It's a Girl (pretty sure everyone already knows this, though.....)!!!

Last week was a busy one, so we didn't have a chance to update the blog after informing my family that little Baby G is a girl.  If you haven't heard the news by now, you need to get on Facebook.  ;)  We had a wonderful, event-free 20 week ultrasound which we are SO (so, so, so) thankful for.  I badgered the ultrasound tech with questions while she showed us different organs and body parts (she was new to us, and didn't know our history), but she was very patient with me (maybe thought I was crazy, but patient).  James kept grinning at me because he thought the umbilical cord was something else, and thought he had the sex figured out before the tech told us, but it was in fact just the umbilical cord.  I think the tech was surprised that we took the whole "it's a girl" news without a ton of emotion, but I was so relieved at everything looking good that it did not matter to me in the slightest if she said boy or girl.  Of course, we're so excited to have another little girl, and can't wait to meet her and see her little personality start to show.  I haven't been allowing myself to go crazy buying new clothes, because we have so many outfits from my nieces and Bailey, but it's been fun to get a couple cute things here and there.  Now we have the huge task of picking a name....I'm not sure five months is enough time.  It's a slow process for us. 

The reason last week was so busy is because my entire family was in town visiting (see below).  It was fun to host Jack, Megan, Ella, and Hallie at our house and take them around The Woodlands to play, shop, and eat at all the great places we have so close to home!  I had to slightly modify my cake plan because I didn't have time to frost said cake prior to everyone getting to my house (procrastinator).  So, instead, I took Ella back into our room and gave her a little sign that said "It's a GIRL!" sent her out into the living room to share.  Then, we had pink frosted cake later that didn't have to be kept a surprise.

It's been a great couple weeks, and I'm still feeling good (although slightly dreading the return to school and thus standing on my feet all day), with the exception of just starting to feel heavy.  Ah well, it was going to happen at some point.

I'll add some pics from the week as soon as I have a chance to get them uploaded!!  Thanks for all the prayers! 

Back to the Blog

And we're back!  A lot of people have been asking me when we're going to start the blog back up, and I guess it's about time.  I'm nineteen weeks pregnant (yahoo!) and so far I have had a relatively easy time of things.  I did have a lot of morning sickness during the first trimester (and by morning sickness I mean all-day sickness), but that subsided earlier than it did with Bailey, which I was super pumped about.  Now I'm off work for the summer (favorite time of the year, other than when I'm off work for Christmas), and that's coincided nicely with the second trimester energy boost.  I spend my day laying out by the pool, reading (not always for fun....I'm in my 2nd year of grad school), and going to the gym for a "workout".  Awesome.

We have our big mid-point ultrasound on Wednesday of this coming week, so hopefully we'll get to find out if we're having a boy or a girl, but more than that, we'll get to find out if the baby is looking healthy.  I definitely went into this ultrasound with Bailey with a very breezy, yahoo for getting to see the baby again sort of attitude, only to have everything turned upside down (to put in mildly).  So, needless to say, I do NOT have a breezy attitude about this ultrasound.  I'm a little bit nervous (again, to put it mildly), but, lucky for me, James is pretty calm, which helps me stay calm (ish).  Everything so far has looked good, and we are hoping for some great results on Wednesday.  As always, prayers are appreciated!  :)

In the meantime, my mom has been suggesting baby names that are fit for a character on Days of Our Lives (sorry, Mom, it's true), and there is some slight disagreement going on with me forcing my family to wait five extra days to know if the baby is a boy or a girl.  I'm actually going to get to tell my parents, my aunt, my brother, my sister-in-law, and my nieces TOGETHER, IN PERSON what we're having.  This is usually done over the phone, so it's kind of a big deal to have everyone in Houston at the same time.  The disagreement comes from the fact that everyone else just wants to know and they're not too concerned with my big plans for the cake with the pink or blue icing.  Well, too bad.  I'm making a cake.  (And, Becks, it's going to be Funfetti!).

