26 Week Update

I am 26 weeks along and we are cruising through! The last four weeks haven’t been as eventful which is really nice. It is fun to be in the second trimester were all we are doing is watching him grow. And man is he growing! I am quite a bit bigger than I was when I last took a picture. I am wearing it well though. My back is surprisingly not as sore as you would think, and I am still moving around just fine.

I have hired a midwife. She only does home births, but she takes patients for what they call “concurrent care” if you are looking for that kind of monitoring even if you are delivering in a hospital. Basically, she will not deliver the baby, nor be at the hospital. I will simply see her for prenatal visits (and likely some postnatal visits as well) as I move through the rest of this time. I wanted to hire a midwife because of how I went into labor with Noah. I think about half the people in my life know that when I had Noah, my water broke, but I didn’t have any contractions or any signs of going into active labor. In the medicated child birth world, you go straight to the hospital where they give you lots of pitocin, the labor inducing drug to get things going. In the natural childbirth world, they call this PROM, or Premature Rupture of Membranes. It is normal and healthy, and you wait it out until your body and your baby decide to get things going on their own. This takes about 72 hours. It took me just under that time frame. I know that this concept scares the bejesus out of most, but for me I have no regrets. I got two and half more days with Noah than I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. We were both fine. I find it comforting in hind sight that he was the uber-nature baby. He came into the world when he wanted, and he left when he needed.

Doctors do not subscribe to this method of going into labor at all. There are a myriad of reasons why. Fear of malpractice suits, plus they make more money on medicated mothers, or maybe it is what insurance companies insist on for some reason. Either way, if it happens again with Aaron, I want to be cared for by someone that understands waiting for spontaneous labor, and is still a licensed medical professional, and has all the equipment (ultrasounds, etc) that my doctor has to monitor me more carefully. I also heard from a friend who uses a home birth midwife that the prenatal visits last about an hour. I probably see my OB for ten minutes when I go. The midwife on the other hand does a full checkup, measuring my belly, doing an ultrasound, checking blood pressure and pulse, and a number of other things. She also goes over how I am handling stress, what am I doing for diet and exercise, and helps manage the vitamins and supplements I am taking. It is a very thorough checkup! I find that incredibly comforting. Also, when I have questions, she is available all day and into the evening. She always picks up the phone. I don’t leave a message with someone else or on voice mail and wait for her to call me back. She is just always there. In moments of panic, she is a real lifesaver! I will of course continue to see my regular doctor too since that is who will actually deliver Aaron in the end. I am just covering all my bases and enjoying the best of both worlds by splitting my time between a doctor and a midwife.

I saw the midwife last Friday and she was remarking on how much weight I have gained in the last month. I have gained nine pounds! She then went over my diet with me. I am pretty anal about food and after I satisfied her that I am not living off of french fries, potato chips and the like, she turned her attention to check up on Aaron’s growth. That’s where we found the answer. He is measuring four weeks ahead of schedule! He has been growing like a weed, and frankly knowing that now makes a lot of sense. I have been hungry pretty much all the time lately. I have had a hard time keeping up on that for him! He has been in the middle of a huge growth spurt. Noah grew the same way. He was always measuring ahead. With two very tall parents this is completely normal and to be expected. In the ultrasound, Aaron looks great. He moves around just fine. His heart rate was in the 130’s. Everything looked perfect. He is just one big growing boy!

Aside from Aaron’s massive growth, as the summer is progressing, I am getting more and more swollen. My hands and feet feel like sausages. I haven’t seen the bones in my feet for a few weeks now. I have also been getting some braxton hicks contractions. The midwife says that this is normal and likely a sign that I need to slow down and rest more. Focus on staying hydrated and keep eating small snacks throughout the day. They don’t hurt and they aren’t coming regularly. I likely had them last time, but just didn’t get what they were. I haven’t had any food aversions yet. I am craving watermelon and the occasional Root Beer. I have always liked watermelon, but I don’t like Root Beer ordinarily! I don’t let myself have one except for every so often. Clearly Aaron loves it though! He is moving around more and more. There are times when it feels like he is knitting sweaters in there. He doesn’t kick so much as he feels like he is busy working on something!

