Strong enough...

Sometimes I don't know if I am strong enough to get thru one day to the next.  I haven't been true to myself and my fellow loss mothers on here and posting what I really feel from day to day life and random feelings and fears and the true feelings of a pregnancy after loss and all the emotions and effects it has on a person.  Why because I am in constant fear of keeping everyone safe and I am constantly reassuring family members and friends of this pregnancy when I am the one half the time that needs the strength and reassuring.  I am constantly finding myself trying to prove that this baby is safe that she will live that this will be our take home baby.  The fact is that still birth happens for so many reasons and there is no 100% that it won't happen again and I know that and I know that the risk is worth taking worth dieing for worth anything we went thru in the past.  I don't regret Delanie and even if god as I have said in the past came to me and told me the end result I would have chose her and the ending.  I should have shared her maybe after she was born so that everyone could have seen just how perfect she was and is and that nothing bad could come from that little person and her little sweet face.  Just know that I am dealing with this and when you say you can't handle this again you may have went thru it and I know it hurt you but know that I am her mother and I went thru it daily and I faced the challenge of her pregnancy and birth and the after math of losing her first hand and that I know pain is pain but I can not handle comforting others all the time when sometimes I am the person that needs comfort and reassurance.  I am doing bed rest again and suffering thru the aches and pains and sadness that comes with it knowing that it will be for something even if its not the result I am praying and hoping for.  What it is what I go thru everyday is giving this little spirit a chance to glow and love and hopefully one day lay in my arms warm and bring home to my family.  I am not perfect and some days I am strong enough but others I am not.  And please please allow me that without thinking oh my god we have to do something Holly is depressed or lord she won't hurt herself will she?  I have no idea what goes thru people's minds.  But know I am not depressed I am a mother in mourning and will forever be that way and to top it off I am pregnant and feeling as if I am always holding the strings to life for my child and in constant prayer for her safety.  From now on what you read here is going to be from my heart and what others may need to hear for their venture down this long path of pregnancy after loss and know it may not be what you want to hear or learn but its something that I need to start writing.  I refrain from writing so much because I am painting this blog a rosey picture when really it has its rosey moments but it has to rain somedays. 

27 weeks!

We are doing wonderful and hoping to make it to our first "big" goal 28 weeks gestation when you are in a whole different ball game as far as NICU wise.  This is really starting to get exciting!  If I can hold on 10 more weeks it will be her scheduled c-section date!  That is 10 more weekends, 10 more Fridays, 10 of each and every day!  When you put it that way it doesn't seem near as long.  So my appointment yesterday at the fabulous high risk doctor that I don't think I could live without in our lives!  The appointment went great my cervix was a nice 3.4 cm which is great bed rest has gotten us some length and we hope to keep it the only this is it was more dinamic and funneling and open so we need to still be very careful.  They did the sono and did a BPP and she scored a 8/8 health wise and she was practicing breathing already which is a wonderful sight to see for a mother like myself.  They will weigh her again next week.  I had my glucose test and 17 p injection and routine blood work that I get every so often because of my MTHFR mutation and me being on lovenox injections daily.  I will prolly have results to those tests tomorrow early afternoon is when she usually calls me back.  I was also placed on the NST monitor to see how baby was over a period of time and I must say she was a show off letting us know how healthy she is and that she is hopefully here to stay with us forever.  Everyone was very impressed by how reactive her strip was and that she stayed on the monitor like a good girl.  Of course with mommy's help!  I was feeling really bad yesterday when I woke up and having upper gastric pain and just plain feeling bad tummy wise.  When I got to the office it was still going on and the glucose test did not help taking in 50grams of sugar when I don't even drink soda sucked!  I had mentioned it to my doctor and she wanted to dip my urine for protien which it was just a trace.  My BP has been slightly elevated but like 130/80's which is still not bad.  But with a couple of these things happening we will be watching it more closely as the headaches, upper gastric pain and BP up but hopefully not trending up can be precursors for HELLP syndrome or pre=eclampcia like when I had to give early birth to Dustin and did not do well myself.  But now I am educated and well on top of things and not planning to take any chances.  So I will just keep up with the bed rest, drink plenty of fluids, and try to keep stressful things out of my life.  I think a HUGE portion of stress is work and feeling guilty for leaving them again.  Also my short term disability has not happened as easy as it was last time and we still have no received any payments!  Luckily my husband works his job plus side jobs.  But still we pay for the service all year long and I would love to use it.  Hopefully it all works out soon because I also owe about 700 bucks to our insurance company for premiums that need to come out of those checks..boo....but I know once it all gets done and taken care of it will feel nice and I can relax.  I know I need to take another belly shot and I will soon the thing is since I don't get out anywhere I mostly stick to pj's!  So when I get dressed again I will take pictures!  I think with this baby I am the largest maybe cause they were so close together?  With Delanie I actually think I was the smallest even counting Dustin's quick pregnancy.  Who knows I look at my body from a whole different view then others!  She moves the hardest out of all my babies as well.  She gets very violent at times and I am thinking she has anger management issues already.  Maybe another redhead? 