Bailey's Birthday - 9.29.10

We know a lot of people wanted to know how Bailey's birthday went, so I figured the best place to post it would be on our blog.  

On Tuesday, September 28th (after making several jokes this week about my students raising my blood pressure....) I went in for my routine check-up with Dr. Ivey.  I always have to rush a little bit to get all the way downtown from school, but thanks to one my team teachers covering the last ten minutes of class, I didn't really have to rush on Tuesday.  They called me back into the exam room and checked Bailey's HR (153) my HR, and then came the blood pressure.  It was 170/100.  Knowing 120/80 is normal, I was surprised it was that high but didn't really think it was anything too bad (maybe they mention the cut point in some childbirth class I never took.....).  My feet weren't even too puffy that day.  The nurse said she wanted me to go give my urine sample and then they'd take it again, not to worry.  However, as I followed her out of the room and saw her pointing at the blood pressure cuff with a distressed look on her face I thought something might just be amiss.  I came back to the room and they took it again; it was 168/98.  I was glad it had dropped, but apparently that wasn't enough.  Dr. Ivey came in and said he saw how high it was, and that if it didn't come down, they were going to send me over to Labor and Delivery.  This possibility had not even occured to me and I think my articulate response was "Really?"  Like he'd be joking about that.  He explained that this could be a sign of preeclampsia and we had to check it out.  There wasn't any danger to Bailey, but it was dangerous for me.  After going through this I was told to sit and relax (yeah right!) for a few minutes and they'd check again to see if it came down.  I sent James a text message to let him know that heading to the hospital was a possibility and he said "Seriously?"  Like I'd be joking about that.    The nurse came back in and retook my BP and it was 165/95.  I think I looked hopeful at this point that I'd get to go home since it was dropping and Susan just shook her head at me and said I should call James to come down.  Dr. Ivey came back in to see if I had any questions and I said no.  He paused and looked at me and said "You look like you're hanging on by a thread.  Are you ok?"  I could already tell early in the day that it was kind of a hormonal day, so my emotions weren't really allowing me to accept this news with any sort of ease.  I said I was fine and Susan went to go get me a wheelchair.  Being as how I had just walked about a mile from the parking deck to get to the office, I thought it was funny they were going to wheel me over to L&D.  I asked if I could walk out and let my parents know what was going on pre-wheelchair (they had been wandering lost in the huge expanse of hospitals until this point...they'd come down to do a "dry run" to see where to go when I delivered.  haha) so they wouldn't be too concerned. 

Susan wheeled me over to L&D and wished me luck, hoping my BP would come down and I'd get to go home.  I got checked in to my room with the window (birth plan, see below entry) and they asked me to change into the yucky blue hospital gown.  This would have been the point where I would have taken out my soft, cute, pink nightgown specifically purchased for this occasion, but I was planning on doing that this weekend.  So oh well.  I stuck on the yucky blue gown and kicked my feet up to "relax" before they took my blood pressure again.  Luckily James arrived then, which automatically made me feel better.  A little bit later the nurse came in and took my blood pressure again and it went to 165/82.  I said something to the effect of "Well, that's better!" and the nurse kind of laughed and told me "I'm not impressed."  They took some labs and found some other signs of preeclampsia so about an hour later the attending doctor came in and let me know that it was time to induce.  After a brief freak out on my part (I had all these things that I was planning on bringing for Bailey to the hospital which were NOT with me), James calmed me down (he was awesome the entire time) and we said we were ready to go.

