Little Patootie

This little patootie is looking forward to meeting her maternal grandmother tomorrow. Hurry up and get here before she grows too much!

17 april 2012 biophysical

Everything checked out great with baby at this appointment a few hours before she was born.

This is the last of her sonogram pictures. Its pretty neat to look back and see her growing through the months.

We are thankful every day

Here's the story of Nico's early arrival: We went in for a routine biophysical and appointment at 37 weeks 6 days (last Tuesday the 17th). Baby did great on the biophysical and there was no cause for concern on her end (sono pictures to come). However, my blood pressure had been creeping north for a few weeks and this time was a bit too high. That along with a couple of other things (protein in the urine, puffy feet) sent up enough red flags that they asked me to go have blood work done in the hospital right away. The nurse practitioner was checking everything with the doctor on call since our doctor was out of the office last week and her guess was that depending on the lab results I'd be sent in for an induction Thursday or Friday. Let's just say we were not too excited about that news, mostly because we were in shock that the baby could be here in just a few days. Shortly after we got home from the appointment in the early afternoon a series of back and forth phone calls took place: to/from the doctor's office, to/from my doula, to/from my mom and Jason, trying to get a good grasp on the situation and the choice now in front of me: the lab results had come in, they were not good, and we were scheduled to show up at the hospital at 5:30p that night for an induction. The choice was now between an induction and to go ahead and do a c-section without laboring. Wait, what?! I have to make that decision? Now? Like right now?! As in the baby will be here sooner than in a few days?? It was really crazy for the next couple of hours as I was trying to wrap up a few school related things and Jason had attempted to head into the office for the afternoon. I decided to go ahead for the c-section and instead of showing up at 5:30p we now needed to show up between 3:30 and 4p to start the IV and antibiotics and get me prepped. Kind of a wimpy decision in my head because "the plan" was always to have a natural labor, etc. but there were several other factors that finally guided me towards doing the surgery that night instead of laboring throughout the night and then seeing what the morning brought. And as it turned out, I didn't actually end up with a choice about the c-section based on more lab work that was done after we arrived at the hospital. In just a couple of hours my platelet levels had dropped more than 10,000. I don't exactly know what that means (I'm not a doctor yet!) but I know that "normal" platelet levels are above 150,000 and mine had dropped from over 100,000 to 90,000 in a few hours - and that they don't want to do surgery if they're close to 70,000. Something was going to have to happen right away and they would not have let me try to labor after all. We arrived at the hospital around 3:45p and Nico was born at 5:22p so everything happened very quickly. It was considered an urgent, not an emergency, c-section. I was very sick even during the surgery and threw up almost the entire time. Gross. After 9 months of nausea that wasn't a surprising end though.

Long story short: The final diagnosis was severe pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome. They kept us in the hospital for an extra day to monitor everybody (mostly me, as Nico was released from being monitored the next morning). We both feel like we received very good and attentive medical care here and the result really was healthy mommy, healthy baby. Even though exactly none of what we had planned happened we are thankful every day for her, for my health and the medical professionals who caught the warning signs in time, and for God's provision. She's a perfect little girl and we'll consider it an honor to raise her for God's glory.

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise: give thanks to him and praise his name." Psalm 100:4

P.S. In case you were wondering, having a girl will not make me like pink, ruffles, or tutus any more than I already do.

One Week Old

My heart skips a beat. Every time.

oh really?!

gotta love him!

my new favorite hand to hold

27 hours at home

We had a big trip back to the hospital this morning for some labwork but otherwise we're enjoying some good time at home with owl baby.

Who's surprised it was a girl?! We were! And we're so happy she is who she is. She's perfect.

a couple of pictures

We're all doing well, lots of recovery for Diana (she's only been able to get out of bed a couple of times so far) and its quite painful to move around at all.
Nico is doing great. She's quite cute ;)
And Jason is already wrapped tightly around her little fingers!
Thanks for all your support and continued prayers.

It's a Girl!

Nico Kae Wade has arrived!

5:22p, 5lbs. 12 oz., 18.5 inches, born 17 April 2012.

10 april 2012 biophysical

Our second biophysical appointment was yesterday. Baby did a perfect job of showing off for the sonographer and all still continues to look well. I doubt we'll be getting any more growth scans at this point because it gets really hard for them to see what's going on in the womb this far along.

She tried really hard to get a decent picture of baby's face, but baby was all squished and cozy and this is the best she could get.

The feet are looking much larger than even a few months ago!

The due date is in 3 weeks exactly! Remember to check back here frequently or sign up to follow the blog by email (on the right side of the page) so you can be updated when baby arrives. This will be the easiest way for us to notify the masses when baby arrives.

5 april 2012 sonogram

We had an extra sonogram yesterday. Everything looks good with the baby. Baby weighed in at 5lbs., 11oz. and between the 33rd and 45th percentile (the regular machine said 33rd... then they input the numbers into another program and it came back at the 45th). If I make it to 40 weeks baby is expected to be roughly 7.5lbs at birth.

We even got a little thumbs-up from the baby during the sono.

I know that might not look like a thumb, but she promised us it was!

3 april 2012 biophysical

Our doc called us in to do a biophysical profile on baby and we got a couple of quick images (below). It wasn't a regular sonogram where they take measurements but baby had a perfect score on the biophysical so good news there.

You can see the fleshy part of the face filling out more and more.

Baby still has hair!