I Guess I Could Post a Picture of My Cervix

I went in yesterday for a checkup and a follow-up sonogram. While I have sonograms every two weeks (primarily to check cervical length), taking a peek at the baby and seeing how she's grown is always very exciting. It's amazing the difference in a gestating infant from one appointment to the next. At yesterday's appointment, though, the doctor checked my cervix -- and nothing else.

It was so frustrating to be so close and not to at least take a peek at our growing daughter. When he was examining my cervix and cerclage, I saw a little foot flash by on the screen, so I know it would have taken little more than a flick of the wrist to show us the whole baby inside. But, no -- a quick cervical check was all he was up for. Then, to make matters worse, at the end of the appointment, he handed me a picture of my cervix. Seriously? Am I supposed to add it to the scrapbook?

Anyway, moving on...

My cervix looked great on the scan and so far the transabdominal cerclage seems to be doing its job. That was especially good news since we're leaving in the morning for a long kidless weekend away. I think we were both worried that I'd be put on restriction and we'd have to cancel our trip, but not only do we not have to cancel, the trip is now physician-approved. Yay!

I think the next two or three appointments will be the most telling for me, though. My next sonogram will be at 22 weeks -- the gestational age my cervix failed during my pregnancy with Zachary, and a week later than it failed with Gracie. I'll see my perinatologist for that appointment, and fortunately, he always spends extra time answering my questions and calming my fears. The appointment after that (at 24 weeks), I'll be at technical viability, and the appointment following that (at 26 weeks), I'll be at the gestational age where we would choose life-saving measures over respite care, were I to deliver prematurely. I think after all of those visits, I may allow myself to let this pregnancy settle in. I may begin to prepare.

Speaking of preparation, I bought a crib yesterday. I'm not really ready to begin buying things for this baby -- particularly not the big-ticket items -- but we stopped by a local thrift store on the way home from a baby clothes swap with a friend, and there it was. It's a beautiful white convertible crib that I took home for $27 plus tax.

Originally, the crib was marked $44.95 (still a very good deal), but the colored sticker indicating a potential sale price was nowhere to be found. I asked an employee in the furniture department if he knew its sale status. He said it had just been put out, so it wouldn't be on sale yet, but he could let me take it home for $30. Of course I agreed, and he handed me the sales ticket marked "Crib: $29.99." At the register, they were having some random sale where mothers took an additional 10% off their total purchase, so after all the discounts, I spent $27 plus tax for the baby's new bed. I'll scrub it down when we get home from our trip, and we'll assemble it later after we find bedding and decide on room decor for the two girls.




Cross Posted on About the Baby

Schoolhouse Rock Live!

For our homeschool field trip this month, we planned an outing to see Schoolhouse Rock Live! The event was coordinated by Theatre Arlington, but we attended during field trip days at Texas Hall on the UT Arlington campus. We partnered with another homeschool group to secure a better deal, and with a combined group of about 40 people, tickets were $4 each.

I was excited to see Schoolhouse Rock again. I loved the show on Saturday mornings and recently borrowed a CD of grammar songs from the library. The kids were excited to go to a concert -- any concert -- but were really engaged when they heard songs they knew, like "Conjuction Junction" and "Interjections" (only now the tunes are stuck in my head).

The Stage


Hanging with the Boys


Dancing with the Girls

Homeschool Tumbling

We have great group of homeschooling friends who keep us abreast of all the local homeschooling deals. Gracie just started a tumbling class for homeschoolers and she loves it! The class is small in both size and price -- $20 a month for a once-a-week class with only six or seven other students. She enjoyed all the gym activities, but really hopes to learn how to do a cartwheel. She's well on her way...

Wherein the Dog Caused Me to Contract

I'm twenty weeks pregnant now. Here's another glorious image of my increasing roundness -- such torture to post! There's something magical about moving out of the teens and into the twenties, gestationally speaking. I feel like my pregnancy is more valid here in the twenties. Still, if I had my way, I'd fast forward through the next ten or twelve weeks.

On Friday, I had a bit of a scare and considered going to Labor and Delivery. Our dog escaped out the front door and I ran out after her. I chased her down the sidewalk, and as she stopped to smell a mailbox, I reached out to grab her. As my hand touched her back, she took off and pulled me down to the ground. It all happened so fast, but not fast enough that I couldn't turn mid-air to land on my side instead of hitting the sidewalk face first.

I took the impact on my hand, elbow and hip, and scraped up the side of my leg. Bub, who was chasing the dog after me, was worried, asking again and again if I was okay. The dog even knew she'd messed up and stopped running to cower. I drug her home to her crate and closed myself in my room to cry for a while. James called to tell me he was coming home early about the time I shut my bedroom door. When I answered the phone still sobbing, he made it all the way home faster than ever.

I soaked in a warm bath to clean up and calm down, but I began contracting not long after my fall. I had five or six contractions an hour for the first couple of hours. They were obvious enough and uncomfortable enough that I considered going to L&D. However, after lots of water and plenty of rest, they went away. I had no other threatening symptoms and the baby sounded fine on the doppler, so I stayed home instead of spending the evening at the hospital. If the dog escapes again, I'm not chasing her -- she can just run until she finds herself a new home.

As for the present, I'm still taking injections to prevent preterm labor, and despite the discomfort of the shots, I'm glad they've been ordered. The nurse comes every seven days, but by day six each week, I'm having some definite uterine irritability with a contraction or two here and there. I've mentioned them to the nurse and they're very common among her other PTL patients right before injection day. I've mentioned them to my doctor and he's unconcerned, provided I'm not having five or more and hour. I'm not having even two an hour -- in fact, it's rare that I have more than three in an entire day -- and they're always resolved with water and rest. The post-fall contractions I had on Friday were two days after my injection. I can only imagine how bad they would have gotten had my uterus not been medically forced to relax.

Other than that, I have a checkup and repeat sonogram in the morning. Even though I'm scanned every two weeks, I'm still excited to have an ultrasound. Time between appointments passes so slowly. I really don't know how people have only one or two sonograms over the course of an entire pregnancy when one or two a month is still not enough! James and I are both very curious about cervical measurement since my cervix changed dramatically in both of my previous pregnancies by 21-22 weeks. I'm anxious to see this transabdominal cerclage doing its job. Updates to come...




cross posted at About the Baby

This is Why the Dog Needs a New Home

I love my planner. At the end of each year, purchasing a new planner is one of my happiest moments (and that's sad -- I know). I carry a Palm so I don't really need a paper planner, but there's something so satisfying about using my Papermate Sharpwriter #2 pencil to jot down each and every obligation. I like to preview my life with the turn of a page instead of with the click of a stylus. I'm old school like that.

As I spent my Sunday afternoon upstairs painting, Sadie spent her afternoon eating my existence. I came downstairs to find this heartbreaking sight:




I called James who was working in Omaha to tell him the dog had finally done it and she needed to find a new home. He thought I was being rash and a bit silly, but I suggested he think for one minute how he would feel if his Blackberry were passing through her lower intestine at that moment.

He understood my point.

Instead of giving her away, though, I took some time to calm down. She knew she was in trouble and had no whining complaints about spending the evening in her crate. I was able to piece the planner back together enough to get myself through the next week or two. Now, I have to set aside a day to transfer my future into something new.

As for the dog's future, she's not going anywhere right now. She's really a good dog -- I think she just made a really terrible decision during a normal puppy stage. At least, that's what I hope. She won't survive another planner being destroyed, that's for sure.