James and my dad went to go get Subway for me, so I could have my last meal before being cut off taste good instead of be hospital food.  Then my parents left to go to our house to go on a scavenger hunt for all the things that I would have had packed (again, it was on my to do list for this weekend) for my hospital stay.  Around 9pm I got my first round of meds to induce.  I was actually already 1 cm dilated and 30% effaced (had no idea) so they thought the medicine should work fairly quickly.  They told me to try and get some sleep and they'd come back to check on us at 1am.  I think I got a 30 minute nap around 11, but other than that I was wide awake.  At 1 am, they checked me again and I was 1-2 cm....not a lot of progress.  So they gave me another dose and said they'd check again at 5am.  We were watching the contractions start on the monitor, but I couldn't really feel them yet (I think at one point I though, well this is easy. Ha).  I wouldn't have known they were even occurring except for the monitor saying that they were.  About an hour later I could feel them a little bit, and then around 3am I was starting to get mildly uncomfortable, but they were getting more uncomfortable very quickly.  The doctors had said whenever I wanted my epidural was fine, so I decided to go ahead and get it so I wouldn't really feel any serious pain.  The doctor who gave me the epidural was awesome; except for the local anesthetic I didn't even feel a thing. 

I was all numbed up and on ice chips only (grrr...) so I was able to get a little bit of rest after the epidural.  They checked me at 5am and I was 3cm and 50% effaced, so they started me on pitocin and left me to sleep.  I dosed off and on until 7am (still had a cuff getting my BP every 30 min or so which makes rest tough) where we met our new (and completely amazing and compassionate) nurse Hope, who was going to be our nurse for the rest of the day.  Hope turned down my pitocin because my contractions were too close together (I didn't really care, b/c I couldn't feel anything.....) and she was worried my uterus would get too tired if it was going to be a long time.  I dosed off again for awhile until I woke up and could feel a little bit of the contractions again.  I hit my handy pump for a double dose...and nothing happened.  I could still feel them.  So 15 minutes later (the handy pump has a time limit on each dose) I hit it again and nothing happened.  The anesthesiologist came back in and told me I was tall (duh) and that I just needed a little more juice.  So he pumped it up, lowered my personal dose waiting period to 10 minutes, and went on his way.  This worked well until about 11:30.  At 11:30, for whatever reason, it seemed like EVERYTHING wore off.  The pain started getting bad, I started throwing up (dumb ice chips), and I called for Hope.  I'm sure I wasn't even feeling the full brunt of the contractions because my legs were still slightly numb, but they were horrible.  Hope had me lay back and breathe through them, but that only does so much.  The anesthesiologist (my 3rd, we'd been there for awhile) was in a c-section so I had to wait for him to come in.  The gave me a big ol' dose straight into my mainline instead of through the pump and after 15 more minutes or so I was a happy camper again. 

At around 12:30, Bailey started to bunch up around my ribcage.  Her little booty was sticking straight out of my stomach and she was as high up as she could go (she was actually making it tough to breathe, but I didn't mind).  I kept rubbing her to see if she would relax, since usually that works, but she was determined to stay where she was, booty up and all.  The attending doctor came in to check me a little after 1pm and said that I had shot up to 10cm and Bailey was going to be coming very shortly.  They started bringing in all their gowns and prep equipment and getting ready, and while I was sitting there I saw Bailey's little booty move down towards my belly button (it was still making a mound though).  They told me they'd get me in stirrups in a few minutes and I'd start to push.  I started to feel some pressure and to myself (since I was sure I didn't really know what I was feeling or talking about) I thought "hmm...it feels like her head is already coming out."  Turns out, I did know what I was talking about.  I called Hope over and told her I felt a lot of pressure from Bailey and she checked me and said "Oh gosh, Doctor?" (she could see her head). The stirrup idea was abandoned and they gathered around me and Bailey came right out!  I didn't even have to push once; she was ready.  Bailey Grace Galloway came into the world at 1:23pm.

