Preeclampsia

My blogging has been pretty sporadic lately, but I thought I'd take the time to explain our not-so-fun pregnancy complication.  Some of this will be a repeat, for which I apologize, but I want to give you the entire story. 

For most of my pregnancy, everything went fine.  All of the prenatal appointments showed that I was progressing as I should with no problems and Josh and I were so excited to soon welcome our little boy into our family.  Then we went to my 33 week appointment and my blood pressure was high.  My doctor was concerned about it and ordered labs to check for preeclampsia. This is a condition that only happens in pregnancy where the mother's blood pressure is high and there is a high amount of protein in her urine.  In the mild stage it doesn't harm the baby, but if it progresses to the severe stage, it can harm the baby and the mother. 

My doctor rechecked my pressure before we left her office, and it had shot up to 151/101.  This guaranteed us a trip to the hospital for extended monitoring.  We spent about 2 hours at the hospital that night, while the baby and I were monitored and labs drawn.  They came back normal, but my doctor was still concerned and I was put on bedrest.  I could no longer work or do anything around the house-all I was allowed to do was lay on either the couch or bed and get up to use the bathroom or get something to eat. I also had to do another test, this time to check my urine for protein, and was given strict instructions for when to return to the hospital.  My doctor let us go home, but I think it was only because it was our anniversary that day.   

We were able to enjoy our anniversary weekend, I completed the test, and we saw the doctor again that next Monday.  The test had come back okay-I didn't have enough protein to be diagnosed with preeclampsia-but I still had high blood pressure and all of the same instructions applied.  My doctor also had me start coming in twice a week to do monitoring and I had to see her once a week.  At the first monitoring appointment, later that week, my blood pressure remained high enough that I was again sent to the hospital.  Once I was there, I started having contractions and one lasted for about 15 minutes and caused the baby's heart rate to decrease to 80.  The nurse rushed in and gave me medicine to stop the contraction and his heart rate came back up without problems, but I was to be monitored closely for at least that night and was given the first of two steroid injections to help mature the baby's lungs if he was to be delivered early. 

We spent a pretty much sleepless night in the hospital and I had the same tests repeated.  This time the urine showed that I did have preeclampsia-my protein levels were now high enough-and I was given another night of monitoring in the hospital.  I received the second steroid injection, labs were repeated, and we were told that if my blood pressure got any higher or the labs came back abnormal, I would be induced the next day-Christmas Eve.  I would be 34 weeks along.  Thank goodness my blood pressure dropped a little and the labs came back normal, so we were once again allowed to go home.  Very strict instructions were given for when I should come back to the hospital and I had to monitor my blood pressure at home and text my doctor with the readings throughout the weekend.  I saw her the next Monday and things were stable at that time-my blood pressure stayed the same and repeat labs were normal.  My first monitoring appointment was also fine that week so I continued on bedrest, in anticipation that the baby would come at 37 weeks, on January 14th, unless anything further went wrong.   

Our second monitoring appointment, which was on December 30th, netted me another extended monitoring session at the hospital.  I had another contraction that dropped the baby's heart rate-it wasn't as bad as the first-but it caused the doctors to be concerned.  After another 2 hour stay, we were released, and I was to continue as before.  At my next prenatal appointment, my blood pressure was higher than it had been-it was 148/104-and there was more protein in my urine from a quick test done, so we went through the same, old routine again. My labs were drawn and I had to do another 24 hour urine test.  We were told that if anything came back abnormal, I would be induced.  The labs came back normal, thankfully, and my blood pressure hasn't gotten any worse, so I am at home while I write this.  I had another monitoring appointment yesterday and that went fine, but there is still one more thing that could take me back to the hospital and have the baby come early.  We're still waiting for the results of the urine test.  If my protein levels have jumped into the severe range, little Drako will be joining our family later this week. 

Neither Josh nor I have slept well the last couple of nights, in anticipation of what will happen.  I don't know if I'm more nervous about not having the baby, or of having the baby.  I know he will do better if he comes now, because he's had more time to grown and mature, but it would be even better if he could get to 37 weeks and be full term.  On the other hand, these last few weeks have been some of the hardest for us and Josh and I are about ready to say "that's it, we're done" and have the baby be here.  The waiting and not knowing and ups and downs of emotions are really hard to deal with!  I hope none of you have this complication in any of your pregnancies!

