Friday, July 30, 2010

Baby K Update...22 week midwife appointment!

We went to the midwife yesterday and found out a couple of interesting things....I first want to mention that I LOVE our midwife. I love going to appointments. There is no waiting in a doctors office talking to a nasty receptionist. The house that they work out of is in Sherwood Park (about 45 minutes away). They have a beautiful..and I mean beautiful house on a family farm. It is covered in trees and the windows blow in the freshest air you can imagine. We get there and hang out in the front room...sitting on the floor...while the boys play with toys and crawl all over us and Heidi (our midwife). She just eats them up! 

We talk about things we need to talk about including any concerns we have. She takes my blood pressure and we listen to the baby. The appointments are always super relaxed and it feels like we are hanging out with an old friend instead of the women who is going to be delivering our baby. I LOVE IT! 

We found out a couple of things this time. We got back the "official" results from our ultrasound. Everything looks perfect! Baby K is growing at a steady rate and there are no concerns at all. We did find out that my placenta is anterior. This means that it is hanging out at the front of my stomach instead of towards my back. This does not affect anything at all except the fact that I won't feel the baby kick in the middle of my stomach that much. It is also hard for them to get a heart rate. We listened to the babies heartbeat through the umbilical cord for a few seconds. It is more of a "wosh wosh wosh" sound then an actual heart beat. They couldn't get Baby K to co-operate long enough to get the actual heart beat. No biggie though! 

Heidi also got the report from Dr. Romanovski ( the OB who took care of me and delivered the boys via c-section).  This may get a bit graphic. When you have a c-section, they have to stitch up your uterus (inside you), then your actual stomach (the stitches you can see). So there are 2 rows of stitches. Some doctors "double stitch" your uterus...meaning they do a line of stitches first, then they go back and do another line. This is all inside where you can't see. There would still be a line of stitches on your stomach that you can see. Our doctor only did 1 line of stitches inside and 1 outside. It is the doctors preference as to which one they do.

So...because there is only 1 row of stitches inside, it makes the incision more likely to rupture going through labour. What this means is that I will have constant monitoring during active labour. If the baby goes into distress, that means my uterus has ruptured and we will have to do an emergency c-section. The good news is that I can still move around and hang out in the water while being monitored! I am so happy about this. We can still have our water birth as well! If they have to do an emergency c-section, I will be knocked out and I will miss the birth. It is a risk we are willing to take. Dallas will be with the baby and bond with him/her until I am able to. 

We are going to stay positive (like we have been) and hope everything turns out ok and we don't have to have the c-section. But if we do, we have a plan. If I do rupture, it just means more stitches for me with no long term side effects. 

I think that is about it for now!




 

Monday, July 19, 2010

Baby K Update...20 week ultrasound!

We are half way there! Time is just flying by at warp speed! We went for our 20 week ultrasound to check on Baby K. I decided a week beforehand that I NEEDED to find out the sex of the baby. Dallas and I talked about it and we both agreed that it would be a nice change for me to be able to properly "nest" with this baby. We also flipped a coin (our "go to" for decision making) to see if we should find out or not. The coin said we shouldn't find out. I didn't care! I wanted to know!

Well...Baby K had other ideas! The whole time he/she had her (we will call her a "her" because we want a girl) legs crossed! I tried to change positions, and I tried poking my belly. Nothing worked! In fact, it made her cross her legs even more! We are taking that as a sign that she is being a  shy girl who doesn't want to show her girl parts to the wold!

They also told us that it looks like the placenta is not close to my cervix! This means we can go ahead with our VBAC water birth! We are both so happy about this. This news definitely trumps not finding out the gender of Baby K! I am so excited to have this baby and experience what it all feels like!














Sunday, July 4, 2010

We have a walker!

No official unassisted first steps but I am still so excited! Dallas has been working with the boys on their walking. They are using their cars to help them. Today I got to sleep in and Dallas took the boys out front. I woke up to seeing my little Kennedy walking down the sidewalk! Here are some pics and a little video!
































Saturday, July 3, 2010

Epic Fail ~ Taking the boys to the park for the first time!

It has been 12 months and we figured it was time to take the boys to the park for the first time. I thought they would LOVE the swings! Boy was I wrong! We got to the park and put both babies in the baby swing. They fit in perfectly! I was so excited to see the smiles on their faces. I was facing Dylan and Dallas was facing Kennedy. I grabbed the swing..pulled it back and let go! Dylan started laughing right away! He was having the time of his life! Then Dallas told me to stop it...quickly! Kennedy was shaking like a leaf! Poor baby! I guess I swung them way too high! So we took Kennedy out and Dallas calmed him down while I pushed Dylan. Kennedy was so freaked out. Next we tried Dallas swinging with Kennedy. That didn't work. He was still upset. Then we tried to put Kennedy on the grass to play...that didn't work either. He HATES the grass! So we brought them over to the see-saw. He was kinda ok with that but he was still pretty miserable. So we decided to pack it up...after letting Dylan have some fun on the swings of course. On the way back to the car, Dylan had the biggest freak out ever! Apparently he didn't want to leave the park! What little monkeys!!

Here are some pics from our biggest fail yet!