They put her in a blanket and immediately handed her to me and James was right there at my shoulder so he could see her too.  We got to kiss her and hug her and tell her we loved her and see her sweet little face.  She didn't cry, and her breaths sounded like little hiccups.  She was able to make a few little movements and I put my finger in hers so she could hold it.  We got to feel her heart beat inside her little chest and had about 15 minutes with just the three of us.  After that we brought my parents in, James' mom, and David, and they got to say hi and meet her.  Hope set us up to give her a bath and James and I got to bathe her and start to clean her off.  James washed her hair with baby shampoo while I cleaned off her arms, chest, and face.  James held her for a few minutes after this while Hope set up to take a few stats on her and finish the bath for us (we were taking awhile) and she passed away in his arms.  He gave her to Hope to finish cleaning her up and then we dressed her in a little handmade pink dress the volunteers at the hospital had given us.  Even though we knew she was gone at this point, we had time to cuddle with her everyone could had the chance to hold her.  We took handprints and footprints and made a little mold of one of her feet.  She had lots of hair like James did when he was born, but it was surprisingly sandy blond (I thought she would have dark hair like James) and she got all of my curls.  I think they would have turned in to blond ringlets there was so much curl.  She had James' chin and the exact same shape of his big toe and my chubby cheeks and long legs.  She also had broad shoulders which we figured came from both of us.  She had the double cleft of course on her upper lip but her bottom lip was just perfect. She wasn't able to open her eyes, so we didn't get to see their pretty color.  It was so cute to feel her feet after she was born because they felt exactly the same as the impression she's been making on my stomach the last few weeks as she's been stretching out.  We weighed her and she was 4 lbs, 2.3 oz (bigger than they thought she was going to be, especially for five weeks early!) and was 17 inches long.  The hospital chaplain came in after we'd finished dressing her and wrapping her in her blanket and we had a naming ceremony and blessing for her. 

We are so thankful that Bailey went peacefully and knew without a shadow of a doubt that our decisions we made in her care and carrying her until she was born have been the right ones.  We waited until James' dad and Christine were able to come and then we took some time to say good-bye to her sweet little face and let the hospital staff take her.  We feel so privileged that my heart was able to help her stay strong for so long that we got to feel her "ninja" kicks all throughout my pregnancy and that she was such a fighter to be able to be with us for a short while.  We are blessed to be her parents.  

Thank you all for all the love that was expressed to us while we were in the hospital and even in the short time since we've come home.  We know that Bailey was able to know our love while she was here with us and now she'll only know perfect love as she's in heaven. 

Our church does a baby dedication ceremony where a life verse is chosen by the parents as the baby is presented to the church.  Early in my pregnancy, before we knew about Bailey's trisomy 13, this verse had especially struck me as I was reading one night and I thought it would be a good life verse for her.  It ended up being perfect:

Psalm 73:26

My flesh and my heart my fail, 

but God is the strength of my heart

and my portion forever. 

Week 34/33/32...I'm behind.....

So, school started and I haven't updated anything in quite awhile.  Except lesson plans.  And grades.  Brief synopsis of the last month:  I am tired and puffy. :)  Luckily, in week 32 some of our friends got us a maternity photo shoot, which was amazing and SO much fun, and that was immediately pre-puff.  It was actually the last day I got to wear my weddings rings; the following day my feet and hands started to look like someone had taken a bicycle pump to them.  I was a little concerned, given that puff can be associated with increased blood pressure, but when I went to the doctor this past Tuesday it wasn't too bad.  It has increased, but it's not up to any kind of unhealthy level.  I also got to hear Bailey's heartbeat again (I know this is a normal part of appointments, but I love it) and she's clocking in at a solid 150 bpm.  We also set our induction date, which will be October 26th.  It's crazy to have a date scheduled.  This weekend I washed her sheets and some clothes that we're going to take to the hospital to have her pictures taken in.  I'm trying to be prepared in case she comes early, but I'm also hoping she won't come early at the same time (and I know all the people who are flying in to see her join me in that sentiment).  During my appointment I also got the nurse to confirm that she's no longer breech, she's head down.  She still has time to flip around again if she wants, but hopefully she'll stay in this position.

