Weebles Wobble, But They Do Fall Down
So Ryan and I had a very scary week this past week. It all started out innocently enough. I was at work and was walking back to my classroom, which happens to be a trailer and has a small, rickety porch attached to the front. On the way up the stairs, I lost my balance, but my hands were full and I couldn't catch myself. I ended up hitting my knees, scrapping my arm up pretty good, and face planting into the banister. Nice. After I recovered from what happened I picked myself up, walked into my classroom and lost it. I think I was so shocked and scared at that point I didn't know what else to do. After scaring the crap out both of my administrators, filing out my very first accident report for work, and getting in touch with Ryan, we were off to the hospital for observation due to the possibility of trauma to the baby. And so begins the freaking out.
After several hours at the hospital where we sat in a room at the end of the hall, with little or no information from our fantastic nurse (insert sarcastic font) the doctor finally comes in late that evening to say she would like to keep us overnight because Cullum's heart rate has these "episodes" of at least five minutes where his heart rate drops too low or off the "baseline" and this is concerning to them. You think?! Insert another break down. They tell us they would like to keep me overnight to watch his heart rate a little more closely. We finally got a half way decent nurse who brought me ice, juice, information, blankets, pillows, a little ray of sunshine...seriously, she was fantastic compared to what we were dealing with earlier. After calling and alerting the masses, sending Ryan home for the necessities, calling my mother and crying hysterically, we settled down for a fitful night's sleep in the worst uncomfortable bed ever.
Here's Ryan freezing to death with my blue jean jacket draped over him in the very uncomfortable chair he spent some quality time with later that night. Seriously could not have made it through last week without this man. A girl couldn't ask for a better husband.
The next morning we had to wait on the new doctor to come on call and look at the heart rate tracker from the previous night to make a decision. Apparently Cullum had two more episodes during the night where his heart rate was concerning, and then again at 9 am that morning. After meeting with the doctor she requested we go and see the fetal medicine specialist to try and determine why Cullum was having these episodes. At this point I was just numb, I didn't know what to think and they couldn't really give us any definite answers. Ryan and I were exhausted and ready to head to the next doctor to see if we could get some definite answers.
After looking at an in depth ultrasound, check and rechecking the cord, the placenta, the heart flow for both baby and cord, and every structure they could on the ultrasound, the doctor said everything looked great. Such great news! He was just about to send us home when he suggested taking a look at the heart rate tracker from the previous night. Once he did this, he became very concerned and thought it was unclear why the ultrasound didn't show a reason for Cullum's heart rate to be so low during periods of time over five minutes. Ryan and I are just staring blankly at him, wondering what the next steps are. His suggestion was a contractions stress test to be done in the hospital by administering Pitocin. Yes that Pitocin, that monster that gives you monster contractions?!
Off to the hospital we go again. This time we had fabulous nurses, and a much shorter visit. Since Cullum is still in there baking, it all turned out fine, but it was not cool there for a little while. We went through the contractions test, and Cullum was a rock star. His heart rate never dipped down during the contractions which showed that he could with stand stress and didn't need to be delivered. Yay! Praise God! All I could think was I'm not ready for Cullum to come out and only be five pounds and in the NICU! Luckily no one had to experience that, but most importantly, the test showed that Cullum for now is better inside Mommy, then out in this world a full month early. Whew! Talk about the fright of your life! It takes one little incident to set everything else in perspective. This was the first time in my life I didn't care about anything else than what was happening with this little tiny baby I have yet to meet.
The crazy part about the whole experience is the doctors don't think the heart rate issues were due to the fall. In fact they don't think we would have discovered that these episodes occur if I had never fallen in the first place. God works in mysterious and powerful ways and I fully believe I was meant to take that little fall at work so we could discover all of this. In fact, truth be told, I think God gave me a little nudge going up those stairs that afternoon. Doesn't he usually do that to us when we need to follow his plans instead of our own? He gives us a little nudge in the right direction. Who would have know that the right direction was a fall up a flight of stairs and a trip to the hospital. Thank you Lord for being infinitely more wise than I, and ultimately in control of everything. It was a good lesson to learn this week, albeit a hard one. Thank you to all those who were aware of what was going on with Crowe's and sending up prayers for us, they were definitely felt and appreciated.
So here's the rest of the stats for the week 34 and 35 post.
Maternity Clothes: I'm getting to the point where my clothing options are being limited to what things I can still squeeze into and not feel like a stuff sausage. I'm hoping that means I'm getting closer to the end of this ride.
Sleep: Sleep is still good. I still frequent the bathroom, but its usually only once during the night and I fall right back to sleep. Couldn't ask for an easier time of it really.
Cravings: I told my family just his weekend that I hope things are as good when I'm not pregnant as they have been while I've been pregnant. Let me explain. Apple juice....it's just so good. Literally could drink an entire gallon of it in a day if I let myself. Water...never been a huge fan, but since being pregnant, big fan. I just hope I enjoy things like apple juice and water and food in general as much as I do now.
Baby Size: At the last in depth ultrasound he was measuring around 5 lbs. 1 oz, which apparently is a little on the small size, but I've always measured a little on the small size. In fact when they do my measurements each week I'm usually at least a week behind, belly size wise. However, I've been reassured that that is perfectly okay and normal and to not worry overly much about the numbers.
Movement: Holy Toledo at the movement. And the hiccups. Lots and lots of hiccups. Now at any moment you can put your hand on my stomach and feel Cullum move. He also was not a fan of all the monitors strapped to his home this past week. He would literally push his foot (or some other body part) at the monitor as if to say, 'move it! this is my space!'. Stinker.
Looking Forward To: Meeting the little guy. And not being pregnant anymore. I will probably do a post soon about the pros and cons of being preggers. I've been thinking about that quite a bit.
34 Weeks Preggo at Mom and Dad's in Birmingham.
