Sad...

I'm bored...
and overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done that I refuse to let myself do (cleaning the house for one).

If I spend too much time out of bed I get cramps and contractions but staying in bed is painful too - laying on my side is really painful to my hips and laying on my back is out of the question at this point.

Today our refrigerator decided to break. Shawn had taken Arianna to the playground and all I wanted was something to drink but I came out to a kitchen slowly drowining in melted ice from my freezer. I wasn't about to leave it there! So I got towels and did alot of bending down and picking up and then had to call a repair guy and spend even more time out of bed.

I feel like crying alot of the time. Everything is just so overwhelming, even when Arianna comes into the room to spend time with me she'll want me to help her up onto the bed (when she's perfectly able to climb up herself, of course) and I'll just cry because I can't get up. She'll want out and I have to scream for hubby and that scares her too. Then there's the eye rolls from hubby when I ask him to do something as simple as get me a drink - does he think I like this??! I hate being so dependent on people!!

I saw my OB yesterday - would you believe they're not going to give me the steroid shots?!!! I don't qualify for them anymore at 34 weeks but I'm obviously in danger of delivering soon and I have gestational diabetes which slows lung maturity. Its pretty doubtful I'll make full term so why not give me the shots?

This makes me cry too.

This pregnancy is really overwhelming right now and I don't have anybody to really talk to about it - so I'll just vent here for all of you to read.

Thanks for the sympathetic 'eyes'!

Still here at 33 weeks!

Hi everyone,

Sorry for not updating sooner and sorry for worrying people so much that they had to email - I hope to be better in the next few weeks. My only excuse is its really hard to type while laying down.

Things aren't much better than they were 2 weeks ago - I'm still on bedrest at home and my asthma is still really bad.

I'm on enough prednisone to kill a cat right now. Its not really helping so we added 3, yes 3, different inhalers. I'm at the highest advair, flovent and albuterol. All things that aren't great with Long QT Syndrome but I actually haven't been having any weird symptoms with all this medicine so I must really need it!

The prednisone, unfortunately, has raised my blood sugars so I'm considered a gestational diabetic and have to test my blood sugar 5 times a day and follow a special diet - do you know how hard that is to do when your on bed rest? Sigh...

My cervix has shortened a lot in the last 2 weeks also - its at 1.7 now and the OB I saw on Tuesday said they may take out my cerclage on Friday to avoid ripping through my cervix. I think this is jumping the gun - I'm not having contractions and as far as I know I'm not dilating (didn't get a manual exam this week) so why take it out? If I have shortened more I may ask for hospital bedrest because its obvious that bedrest at home isn't working too well... I'll also be asking for steroid shots regardless of tomorrows appointment. Since I've got gestational diabetes lung maturity is slowed even more and I'm at risk of delivering soon so I'd hope they'd be open to giving the baby a little boost with one round of steroids.

On the bright side this kid is still huge - 97th percentile and 5.5 lbs. already at only 32 weeks! Part of me is happy that I won't see full term because natural delivery will be really hard with a 9 lb. kid. I'll need recovery from bedrest and adding recovery from a c-section (because the kid is so big) will be awful.

So that's my update - not great, but I'm still here and baby is still baking away (oh ya, and not breech anymore! ya!)

31 weeks

Well, here I am at 31 weeks - this is great!

Good news: Had another negative FFN this week and my 5th to last 17P shot - I'm positive I'll see 33 weeks now - wow! My cervix is still funneled, still 2.5 and still finger tip dilated, but no change so that's good.

Bad news: My asthma is OUT OF CONTROL. The last time my asthma was this bad I was hospitalized for 3 days.

I finally saw OB medicine yesterday which was none too soon. She is very concerned about my horrible peak flow readings (as am I) and doubly concerned that my breathing gets even worse when I'm laying down (and particularly on my right side). I have to spend the majority of my day laying down so this is a real problem. When doing a quick exam she heard some extra heart sounds that may or may not be related to where I am in my pregnancy (blood volume is at its highest right now), so she ordered an echo cardiogram for next Friday to check for pregnancy associated cardiomyopathy.

CAN I CATCH A BREAK PLEASE?! SERIOUSLY!!

I'm on 2 weeks of prednisone and albuterol via nebulizer around the clock (despite my not to be taking it with my Long QT Syndrome) until things get better but I'm not very hopeful. I haven't slept well in 3 days now because I'm gasping and coughing. This is terrifying. I never expected it to get this bad. She's trying to get some answers from my cardiologist regarding which steroidal inhaler I can use because the pulmicort I've been on for a 12 years isn't even touching it now. The problem is that most of the steroidals that I should be using have a component to them that is bad for folks with Long QT Syndrome.