Baby Contest

I think it's time for another contest.  Sorry it's been so long since the last one!  This time it will be guessing when our little boy will be born.  The time has been narrowed down considerably though, so it makes it easier.  My doctor will induce me on January 14th, when I'm 37 weeks, unless things get worse, and then she will induce me sooner.  So he will be here sometime within the next two weeks.  There will be a cool prize for the person who wins.  Josh and I had guessed later in January, as had our neighbor, so we're all out of the running.  Good luck everyone! :)

The Week of a Thousand Years

Have you ever had a week that just seems to go on forever? That's how this last week was for Josh and I. Last Sunday, the 12th, we received a call that my aunt had had a massive stroke and was in the hospital.  She wasn't able to walk anymore and would never be able to live alone.  Josh and I headed up there to see her and found that it was much worse than that.  She couldn't talk or hardly respond, and the doctor had come in just before we got there to say that she would be leaving this world soon, so this time would most likely be one of goodbye.  I was stunned by this!  It was so sudden and we had just seen her a week earlier at the family Christmas party.  How grateful I am that we went to the hospital that night! Amid my tears, I was able to hold her hand and tell her how much I loved her and thank her for all that she did for me.  She did move her head towards me, so I think she knew I was there.  She passed away the next day.  She was an amazing woman!  She was so loving and kind and was more like a grandma than an aunt to me and my siblings.  She is dearly missed!

With the passing of my dear Aunt Carol, our anniversary plans changed.  Our second anniversary was on Friday, the 17th, and we had booked two nights at The Castle Creek Inn to celebrate.  The funeral was planned for Saturday, so we knew we wouldn't get all the time together we wanted, but figured it would still be a wonderful weekend.

Friday rolled around and I had the day off, but Josh had to work, so I worked around the house for awhile and then he came home and got me so we could go to our prenatal visit.  At the visit, my blood pressure was high.  It had been high two visits before, but the last visit it was fine, so we hadn't worried about it.  We went through the visit and the doctor ordered lab work to check for preeclampsia and then rechecked my blood pressure.  It had shot up very high at that time, so we went directly to the hospital to be monitored.  We stayed for about two hours at LDS Hospital while my blood pressure and the baby were monitored.  The labs were done there and once the results came back, my doctor came and talked with us.  The labs were all fine, but my blood pressure had stayed high the whole time we were there.  Not as high as it was at her office, thank goodness, but still higher than it should have been.  She said that I had preeclampsia and explained all the possible complications that came with it.  She also said that from now on, I was on strict bedrest until the baby came.  She sent me home, but I think it was only because we had hotel reservations.  I had to do a 24 hour urine test, which they usually keep patients in the hospital to do, but I'm so glad that she trusted me enough to do it on my own and we didn't have to stay overnight. 

We did get to the hotel that night, but later than we had expected.  It was a really nice room and we were glad we had the chance to enjoy it.  Saturday was the funeral and I wasn't going to miss that, bedrest or not.  It was a beautiful memorial of her and it was nice to be surrounded by the love of my family. We went back to the hotel afterwards, but to a different room.  This one was really nice as well and the staff treated us like royalty.  We couldn't do anything except lay in bed and relax, but it was nice to have that time together.  Josh was so sweet to stay with me and not complain about our sudden change in plans.

Needless to say, I am very grateful last week is over!  This week has the promise of being a much better one with Christmas.  Josh and I definitely have a lot on our minds now, but we need to have faith in Heavenly Father and His plan and know that He will take care of us and Drako. 

Bring on The Turkey!

Sorry that this next post won't have any pictures. They accidentally got erased from the memory card before being saved on the computer. Hope you enjoy it nonetheless!  I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a great day and it was nice having Josh at home and not working. We ended up having three Thanksgiving dinners this year and I am proud to report that I only gained three pounds in those two weeks between prenatal visits. 

I love that there's a holiday dedicated to counting your blessings. Thanksgiving is such a neat time of the year and I always reflect on what I'm grateful for. We have been blessed so very much and I am eternally grateful for a Heavenly Father who watches out for his children individually! I can't believe how much He cares for each one of us and provides for our specific wants and needs! It's an incredible feeling to realize just how much He loves me!

We were able to spend the holiday this year with each our of families which was really nice. My family is one of the things for which I am most grateful and I love being with them at this time of the year. Our first Thanksgiving dinner was with my family. Ryan, our brother-in-law, is a police officer and had to work on Thanksgiving, so we had a dinner for him the Sunday before. My mom and sister decorated the kitchen at my parents' house so festive with a turkey tablecloth and dishes and cute place cards. All of my siblings and their families were there as was my sweet aunt Carol. We enjoyed each other's company as we ate the traditional, mouth-watering food and had fun playing games afterwards. It was also cute watching part of "Ernest Scared Stupid" with my nephews. Maclain just wanted to see everything, whether it was scary or not, but Payton would casually stroll down the hall when he felt things were getting too scary. lol. I love those two boys so much!