As you can see from my previous post, the PUPPPS is back this time around. The skin on my legs started feeling a little itchy, and then right around 23 weeks it tipped over into being PUPPPS. PUPPPS stands for Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy, and it is an allergic reaction to the pregnancy, and in particular, some research is showing that it is an allergic reaction to male fetal DNA. It causes an extremely itchy rash akin to poison ivy and it usually pops up later in the pregnancy. Usually 3rd trimester, but because of the severity of how bad I tend to get it, it came mid way through second trimester this time. It is pretty rotten, and last time I had no choice but to take mega doses of steroids throughout the rest of pregnancy. This time I seem to be doing really well with the amazing acupuncturist I have found. She has a treatment plan that is really keeping it under control so far. I am so grateful! The midwife too has been pulling together a concoction of supplements that helps a lot too. Between the two of them, I am doing really well. It takes a lot of work keeping on top of it all, but to stay off of those drugs makes it very worth it! Pray that it works throughout the rest of the pregnancy!

Hope all is well with each of you! Thanks for reading!

PUPPPS Home Remedies

You guys are going to have to forgive me, but I need to post a public service sort of thing here. As of 23 weeks along into this pregnancy (way freaking early, I might add) the PUPPPS came back. Last time around I developed an allergic reaction to the pregnancy (called PUPPPS), where I found that my belly, legs and arms (mostly my belly) were covered with an itchy rash that was akin to having poison ivy that I enjoyed living with for the last trimester. I researched as hard as I could to find a holistic alternative to taking the mega doses of steroids that the doctor prescribes to treat the condition. I failed miserably, and had no choice but to side with modern medicine.

This time around, knowing what it was and identifying it sooner, I gave the holistic thing a shot, and so far I am doing really well trying some new stuff I didn’t do last time. Posting about it on the blog is important. I did this last time and it has helped in two ways. One, I had it documented so I would know what to do when or if it showed up on the next pregnancy. Two, my fellow itchy moms out there are desperately sitting at their computers ready to scratch their skin off and are googling for this stuff, and I know my past blog posts have come in handy. Ladies, I do this mostly for you, since when we find something that works, we need to share it with each other!

Here’s what I am doing that is working (so far at least!)…

Supplements:

Supplement	Dosage	Frequency	Where to Find It
Flaxseed Oil (or Mercury Free Fish Oil – mercury is terrible for the baby so be careful if you go this route!)	Ignore the package instructions. What’s important are the EPA and DHA counts on the back of the bottle. You must get it up to around 800 mg each per day in order for it to be therapeutic. Don’t forget to add in what is in your prenatal vitamin as well! I get 814 mg of EPA and 764 mg DHA a day, and it is working great. These nutrients are also fantastic for brain and eye development for the baby, and will help as they develop motor skills when they are older!	Break it up into taking it 3x day to get to the needed EPA and DHA counts. Remember - 800 mg total for the day of each nutrient.	Any grocery store or drug store
Dandelion	550 mg	3x Day	Natural foods market
Apis Mellifica (Homeopathic Medicine that helps relieve itching as needed)	Limited to manufacturers packaging	Follow package instructions	Natural foods market

*Takes about a week of taking the flaxseed oil and dandelion for it to start working. The Apis Mellifica should help right away.

Diet:
Limit foods that cause swelling. This includes diary and eggs. Make sure you are still getting adequate calcium and protein through other means such as lean meats and dark green leafy vegetables.

Squeeze a slice of lemon into a glass of water. This helps eliminate toxins, and help improve your liver function over time, which helps with alleviating PUPPPS.