Her little feet

Her little face looking up towards my placenta

Kissing her placenta 

 

 

High risk check up

So today was another of my high risk check ups which I was really nervous about because all the contractions last week I was hoping didn't do to much damage on my cervix to cause shortening.  I followed doctor's orders perfectly this week and tried not to sit up more then 30 minutes per day and lay down 90% of the time and take quick showers.  My mother has been here to help and bring me drinks and food and such and family members will stop by and bring us lunch from time to time as well.  John spent the weekend trying to fatten baby girl up with protiens.  I was not feeling well all weekend due to allergies but feel better today thank goodness!  I have still had a couple contractions every now and then but nothing in a pattern and not to many close together so we are safe in that way.  Today when I went to lay down for the sonogram I had a strong contraction and had to wait for it to stop before I could do much or think of to much.  They caught the contraction right at the end during the sono and I think that is why it was a little shorter then expected.  It was around 2 when they first measured then after the contraction eased it was a 2.8.  Last weeks measurements it was a 3.5 without contraction and 2 something with contraction.  So we have gone down but are still stable and we still have room before it gets to the cerclage.  So I was able to go home today YAY!  No readmission thank goodness.  She did tell me that I could sit up more and walk to the kitchen to get a drink or snack then lay back down so alittle more room to move.  Baby Kinley was awesome and weighed in at 2 pounds even.  She was moving around and placenta and blood flow looked good and fluid level was a 16!  More then likely because I have been drinking like a FISH!  I in NO way want contractions back!  LOL  I got a few pictures of her to share she keeps her hands in her face so hard to get really good face shots!  She is ready for fighting!  Just so worried about her and so many emotions lately.  Just got to keep positive and keep going!  More to write later but wanted to fill everyone in on the doctor's appt! 

Kind of a weird motion shot LOL

arms are always by her face LMAO

Hi mom!  Either that or she is saluting us!  Hey we support our troops!

Hospital...

So after all the trouble I had just finished writing about I decided to get into a little more...LOL  Tuesday night was the worst night I had contractions all night but felt so bad about keeping John and family up the night before in Labor and Delivery I decided to wait until morning because I knew my cervix was closed and I had no discharge or mucus changes or spotting so I knew things were okay and that the contractions were not making change in that area.  I stayed up until 2:30am with the back labor and then finally fell asleep.  I am thinking the first round of steriods didnt help the whole non sleep thing either.  So Wed morning I started calling doctor's to let them know about the night's events.  I was instructed to go to labor and Delivery to be admitted for further care and to start the second round of steriods for baby Kinley.  I asked my bestfriend to come get me and told John to stay at work since things were stable and I was only contracting at the time about once a hour or so.  So off we went to labor and delivery and I was admitted to stay at least over night to see what happened.  I was checked again and cervix was still closed.  I continuted contracting about once a hour sometimes every 30 minutes until 5:08 pm I contracted 6 times in a hour and then NOTHING LOL!  Crazy!  I think really my body needs to adjust to strict bedrest and taking it easy and things will start to flow better.  I was also NPO (nothing by mouth) until 4:30pm that day because they were unsure if they would have to take her or start mag which you are NPO for.  So I was behind on fluids but after that time I was DROWNING myself in them so I think that is what helped the contractions really stop fast!  I was actually able to sleep that night until about 4:30am which is good for me especially in a busy hospital with women screaming everywhere LOL  Was a busy busy night.  That morning since I hadn't done anything that night I asked if I would be allowed to go home and they said yes!  Since I did such a good job with Delanie and she knows I will call if I need to come in I was able to go home!  So now tonight I am happily back with my family relaxing and staying away from contractions hopefully!  So now the waiting game is on.  Kinley could come at any moment but we are hoping for at least 3 more weeks.  But its good to know she has all her steroids on board to be in the best shape possible.  She is a fiesty little thing!  Sure she will prolly be a redhead as firey as she is!