Our second dinner was on Thanksgiving day. Josh and I had decided to have dinner at our apartment with his family. His mom, Kim, had had carpal tunnel surgery a few days before the holiday and we wanted to make sure she was able to enjoy it anyway. We took over most of the cooking, but she still insisted on bringing rolls and pies which were very delicious. It was the first time either of us had cooked Thanksgiving dinner and I think we did a great job. Okay, so Josh did a fabulous job! He cooked the turkey and mashed potatoes while I did the easy things-the Stovetop stuffing and heating up the gravy. Josh's family came over a few hours before dinner so we had time to visit and watch football. Besides Kim, Josh's brothers came as well as her boyfriend, Steve.

We did have one mishap with our cooking. The turkey had cooked faster than we anticipated, so we were scrambling around trying to finish everything else and in the process forgot to stir the potatoes as they were boiling. They ended up burning on the bottom but Josh was able to scoop out the not burnt parts and you couldn't even taste that anything had happened. We did find out one thing for sure that day though: our fire alarm works. lol.

After dinner everyone except Josh and Steve fell asleep. It looked like a huge slumber party was going on because there were blankets all over the front room. The two of them stayed awake to watch the second football game of the day. Silly boys!

Our third tryptophan-filled dinner was the night after Thanksgiving. Josh's ex-stepdad invited us to their belated holiday dinner. This is the dad of Josh's brothers and he raised Josh for most of his childhood. The food and company were nice, but I'm not sure how I feel about him wanting to be a bigger part of our lives.

The Best Laid Plans

This next post is pretty random, and I apologize for that.  There are so many thoughts going through my head right now, and I wanted to get them all down.

Our plans for the next few months have changed once again.  I thought we had it all figured out a few months ago, when I last posted about this, but I'm eating my words now.  I don't know about everyone else, but one thing I've learned about life is that my plans always change.  Josh and I had made a basic 5 year plan-including him going back to school full-time starting next semester and watching our baby once he's born-but then he was given a great opportunity and was hired at Discover Card.  It came about very quickly, so we know it was a blessing from Heavenly Father.  Josh was told by his cousin, who works at Discover, that there was a job opening.  He applied the next week and two days later received an email asking him to come to a "job fair" the next day.  He attends this, goes through several interviews, and by the time the day is over, is offered the job. 

We're very grateful for this and work it into our plans so that he will work for the next few months, we'll put money into savings and pay down some bills, and then he will quit once the baby is born.  He'll still sign up for classes and begin in January. Our plan is still on track.  Before Josh got this job, we had made some financial changes in preparation for the baby coming and only living off of one income.  We sold the motorcycle, the truck and two of the guns.  We were blessed with how fast everything sold and were able to pay down a lot of our debt, so we're more comfortable with our financial situation.  It was really hard to see the motorcycle go for both Josh and I, but as he says, they're just things and we can buy another one when we're able to.

So we sat down last week and went through our monthly finances, just to make sure everything would work out, thinking that everything would be fine because we felt good about it.  Well, we found out that it's just not possible for us to live off of one income right now.  Even with all of the debt we've paid down, it's just won't work.  We probably should have looked at this earlier, but figured that with all the changes we made, it would be fine. 

Now to make some big changes to the plan.  Josh will be working at Discover for a lot longer than normally planned. We don't know for how long, but it will be for quite awhile.  He still will take a class or two every semester, and we will work towards him going to school full-time and not working.  He has dyslexia and it's really hard for him to work full-time and go to school full-time.  His goal now is to go into the engineering program at SLCC and then transfer to the University of Utah.  I can see him enjoying this and doing a great job at it, and it has a much better job lookout than being a police officer. 

Another change in our plan is that we will have to find someone to watch Drako during the day when we both work.  We don't want to take him to daycare and would much rather have family care for him, but are not quite sure how to do this.  Most of our family live in South and West Jordan which are in the opposite direction of both of our jobs.  

It's been hard these last few months seeing Josh lose the job that he had waited so long for and then having to search for another job and finally finding one that is not in the area that he trained for or would like to be doing.  I know Heavenly Father helped him every step of the way to become a police officer at Midvale, so there must be a reason in His plan that it was taken away.  We just don't know what that reason is.