Topical Remedies:

• Grandpa’s Pine Tar Soap – Get this at your natural foods market. Take a lukewarm shower with it. Get yourself soaped up, and use a shower puff to really work it into a good lather for a couple of minutes before rinsing it off. It takes about a week of doing this remedy for you to start noticing a difference.


• Eucerin Calming Cream - As soon as you get out of the shower, cover the rash with this cream. You can get it at any grocery store or drug store. Put it in the refrigerator for an extra cooling effect.


• Sarna Anti-Itch Lotion – This is another topical cream that works well too. Get it at any grocery store or drug store. It works on the first application, but repeated doses aren’t as effective.


• Hydracortisone cream – Great to keep on you to treat itchy spots as needed. Get it at any grocery store or drug store.


• Clarisonic with body brush (optional and expensive, $200) – This is a body brush that is made by the makers of the sonicare toothbrush. This should be used sparingly, but can be helpful every so often. Part of PUPPPS is that the skin builds up quite a bit of dead skin cells. When you are applying topical treatments, it gets difficult for the lotion to penetrate through the dead skin and get to the part that needs to be healed. The Clarisonic brush will gently slough off dead skin cells without scratching. You will feel itchy afterwards, so use carefully and only every once in a while. This is an especially helpful remedy when you are done being pregnant and the PUPPPS is finally beginning to heal up and go away. Use in the shower with your pine tar soap. Soap up, and run the Clarisonic brush over the effected skin until the timer goes off (it only stays on for a limited time). Rinse off, get out of the shower and apply lotion. You can buy this from Amazon.com or from higher end salons.

Acupuncture:
Acupuncture has been known to help treat the symptoms of PUPPPS. It will tone down the itching substantially. Not all acupuncturists are fully trained on how to treat this condition, so be careful on who you go to. If you live in Colorado Springs and want a recommendation, shoot me an email. I would be happy to share the name of the person I use. I saw someone who wasn’t good last time (links to those blog posts are below). The lady I see now is fantastic! Each treatment will cost around $50-$65 each, depending on the clinic, and you will need to go 2-3 times (or potentially more) depending on the severity of your rash.

Other Tips:

• Wear loose clothing like dresses. Let your skin air out as much as possible. Don’t wear restrictive clothing that doesn’t breathe.


• No hot showers! Take lukewarm showers instead. The heat can exacerbate the rash.


• Try to stay in cool environments. If it is summer, stay in air conditioned places as much as possible. Again, heat makes it worse


• Avoid the temptation to scratch. If you scratch the rash, it will make it much worse. The patch of skin you scratch will become raised, inflamed, more itchy and even painful.


• Clip your nails back and sleep wearing gloves at night. Sometimes without realizing it, you can scratch yourself in your sleep. You will wake up feeling miserable. Prevent yourself from doing this by wearing a light pair of gloves at night.

My other blog posts on PUPPPS:
Sarah's Adventures at the Witch Doctor
PUPPPs Remedies
PUPPPs Update
Sleeping with Gloves On
PUPPPs vs. ICP

Finally, I am not a doctor. You need to consult with your OB on this to see what they recommend. Anything they say trumps what I have written here. These are merely things that I have independently tried that have worked for me. Every woman and every pregnancy is different and I don't pretend to be an expert! Good luck!

22 Week Update

Last week’s update was a total downer. I owe you guys a bit better than that, especially since things have mostly been good with the exception of last week! Here’s what’s new aside from my ultrasound craziness.

I am now just past the halfway mark at 22 weeks along and I can’t believe how quickly it has gone! Noah came early (right on the nose at 37 weeks) so if this goes like last time, then I am well past the halfway mark. Hard to imagine!

