Thank you, everyone, for the thoughts and keeping us in your prayers.

We are okay. My Mom left yesterday but I’m happy to say she will be back in a week, that will be her regularly scheduled visit. This has made me realize just how much I really miss my family. I miss being around them, being close enough to visit regularly, I miss it all. I haven’t talked to my brothers, my Mom was a great buffer for that, but they’ve been great about calling and asking how I was. I finally talked to my Grandma the other day, my Dad today and my best friend yesterday. I figure getting past talking to them on the phone is a huge milestone for me.

My Mom arrived late Tuesday night and he was moving around, Wednesday morning we went to the dr and he had passed sometime between Mom’s arrival and our visit to the dr. I believe he waited for her to be here.

We named him George Felix, after two of his great grandparents. We were able to get him baptized and we will either bury or spread his ashes back in South Dakota, though not right away.

We are okay and thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

So it is finally time for our next dr’s appt – tomorrow AM we have the ultrasound and meet with the dr afterward. I got another call from the genetics counselor yesterday. She said the tests for the two virus’ (via the amnio) both came back negative. We are still waiting on the final chromosome test – they need to look at all 22 (not sure if they will look at 23, the sex one, again?) to see if there are any issues with any of them. So far they looked at three or four and there are no problems. That is all good news!

My Mom said if there is anything Mom’s have, it is hope. I’ve thought for the past month or so that the baby isn’t as big as he should be – and I should have followed my intuition and called to move my drs appt at the end of August up. Of course that doesn’t mean anything would be different.

After a bit of searching online I’ve been able to find information on what we think is going on. The dr and counselors were most concerned about the chromosomes and now that we are narrowing things down, they will be more concerned about growth, the heart and the placenta. I don’t think we’ve been officially diagnosed as having placenta insufficiency or inter uterine growth restriction – but a quick search tells us we are not out of the dark yet with either of those.

I guess my hope was we will just be worrying about a small baby, getting him to grow and more importantly getting him to grow enough to be born. The counselor gently reminded me that these are still big issues to be concerned with and we have a ways to go.

My Mom gets here late tonight, in time to go to the dr with us, and I am so glad she will be visiting. Chris said it will be nice to have someone around to be the grown up – and I completely agree. She’s a tough woman and while I still have hope, it is hard. The emotions raging through my body go back and forth throughout the day, and it seems when I am having a down moment, the baby picks that time to kick, roll or move (I’ve never been good at figuring out if it is a foot, knee, arm or elbow – I just say moving or kicking). It’s reassuring and I take it as a sign that he is there and fighting.

We got the phone call today telling us the results for the first part we were waiting for. This was the FISH test and is the one that was going to come back first. It is a preliminary test telling us if certain chromosomes were doubled – they looked at five or six chromosomes for this test – and NONE are doubled. I let out a high sigh of relief when she finally got the words out. (It felt like she was speaking so slowly! And my heart was pounding so hard, I just wanted her to talk faster.)

That is good news. The chromosomes they were looking at would have indicated syndromes or diseases that would be fatal to the baby. There are a couple more tests we are waiting for and we will be called as the results come in.

One very surprising thing is the genetics counselor who called to tell us the news asked if we knew the gender, I said yes, they said she’s a girl. She said no that there was an X and a Y for the sex – meaning a BOY! Two different ultrasound techs told us girl – but both had a really hard time because the umbilical cord was all bunched up there and neither of the techs were able to get a clear shot. After the dr’s appointment on Monday the tech sent us home with a few pictures and one is of the genitals – I didn’t think it looked like a girl, but I’m the one who says “oh is that an arm” and they say no that is the lower leg, so I figured what do I know about what I am looking at! And so chromosomes don’t lie, this is a boy. They are going to look back at the ultrasound.

We are waiting for a final chromosome test – it will look at every pair of chromosomes to see if there are any issues. If that test comes back fine then “all” we are worried about is the growth rate of the baby and his (have to get used to that!) heart size. His heart is enlarged and they have said depending on what goes on with the growth of the heart, it could affect the growth of his lungs. Another test will tell us if there is (or was) a virus that had some effect on him.

So we are not out of the dark yet but today definitely brought us great news. Keep the thoughts and prayers coming, they are very appreciated. I’m not sure when the rest of the results will be available to us but we have another appt next Wednesday and they have said for sure by then.

After calling one of the genetics counselors for a bit more information, I realize what we are waiting for from the amnio test yesterday is the chromosome test. Unless there are problems with whoever does the testing, we will have the results on Friday. So it’s hurry up and wait until Friday. I still have another day of taking it easy because of the test and I plan on watching tv and movies. I need to do dishes and laundry too so thank goodness the kids are old enough to help!

Thank you for continued prayers, they are all appreciated. Getting past Friday will be a big milestone for the baby, she knows it too because she’s been kicking and moving much more then she ever has before. She knows we are all thinking of her I’m sure.