Last weekend some of our friends from church threw us a blessing shower, which was such a great time to hang out and celebrate Bailey.  Somehow I think Bailey knew the party was about her because she kicked and squirmed her way through it, especially after I'd had some cake (ok, a huge piece of cake, which was delicious...).  And she actually let a few people feel her kick!  Usually the minute someone new puts his/her hand on my stomach she immediately stops moving.  But, a few others actually got to feel her.  I guess she was in a generous mood. :)  She's given me some of her strongest kicks yet in the past few days and is still squirming around and stretching like she's trying to make a point that she would like more room.

I'll post a picture or two sometime in the next couple days, b/c it's getting late and I need to get in bed so that I'm not already starting the week exhausted (which honestly doesn't matter; I'll be toast by Tuesday anyway).  As always, James and I thank you for your continued prayers!!! 

Week 29/30

Since we've seen what seems like every specialist in Houston (ok, not really), we combined the last two weeks into one entry.  As of this past Saturday I'm 30 weeks along and will just see my OB every two weeks from here on out.  He'll check all the typical stuff for me and we'll listen to Bailey's heartbeat on the doppler and that will be our routine until I'm induced.  We had our final ultrasound at our appointment last week, and Bailey was, as usual, being difficult for the technician.  She continues to face away when they're trying to get her picture and was laying sort of transverse across my stomach instead of true breech (I'm making these terms up a little bit; I don't know if there's a "true breech"), which apparently makes it even MORE difficult to get measurements on her size.  She's still growing, but is still behind.  She's an itty bitty little peanut, only in the 5th percentile of growth.  On another note, my ankle bones are slowly but surely disappearing into an ongoing swollen state.  It's a little funny looking since my feet typically are kind of skinny, but now halfway up they start puffing way out.  James wanted to know when they would be classified as cankles.  We'll see just how puffy they get this week when I start back to teaching and am on my feet most of the day.

 

We need to again thank all the people that are continuing to send prayers our way, for us and for Bailey.  Literally everyday we hear of people who have told friends who have told friends who have told friends about what's going on and are praying for us.  It's amazing and we continue to feel so blessed and loved.  My entire faculty at school prayed over me and Bailey at the beginning of last week, which reminded me how lucky I am to work in such a great place with such fabulous, caring people. 

Week 28

Week 28 was not a fun week overall.  Wednesday we went down to Texas Children's to meet with a pediatric cardiologist, a neonatologist, and our whole team of nurses that will be helping us when Bailey is born.  Everyone we're working with there is nice and compassionate, which is wonderful, but that only makes things a little bit easier. 

When we met with the cardiologist, she did a long echo of Bailey's heart, looking at images and also listening to how it sounds.  Bailey seems to like to make things as difficult as possible for every doctor that is trying to get pictures of her.  Not only is she in breech position with her back facing up (apparently making it more difficult to see her heart because of her spine and ribs), she got the hiccups for about 15 minutes of our 40 minute echo. :)  My stomach bulges out pretty regularly on one side, and, up until now, I always assumed that was her little booty.  It's actually her head leaning back as she stretches out which makes me even more nervous about accidentally bumping my stomach on things (which tends to happen often as I forget about my new proportions).  After the echo, the cardiologist sat down with us and went through a healthy fetal heart and Bailey's heart.  She has very distinct arteries and veins, so the last doctor was wrong, but her valves and general structure are off.  The valves can almost be compared to an arthritic joint; they're very ragged and allow too much backflow to the previous chamber.  She also has a missing chunk of her septum (the muscular wall that separates the two ventricles), which was previously just thought to be a little hole.  All in all, her heart is not in very good shape.  The cardiologist said she didn't think Bailey's heart could sustain her for very long after she's off of my circulation.  She went through a surgery that she could do, but the surgery wouldn't be able to fix all of the problems in the heart, would be 6-8 hours, and Bailey would have to be put on a ventilator during and afterwards, which she then would probably not be able to come off.  We don't want to put her little body through all that (that surgery only addresses the heart and there are so many other things going on as well), so we've opted to make her as comfortable as possible after she's born and keep her with us.  If she makes it to 48 hours, they'll let us take her home with her medicines/feeding tube and we'll have a nurse that will swing by and check on us periodically. 