I have an update on the amniocentesis results. The fertility clinic we used has gotten involved and been coordinating the results that the amnio lab is finding and what the PGD lab found. (Remember that the PGD lab is the one that tested Aaron when he was only 8 cells big!). The PGD lab found that Aaron was a carrier of MCADD, where the amnio lab found that he wasn’t. I guess that the PGD lab has a policy where if they find even a weak signal indicating than an embryo has an illness or is a carrier of an illness, they report it. Better to be safe than sorry. Aaron showed a weak signal of being a carrier, so they told us he was a carrier. They weren’t surprised in the slightest that now that he is more mature, he is looking like he isn’t one after all. They also have scenarios where they get what they call a “mosaic,” where one cell they test comes out positive, but the others come out negative. Again, they report the illness to be on the safe side. Either way, it looks like Aaron is free and clear of any instance of the illness and we are extremely thrilled about it! However we arrived at this test result is irrelevant to us!

We also got his chromosomal map as promised. This is just amazing to me to look at. How many kids have this? We just shake our heads in wonder when we look at it. The only things that mean anything to us are that 1) all chromosomal pairs are present and accounted for, and 2) that the XY thing at the end means that he is in fact a boy. So much for looking in ultrasounds! I don’t think it gets any more accurate than that!

One last fun fact about the genetics stuff is that when they implanted the two embryos, one had the carrier gene from me, and the other had the carrier gene from Chris. I was curious to see which boy took, and it turns out it was the one with the carrier gene from Chris. Kind of a silly little tidbit to know, but I love hearing about him having some of Chris in there. In the end, he will be his own little person and we are very excited to see it, but a fun fact to know regardless!

As for the pregnancy, I am beginning to feel the effects of having the extra weight on my body, and things are starting to get uncomfortable. My back hurts a lot and my feet are getting to be sore at times too. It is a clear signal to me that it is time to begin the regimen of training involved with preparing for natural childbirth. Last time around when life started feeling this way, the Bradley Method was my saving grace with the weird stretches and diet that they prescribe. There is something about that stuff that makes the aches and pains of pregnancy feel so much better. I started doing it all a couple of weeks ago, and I immediately started to feel better. I can’t believe it is childbirth preparation time again already! I did love doing this stuff last time, and I am working to get back into the full swing of it all.

As of Memorial Day weekend (right at 20 weeks along), I can definitely say that I am starting to feel him move. It started off that late at night when I would lie on my back, I could feel him tapping. Or I would feel it when I had my seat belt on in the car. At first it was subtle and I don’t think anyone else but me could feel it, but now he has grown to the point where others can feel him kick (within the last two weeks). It all happens so quickly, how fast they grow! He now seems to be more active in the mornings and less active in the afternoons. Noah was more of a shy baby, and would do modest kicks, and would quickly stop when I put my hand down to quiet him down. Aaron is more active I think. Bigger kicks and he doesn’t care if I put a hand down to quiet him down. That only works about half the time! I am wondering about this personality coming our way!

Finally, we completed another (and I think the last for now) big house project before Aaron comes. We had the exterior of the house painted. This was high on the priority list because it had been far too long since it had been done last time. There were lots of places where the paint had worn off and the bare wood was exposed to the weather elements. Before we had a major problem on our hands with rotting and such, this needed to be fast tracked. We hired a couple of really great guys to do it for is. The speed with which they could do it was pretty attractive. Below are the before and after pictures.

Hope all is well with each of you. Thanks for reading!

(Click any of these pictures to make them bigger.)

21 Week Update - The Real Story

20 week picture...

I am going to be honest. I didn’t post the other night because my visit at the doctor for my usual 20 (or in my case 21) week ultrasound didn’t really go as planned. I will start off by saying that now, everything is just fine. I have been on quite a bit of an emotional roller coaster the last few days to get to the place of being just fine today. Here’s what happened:

Tuesday, I had planned to do my midway-through-pregnancy ultrasound. We brought my parents along, so they could see Aaron too. It is such a fun appointment. This is the point when most parents find out the sex of their child, and at this stage they really do look like a baby. To see them moving around on camera like that is just truly a miracle. We all really forget that as fun as that visit is for us non-medical spectators, it is a business trip for the ultrasound tech and the doctor. They are doing it solely to take measurements of the baby and to look for anything out of the ordinary.

