about the same in baby’s chest, and was slightly decreased for me. We’re so lucky that the thoracentesis procedure had lasting effects for us – it’s definitely not the case for most people (they typically need the shunt or will do the drainage procedure weekly). The bonus news was that the baby flipped and is currently head down - my exercises paid off. We’re crossing our fingers that the situation stays this way as we get closer. All bets are off when it will happen (but the 17th keeps popping up in my mind for some reason!). We have an OB appt next week at 36 weeks where we expect to learn more. Our OB is pretty skeptical that we’ll make it really far with how large we are measuring (40+ weeks). I’m starting to get pretty uncomfortable with swelling and contractions (“practice waves” in Hypnobabies language), and Chris is definitely over my complaining
but I personally think I deserve a trophy for essentially being the size of 37-39 weeks pregnant for almost two months now. We’re working like crazy on our to do lists and birth class materials so we can have the unmedicated delivery we’d like (we’ll see – definitely not putting pressure on myself after some of the traumas we’ve experienced so far).
Next steps:
We want to thank everyone who keeps reaching out and making sure we’re doing okay. It means so much to us that with the holiday time and everyone’s busy schedules that they’re making staying in touch a priority. We’re trying to be more engaged when we can, but mobility is getting limited so we’re more homebound than we’d like. Just making a batch of cookies reminded me of how my body would feel after three 8-hour shifts working retail! Because Chris doesn’t get to see his family this holiday season, we’re trying to put more German touches into our life than usual – we made an advent wreath, enjoyed some homemade schnitzel and bratkartoffeln. But words really can’t express how grateful we are to all of you who stay in touch and check in on us.