We had three dr appts today – genetics (from the positive afp test), ultrasound and a new ob appointment since my care has been transferred.

The genetics appointment had us going over our family history and the counselor telling us what could happen. I don’t like talks like that, of course they are necessary, you need to be prepared but they are still hard.

There are no issues that were seen on the ultrasound indicating there are spinal issues, which is good news. They said the ultrasound rules out spinal issues by like 99%, only an amnio could take care of the other 1%.

However there are a handful of other issues that are now much more important – including the heart, placenta, chromosomes, umbilical cord. We decided to get an amnio done after the ultrasound and the first of a few tests from the amnio will be back on Friday, well Friday hopefully as the testing place won’t get the samples until Wednesday.

I don’t feel numb, but I’m not sure how I feel. I’m thinking of the baby and how much she has to go through. How much do we as parents have to go through. What is fair to her and her spirit?

Even after hearing all the bad stuff, she kicked and moved most of the drive home.

Keep her, and us, in your thoughts and prayers, we can really use them.

I am starting to think that telling the family what is going on is more stress then actually dealing with what is going on. I thought my Mom was still on vacation and called her around lunch today – but she answered and said she was at meetings! Whoops!

I told her what I knew, crying while talking – or rather crying then talking – and then crying again after I got off the phone with her. I was thinking I would tell my brothers, Dad and Grandma after I knew more next week, which seems like a long time to wait, maybe. Then my Dad calls because Mom called a brother. So of course while on the phone with him I’m crying, and now I have a headache. And now it’s dinner time which means taking care of the kids and making sure we have enough for Chris to take lunch to work tomorrow! If only I could be a blob and lay on the couch watching Law and Order reruns.

I shouldn’t have waited to tell them though. We are a close family and I know better. I hope my Mom tells my Grandma though, I’ve had enough crying to last at least a few days.

I’d like to take this time to tell every hospital out there to practice better patient care!!!

I got a call from the new hospital we are being moved to only to have the nurse (maybe she was a nurse? Maybe she was just a patient appt person? I’m not sure actually.) tell me that the AFP (triple screen) (wiki link) test I decided to take came back positive. The test screens for neural tube defects, among other things. And my test came back positive for neural tube defects which as I understand it is spinal issues.

So already emotional from having to be moved to a high risk hospital in the first place, now I have someone who can’t answer any questions! She did say she was sorry that she didn’t have any answers and that my doctor should have called me to tell me.

I did call my (soon to be old) doctor and ask what she could tell me – which unfortunately wasn’t much. She said the thing is the ultrasound tech didn’t see anything on the ultrasound so that is a good sign, but the new hospital will do more in depth ultrasound, including 3D. Now I have to wait six days to be seen and get more information.

It’s hard to stay rationale in times like this – I want more answers or to talk about every possibility. I never took the triple screen test with my other kids. I have done so great staying away from searching online as to what could be going on with a small baby, and I am definitely staying away (after my few brief searches after the initial phone call a little while ago) now.

I’ve spent the past few days looking for freezer recipes and it seems like all I’m finding is great breakfast ones! I have found a few dinner recipes and maybe I’m thinking about breakfast when I am searching.

But here is this week’s menu – I’m going grocery shopping tomorrow and hopefully I’ll be able to do a few of the freezer recipes to save for a couple of weeks. I’d love to have enough food stocked up for when my Mom gets here in a month, and I might need the month just to get it down!

Monday – Steak, potatoes, corn
Tuesday – Crockpot Roast w/ veggies
Wednesday – Skillet goulash
Thursday – Crockpot Lasagna (new recipe, crossing my fingers it is good!)
Friday – Chicken Rice Soup (another new recipe, freezer recipe but going to eat it that day)

Click over to MPM to find more recipes shared this week!

I know that I need to eat better and admit I haven’t been. I’m not eating bad but I wonder if I’m eating enough? When I was doing LA Weight Loss I was eating 1200-1400 calories a day, and I was losing weight. I’m sure I’m not eating that much now, or if I am it’s not the same balance that I used to.

I’ve been looking up freezer cooking last night and earlier today. I found a couple of yahoo groups and signed up, hopefully at least one will be good and I can follow along. We are going grocery shopping this weekend after I have a list of either freezer meals, regular meals to cook or a combo of both. I would love to do freezer cooking – can you imagine a freezer full of food that all you have to do is pop it in the oven or microwave! That sounds like something so great to me.

I’ve already found one great breakfast food – basically a mcmuffin type thing but I’m sure oh so much better then Mcd’s. Chris is usually running around in the morning and I would love to send him off with an actual meal rather then a couple of granola bars. I can’t wait to get started – who knew that cooking would be so exciting.

[tags]freezer cooking[/tags]