First, the good stuff. We got through the ultrasound just great. It was amazing to see him. He had had an active morning of kicking and squirming, so by the afternoon, he was pretty pooped and was not so interested in moving very much because he was sound asleep! He would shift a bit when the tech bumped him to try to get him to move, but he was pretty comfy, and was on his own agenda as most babies are. He yawned a few times for us, which was crazy to see. He was breech (head up, butt down) which they didn’t seem to bothered by, but my natural childbirth brain was willing him to flip over. Guess we still have time to work on that. He loves having his arms up by his face. He also loved pushing his legs way out, which explains all the kicking! He is measuring one week ahead of schedule. That is consistent with how Noah grew too. Very hard and fast, and he always measured ahead of schedule. Since Chris and I are both very tall people, that is to be expected.

Once that was over, we went to meet with the doctor. She came in, and I could tell she was holding something back. After the initial pleasantries, she told us his chest wasn’t looking quite right in the ultrasound. It was heart-shaped with a potential indentation at his sternum. There is a condition children can get in utero called “pectus excavatum” where the sternum is overly sunken into the chest. It causes decreased lung capacity, and depending on the severity, heart problems. The sternum’s purpose is to protect the heart. When it is sunken into the chest with a condition like this, the heart gets shuffled off to one side or the other. It can get twisted in the process, or crunched in such a way that it causes issues like heart murmurs or other more severe problems. You can look it up on google images to see what it looks like. The treatment can involve surgery where you insert a long metal bar across the chest that is left there for a few years as the chest re-forms. It is quite painful, as well as the cosmetic effects of having a deformity like that.

In our world, no problem is insignificant when it comes to our kids. Thank God, the condition isn’t life threatening, but to watch him struggle and suffer with this is an unbearable thought. We left the doctor’s office devastated, and with instructions to let him grow for another month and then do another ultrasound to see if they see it more pronounced then. We kept ruminating on all of the steps that we have taken to date, and the thing we kept coming back to was that we just did a whole round of ultrasounds a month ago when we did the amniocentesis. They didn’t see anything wrong with him back then. They still had the pictures at that doctor’s office. Maybe they could pull them out and look again to see if they see anything? Or is it reasonable to assume that this developed in the last month? Also, from our research on it, there are related genetic disorders that can cause this. Was he tested for those? I called and talked to our contact there. She was pretty shocked that they would see this. The clinic where we did the amnio was so thorough with us, and were wondering if they missed something. Or if there is something there, what is the extent of it? They still have Aaron’s cells leftover from the amnio, and if they need to do something extra with them, they need to know sooner rather than later. They suggested I come up and do a second opinion ultrasound so that they can see what they think. I got an appointment for today, and hightailed it up to Denver. Because it was so short notice, Chris couldn’t make it, so my dad made the trip with me this time.

They did the full ultrasound examination over him and didn’t find a thing wrong with him thank God. He was so sleepy the day before and didn’t want to move. He was curled up in a tight little ball, than they think that this is how we saw his chest like that. It was such a relief to know this, rather than sit on that potential diagnosis for a month until I did the next ultrasound to know for sure. I made sure I relaxed a lot this morning, and had a good lunch just before the appointment. He wasn’t crazy active, but moved around enough that they could see him fully and measure him like we needed. His head is 7.75 inches in diameter, and overall he is in the 80th percentile on growth. This is a bit ahead of schedule as the other ultrasound revealed. Today he was in transverse position (sideways with his head on my right and butt on my left). They were able to check off the measurements they didn’t get the last time we were there because he was too busy doing somersaults. Everything looked perfect. They spent a ton of time looking at his chest, and they saw absolutely no cause for concern.