The neonatologist basically echoed what the cardiologist said when we had our team meeting.  The team meeting was a little uncomfortable (ok, really uncomfortable) because it's us with a team of seven professionals (nurses, doctors, etc) sitting around a table.  We were trying not to lose it, but yet felt like we needed to offer some profound, intelligent sounding insight after they gave us a piece of information.  I mostly opted for giving some sort of grunt or mmmmhmmm to show that I was still conscious.

We did the hospital tour as well after the team meeting.  The NICU is very impressive (and we met a NICU doctor who was the closest person I've ever met to being a walking sunshine, just amazing), and there are so many different levels of things they can do for babies.  We found out we get to have a few perks since we have to have such a detailed birth plan (this really doesn't matter at all, but when someone's been offering us a positive, we're latching on to it...).  There are only two delivery rooms with windows and we can actually put in our birth plan that we would like to have one of those rooms with a window.  And they'll have that all set for me since I'll have an induction date (still undecided).  Also, most people assume that when you go in to give birth you have to put on the ugly hospital gown when they tell you to.  You DON'T.  You can bring your own comfy nightgown from home so that you feel a lot cuter in pictures.  There aren't any stipulations on this (I mean, obviously don't bring PJs with pants), so I'm going to pick out something cute, pink, and soft to wear.  Now if I can see if I can put in my birth plan to have the sunshine-y NICU doctor with us, that would be great. :)

So, that was our week this week....I also went back to work and it's fun to be back with everyone from work again.  Bailey is still SO active, which is distracting in faculty meetings. :)  Please keep praying for her health!

Week 26/27

The picture is from week 26, but we're really updating for week 27 too.  We went and met our new OB today, Dr. Ivey.  He's really nice and gave us a lot of time and answered a lot of questions in greater detail from things we've seen on the ultrasound.  In addition to the two arteries being combined in the heart, there's a small hole in the septum of her heart, between her ventricles.  Like with the arteries, it's hard to say how Bailey's heart will react with this once she's outside of me.  He also said that even though it looks like there are calcium deposits in her kidneys, they look like they are producing urine, which is a good thing.  We also got to hear her heartbeat again (it sounds good to me, but like I know what I'm talking about....), and I did my glucose test.  The actual liquid I had to drink wasn't that bad, kind of like orange soda, but after sitting there for an hour waiting to get my blood drawn, my blood sugar crashed on the way to lunch and I felt HORRIBLE.  We got lunch pretty quickly and thankfully I felt so much better after that.  Bailey didn't seem to mind the test because she's been giving me some of her strongest kicks ever since I got home.

Dr. Ivey also went through the multitude of things we have to think about as we make our birth plan.  He didn't want us to make any decisions today, because we're still going to be getting a lot of new information in the next couple weeks, but wanted us aware of everything.  One of the major decisions that we have to make is doing a c-section, induced regular birth, or naturally going into labor with a regular birth.  There are pros and cons to each situation that we need to weigh, but we're leaning towards induced regular birth.  That way we have a schedule, we know which doctors will be at the hospital, and hopefully my water won't break in the middle of a classroom of 8th graders (that's not really a factor, but seriously, that would be interesting....).  Another set of decisions has to do with interventions we would want to have for Bailey based on what we know and will continue to find out as things move along.  We're not sure at all what we're going to do with that yet, but we do know we want her to be completely comfortable.  

We have an fetal echo coming up next week with the top pediatric cardiologist at Texas Children's to get a better idea of what's going on with her heart, and to see if it's a "hypoplastic" heart (basically means the side that sends out oxygenated blood to the body hasn't developed properly).  The week after that we have a follow up with Dr. Ivey and we'll have another ultrasound.  It's been such a blessing to be a part of TX Children's Fetal Center because our nurse coordinator has been getting us appointments with some of the top doctor's in Houston, which means they're also some of the top in the country. 

Thank you for your continued prayers and support!!