As she put it, I have the ultimate protection, my defibrillator so I need to get my breathing under control and if that means using stuff that is contra-indicated, then so be it. I'm reasonably well protected and its more important for me and baby that I nip this in the bud.

She'll check back in on me on Monday to see if the prednisone is helping - if not I'll be looking at some hospital time and IV steroids. G R E A T!

This is the pits!

But on the bright side, pregnancy is going well so I'll look at the positives for now...

Jinx!

I wrote my last post about an hour before I left the office for the weekend.

We were getting our house exterminated for carpenter ants and I was getting home about 30 minutes earlier than my husband and the exterminator so I could make sure everything was all set to pack up and wrangle the cats into carriers - hubby knew I wasn't doing any of the actual work, just getting everything lined up for him to do it. Well, I get home and the exterminator was there early and already putting the chemicals on the outside of the house! He arrived early so he could start his vacation early - so I had to run in and wrangle the cats and do EVERYTHING before hubby and my mom arrived to help. It was alot of work and I was stupid for doing it...

We got out of the house with the cats on time and I drove hubby back to his office so he could leave his car at the house when he was in NC... so I've got the cats in the back of the car for the next 4 hours and 3 adults crammed into my corolla (oh ya, with a carseat taking up a seat...). I dropped off hubby and was already having lots of contractions. Thankfully I had an appointment for my 17P shot so my mom and I drove there. She was coming with me so that she could stay in the cats while the car was running with the AC on. I had 3 hours between taking him back to work and picking him up to the airport and OF COURSE I would spend that at the office... I got my shot and an exam.

I'm 1/2 - 1 cm. dilated and contracting. I'm on bedrest at home now and had to go to the hospital Thursday night for an ultrasound and meds to stop any contractions ( I had 3-4 dozen of very painful contractions over the course of 4 hours). I got there about 6 PM after picking up Arianna at daycare, dropping off the cats at the house and driving up to my parents (only to turn around and go back to the hospital) I was super worried 'this was it' when I got to the hospital
but thankfully my u/s was the same as earlier in the week and the contractions had stopped by the time I got on the monitors...

The the doctor came in and gave me some 'perspective'. She yelled at me for 10 minutes...

I guess I needed to hear it - as I vented to her about everything I have to do at home with my 2 year old she counter-acted with "You have a husband and family and friends to help, you have more important things to do right now and that is stay in bed... allow other people to do everything, you do nothing but lay in bed"

I stayed with my parents and they put Arianna in a diaper all weekend... it was really hard to 'allow that' considering how hard we've worked on potty training (successfully!) for more than a month.

This is going to be really hard so expect to read lots of venting here!

30 Weeks!!

I can't believe I'm in the 30's now! This is AWESOME!

This week I had another OB appointment and u/s. My cervix is still funneled and a little bit shorter at 2.4 cm and it looks like the 'Y' shape I was worried about - meaning its starting to dilate too. Not enough to be worried about, yet. I have another appointment next week and will ask for a dilation check to be sure.

I'm having ALOT of trouble with my asthma lately - to the point where I'm taking my inhaler frequently throughout the day. I'm actually really worried about it. The hospital I will deliver at doesn't do anything BUT OB related stuff. The hospital next to it can handle my Long QT Syndrome (which limits the meds I can take for my asthma) and asthma but hasn't done anything OB related in 50 years... I'm supposed to see OB medicine which is the branch between the two hospitals but at yesterday's appointment they were running so far behind that they had me reschedule my appointment, so I have no OB medicine doc right now.

Add to that the fact that I'm 'moving in' with my parents this weekend because my husband is going to NC for the weekend - and that moves me more than an hour from the hospitals! So, if I have trouble, and I probably will, I think I'll make the trek up to Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston which has a great cardiology deparmtent and OB department and can handle my asthma with my 2 high risk factors. This will create a problem with getting records to my doctors but I don't really care - the 'tangled web' of hospitals down here is a bit too much to deal with right now and I don't want to have to wait for hours at one of the hospitals down here while OB medicine figures out what they're doing...

My ffn is still valid for another week (its predicts 10 to 14 days out), so I'm still pregnant for at least another week! woo hoo!

Next weekend I'm getting professional maternity pictures done and will post them for everyone to see!

Have a great 4th of July!!