I am absolutely relieved, and very pooped after having been so worried the last few days. Because of the nature of both this high risk baby, and my own paranoia, I know that I have a lot more ultrasounds in store, and I am kind of wondering if I still want them. I don’t blame my regular OB for reporting this. It is the function of the whole procedure to look for anything weird. They saw something weird and they reported it, as they should. But the stress of worrying about whatever it is is may be more than I can handle. That is something I am pondering right now. Either way, I am glad this bullet was dodged, and I am so grateful for the amazing experts that I am connected to that jumped to action to help us through this. Now to put this behind me, put my feet up and focus on my healthy boy!

Aaron at 21 Weeks

I have a full blog post that I need to do about what's new, but it is late and I am pooped! At the very least, I will share the good stuff - the pics of Aaron. You can click on any of these to make them bigger.

Breathing a big sigh of relief!

Not that we were expecting anything different, but all of the labs are now reporting in from the amniocentesis (much sooner than expected too!) and the news is all good. The news is great in fact!

Just a quick recap, they pulled out 10% of Aaron’s amniotic fluid and sent it off to three different labs for the genetic testing that was needed. Phase 1 came in a day or so after the procedure, and came out perfectly normal. (See post on that below)

Phase 2 of the testing came in next. This was the chromosome study where they fully identified all 46 pairs of his chromosomes. They found once again, the XY chromosomes indicating that he is a boy. They also looked for spina bifida, and he came out negative. We found this out on Wednesday.

When they called about phase 2, I missed the call, and so I called in today with my questions, and fortunately right at that time the MCADD test was in. He came out negative for MCADD. Whew! The really interesting part is that all this time, we have been going along with the knowledge that he is a carrier of the illness like Chris and I. This is what the PDG lab told us when they tested him when he was just an embryo. Now they are showing that he is, in fact, not a carrier! They have run the test twice, and both times it showed this result. They are going to run it a third time just to be sure, and then they plan to call the PGD lab we used and talk to them. The PGD lab will likely re-run the test on their end as well. Either way, this lab that has done the amnio is telling us that they are certain that Aaron is not a carrier!

This is a huge relief for us. There is so much that is unknown about this illness. We guess at some things. For example, many of us on my side of the family that are carriers have issues with hypoglycemia and high cholesterol. These are minor things that can easily be controlled. But, think about me as a mother that has already lost a child. Any kind of complication that can be avoided means more than it would to anyone else. Also, when Aaron gets to the age and place in life when he can have his own children, we will not be holding our breaths through the whole thing. His children will not have to worry about MCADD. So amazing!

Chris and I are in great spirits tonight thinking about this incredible child headed our way that is healthy. After all of this work, and after all that we have been through, he is coming, and it is going to be awesome!

Amnio Follow Up

I had my follow-up doctor’s appointment today to get checked over now that it has been a few days since the procedure. It is kind of a relief to get to this day. I have been a little nervous making my way through the last three days, worrying about having complications. I have been over-analyzing every little symptom I have had since the procedure.

Last night I was thinking about what it would take to make me feel better, and I decided a quick ultrasound just to make sure he really has replaced the amniotic fluid that was taken and to know by looking at it that the placenta really is ok. I went in today and expressed my concerns, and fortunately, my doctor had no problem doing this. I got to see him again, which is always awesome. He was sleeping, so for once he was sitting still. Everything else looked good. She felt confident that I have healed up, and the baby is fine. The cramps and soreness (feels like bruising) I feel is totally normal and nothing to worry about. I am breathing easier now.

The first leg of testing is back. He came out negative for down syndrome, trisomy 13 and 18, and the other more common chromosomal issues. They also confirmed again that he is a boy as well. That all feels great to hear. We now have to wait on the remaining two labs to report their results. The confidence level the genetic counselors expressed over the health of our boy has stuck with me. I don’t feel that anxious over the rest of it. I will feel awesome when they tell me that the rest of it came out clear for sure. In the mean time, I am trying to relax and not think about it so much.