Baby Kinley

Pictures from doctor's visit at 24+6 days will try to take better pictures later these are with me phone lol

Trouble....

So yesterday I decided things were to quiet and needed to scare some people around because let's face it that is what I do while pregnant!  So yesterday I wasn't feeling well just kind of sick to my tummy but I had been feeling "gunky" all weekend and laid around for the main part of the weekend because of it.  Monday I really wanted to get out for a bit so mom and I went to Target to go buy Dustin a some new pants with some store credit I had.  When we got to the store I started feeling sick to my stomach again so we got two pairs and left quickly and picked up dinner on the way home and went home to lay down for the night.  Well about 6-630 I kept complaining about back pain but it didn't click until I said something out loud about "mom don't worry it comes and then goes away"  well then it hit me....DUH Holly that is what you don't want....LOL  So I laid down drank some fluids and took a hot shower but nothing seemed to work and the back pain kept coming so I decided around 830 after Dustin was in bed I would go in to get checked out at the hospital to take no chances.  John was in Austin on buisness and my mom was here to watch Dustin so I was just going to drive myself because to me it was no big deal it's just like a doctors appt but at night because I just wanted to make sure things weren't what I thought they were.  My sister came to get me though and my niece to take me down to the hospital.  I called John and even though I told him to stay there I think he was at the hospital in a hour or so from AUSTIN!  My poor husband he loves us so much.  When I got to L&D I had great service and everything was quickly done.  I had already called my doctor on call prior and orders were nicely there waiting for me.  I had a fetalfibranectomine(FFN) done of my cervix this test gives you a likely outcome of near delivery.  It was negative so that is a great thing!  Contractions were still coming but not picking up on the montior which MINE never do!  I have ALL back labor with Dustin and Kinley.  Delanie I never contracted to much at all.  So they sent me home on strict bedrest until today when I could follow up with the high risk doctor for further evaluation because her machines are better then the hospital and she calls most of the shots around there.  I was no dilated and cervix was thick and high via manual check.  So I felt good about today when getting my check up.  I was still having random back pain not as much as before though.  I got to the high risk doctor and they started the sono and at first things looked GREAT!  Cervix was a nice 3.5 in length and looked nice!  Then...contraction hit!!  Cervix funneled and went down to a 2.2 in length so (I AM CONTRACTING)  but they are not picking up.  I thought I was all along.  So things changed from there.  My fluid is a nice 13 cm of nice fluid.  Baby Kinley was wonderful and moving around she is breech right now which is nice because I wouldn't want any more added pressure on my cervix with her head so I am hoping she stays that way for as long as possible.  Doctor came in and said we are doing steroids and will be on strict bedrest for the remainder of the pregnancy (bummer)  but HEY I am in the game and baby is more then viable so I need to count my blessings.  They are not starting any meds right now to stop the contractions because they are irregular and not causing actual cervical change which is good.  You want to save the meds until they are absoulty needed because if you take them prolonged their effect can wear off and they not work when you NEED them forsure.  And they make you feel like crap (not that I care about that).  So we are trying to hold off if possible.  We are downing fluids and got our first round of steriods and will have our second round tomorrow and recheck my cervix Monday.  Hopefully we can stay at home they allowed me to come home because I am a nurse and they feel good because of how careful and successful I was with Delanie's bedrest and I DO follow orders!  So here we go the count down is on.  Kinley can come any day and each day is a blessing and a better outcome.  We will celebrate each week and goal and I know I can do this!  Please pray for us!  You will prolly be hearing from me alot more now that I am bed ridden!  Lord help me make it thru this SANE and with a sweet baby in my arms!  Tomorrow I am 25 weeks which is exactly when I had my 9 year old sweetie Dustin Tyler.  Hopefully she doesn't copy her big brother though!  Pictures to come in a little bit!

24 weeks baby bump

Figured I should really start taking more pictures and documenting more on my little Kinley and her making her way into this world