Our Defeated Feet

Yesterday was not a good day for Woodland feet.  Josh and I are both sitting on the couch with our feet elevated right now, waiting patiently for our wounds to heal.

Yesterday afternoon Josh and I went to my grandparents' farm to take pictures.  We haven't had any professional pictures taken since our wedding and wanted to have some new ones done.  My grandparents have a small farm in Riverton which we thought would be a great backdrop, so we met the photographer there and started having a lot of fun with different shots.  After about half an hour, I was walking to stand by an old barn, when I felt this sharp pain in the ball of my left foot.  I quickly took a few steps forward and saw that I had stepped on a rusty nail that was sticking out of an old piece of wood.  It didn't hurt too bad at that point and I thought the wound must not be too bad, so we continued shooting for a few more minutes.  Once we were done with that particular backdrop, our photographer, Brittany, suggested I sit down and see what happened.  As soon as I pulled off my shoe, I knew it was a lot worse than I thought.  My sock and the bottom of my shoe were soaked in blood.  Josh put a quick stop to the photo session at that point and I went inside the house to assess the damage.  The bleeding had stopped at that time and my grandma helped me to disinfect the wound and bandage my foot.

Josh was wonderful throughout the whole thing, making sure I got what I needed and then taking me home soon afterward so I could get off my feet and take some pain reliever.  I felt so bad for him, though, because he turned white as soon as he saw the blood.  I haven't really been hurt since we've known each other, and I think this scared him a little.  He hates seeing anything bad happen to me and has kept a close eye on me since then, making sure I don't do too much and that I keep my feet up.  He is the most wonderful husband!

Here are some pics of my foot today, and the bloody shoe.  You can see where the nail went through the sole.

Now to the second part of our story. Last night, just as we were getting ready for bed, a loud noise startled our cat, Moroni, who jumped up and quickly ran away from us.  The only problem was that she used Josh's right foot as a jumping off point and gave him a long gash with her claw.  Josh wouldn't let me clean or disinfect it, saying it was nothing.  Silly man!  As you can see from the pictures below, it's not "nothing" but I'm glad it's healing well.

                                    

Preparing for Baby and More Changes

We've been working on getting things ready for the baby.  After we found out that we were having a boy, we decided to get a few things every so often so we wouldn't have to buy it all at the same time.  We've been buying little things like onesies and bibs and my mom has been making some really cute burp cloths.  She's such a cute grandma and gets me more excited with each new one she gives me!  The above picture is of the dresser drawer with the baby's things.  We don't have very much and need so much more, but I had fun organizing what we do have.

We also found a crib online for a great deal.  It's in really good shape and Josh bought a new mattress and sheets for it.  Right now it's holding all of the great baby gear Becky gave us.  Here are some pictures of the baby's room.  It's not much of a nursery now, but I thought I'd take some "before" pictures and will definitely include the "after" pictures once it's put all together.   

I am now 23 weeks along and have only four more to go until I get to the third trimester.  I'm starting to feel the baby, which is a really neat experience.  Right now it's not consistent or every day, but I enjoy the times I do get to feel him.  Last Sunday morning, I had turned onto my right side and soon afterwards started feeling all these "pokes" on the right side of my abdomen.  I think he was telling me to turn back over because he was getting squashed on that one side.  There was also a time after I had eaten ice cream where I felt all this fluttering and when I put my hand on the area, could feel the movement.  Josh thinks I gave him a sugar rush and my mom thinks he got brain freeze. Poor little guy! lol.

Now to the second part of this post.  It's been pretty frustrating for Josh the last few months.  He's been searching so hard to find a job and the reason to why he was fired, but to no avail.  He's been so wonderful through it all-cleaning and cooking and doing everything so I wouldn't have to.  It's been hard for him to be cooped up in the apartment every day, and we've been doing some thinking and praying, trying to decide what to do.  For the last couple of weeks we've both been feeling like he needs to go back to school.  He took a test online to see what his interests are and what career he should go into and he meets with a counselor at SLCC next week.  He's still been looking for a job and if a wonderful one comes along, he won't go back to school, but it looks like he'll be going back full-time next semester.  He'll try to take all night classes, or work his schedule in such a way that we'll only have to find a babysitter for Drako part of the time.  We'll still pray and fast and make sure this is the right road to go down, but we've both had a peaceful feeling whenever we talk about it.