Fifteen Weeks!

I'm not sure what's more surprising, how big my bump is already, or that my boobs actually have gotten bigger. Didn't think it was possible. lol

Why I Chose a Certified Nurse Midwife

It seems like when you're pregnant everyone wants to know who your OB is. When I respond with, "I actually don't go to an OB, I go to a group of Nurse Midwives," I get a varied range of responses- some positive, some negative- but all asking me why. I usually give some in-a-nutshell answer about how they are supportive of natural birth and I like their philosophy on pregnancy. But when it comes down to it, I put a lot of thought into this decision. I'm not against OB's at all. I may not be an L&D nurse, but I saw some OB's do some pretty amazing things during my clinicals. So I hope this doesn't come across as me being anti-OB, because I'm not. They're just not for me.

I've researched this a lot. And I studied it extensively in an elective Advanced Reproduction class I had a few years ago. But in an effort not to be too horribly wordy, I won't give you the whole back story to how I came to my decision. Just the whys of my decision.

1. OB's approach pregnancy as a condition, or a disease process, and labor and delivery as an emergency that should be controlled. Midwives approach pregnancy as a natural process, as do they labor and delivery. They are there to keep me and my baby safe, and to help ME deliver my baby. I once heard a midwife say she doesn't deliver babies, mothers deliver babies. She's there to catch them. Oh how I love that!

2. I'm an RN. I know there are some truly amazing nurses who have fantastic clinical skills, wonderful bedside skills, and are very good at what they do. I also know there are some nurses who are lazy, who make some pretty bad calls, or are maybe just a little inexperienced. When you deliver in a hospital, you don't exactly get to choose who is on shift that day. And when you deliver with an OB, you'll be spending a WHOLE lot more time with your nurse than you will with your doctor. Which can be fine if your nurse is awesome. But what if you have the inexperienced nurse? Or the lazy nurse? Or the nurse who makes bad calls? And she's the one deciding whether or not to call the doctor to tell them somethings not going right with your labor. No thank you. Midwives don't just stay at the office seeing other patients while you're dilating and contracting away in the hospital. They're there with you. And I feel so much safer knowing that.

3. I really want to deliver this baby naturally. I know I can do it, I'm just going to need to prepare myself, and I'm going to need support. One of my midwives already talked to me about how if I choose to deliver this baby without drugs, they will be there supporting me 100%. But if I change my mind and want an epidural, they'll support me completely in that as well. It's my decision.

4. I use to see an OB. I saw an OB through most of our "trying to have a baby" years. Every appointment was the same. Me bringing in my ovulation charts which showed a whole lot of nothing, them telling me my charts were useless but to keep doing them because they needed them for documentation purposes, and then ultimately them suggesting the same blood test to see if I ovulated, which I never did. They never suggested anything after that. Just more of the same. And they never, ever listened to me. When I'd finally had enough, I changed to midwives. Roberta diagnosed me with PCOS at our first visit and started treating it that day. She never made me do another single ovulation chart because they really were useless, and why on earth would she make me do something useless? :) Midwives actually LISTEN to me! I love it!

5. This one is for my dad, because I know he's concerned about my not having a "doctor." Because the midwife will be there with me the whole time, she'll catch anything that's going wrong sooner than the nurse who is in and out checking on me will. If it's something she can take care of, she will. If it's not, she'll call one of the OB's at the office and they'll come in and do it. For example, if I need a C-Section, one of the OB's at the same office where I see the midwives will do the C-Section, with my midwife assisting. Even if I end up going to surgery, she stays with me. Love that! And when it comes right down to it, the nurse midwives I've chosen have been educated in some of the very best schools in the country, and just as (if not more) importantly, have a lot of experience.

Anyway, I have a lot of reasons for why I chose Nurse Midwives for me and our baby. Those are just the biggies :) I hope I didn't bore or offend anyone! And believe it or not, I really did try not to be too wordy. haha

Silly Anxiety

When we found out I was pregnant again, I was so scared. Everything we'd just been through was still so fresh in my mind. Even though I'm a nurse, and I know exactly what the answers to most of my questions are, I have to ask them anyway. And I know what questions to ask, so I've had A LOT of questions. Silly, but whatever.

My midwives have been truley amazing. After we'd established that there was indeed a baby with a wonderful little hearbeat in there, they told me they understood how anxious I was, and if I ever had a day where I was particularly nervous, to go ahead and just come on in and we'll listen to fetal heart tones for a minute. Being me, I've had a lot of anxious days. But I'd never taken them up on their offer. Until today.

I get scared working on the nursery or buying baby things. I know how dumb that sounds, but it's still hard to pick up where I left off on my previous baby projects. And I've been working on transforming our horribly messy office into a nursery a lot the last few days. And today I guess I just needed a little reassurance. Even though I'm 14 weeks. So I went in.

Can I just say how much I love my midwives? All of them. They are all so wonderful. Sure enough that beautiful little heartbeat is there and I feel like I can breathe again. I kept appologizing for coming in for something so non-urgent, and she said, "Oh hun, don't appologize. It's no problem at all. Feel free to come in every day if you want to." Making the decision to switch from the OB who never listened to anything I said, to the midwives who are willing to squeeze me in to their busy schedule at a second's notice just so I can listen to my baby's heartbeat was one of the best decisions I've made.

First Trimester

Our first 13 weeks with this little one have been an adventure. The day after I found out I was pregnant I was getting my blood drawn, then getting in drawn again and again and again. We wanted to make sure my HcG levels were rising appropriately, which would mean this pregnancy was viable. And they were! But my progesterone levels were low, so I started taking oral progesterone to support the baby until the placenta was mature enough to take over on its own. We scheduled an ultrasound because we had no idea when I'd gotten pregnant and how far along I was. It was at 6 weeks when Robbie and I were able to see our baby and hear his or her heartbeat for the very first time. Words cannot describe that feeling. We had to stop a few minutes into the ultrasound because I started crying and couldn't keep my stomach still.


Our baby's very first photo!

At about 8 weeks as I was going to bed one night, I started bleeding. A LOT. Similar to my miscarriage kind of bleeding. Our hearts just sunk. How could this happen? We'd heard our baby's heartbeat! Once a heartbeat is determined there's a 95% chance of a successful pregnancy. 95%! What was happening? I called my midwife on call and she said if I was miscarrying there wouldn't be anything we could do to stop it. She also said that it would probably happen that night, and if it didn't to come on in in the morning and we'd do another ultrasound to see what was going on. Thankfully, it didn't happen. But that didn't change how completely terrified I was for that ultrasound. But our baby was still there! Again, words cannot express. But still, I was bleeding. The cause of the bleeding was found to be a Subchorionic Hemorrhage. Not a pretty term. A piece of our baby's brand new placenta had detached, and I was just bleeding out through it. One of two things would happen. I would either have a miscarriage, or it would reattach. I was put on bed-rest for 1 week to see if that would help. Thank heaven, it did :) I bled for a few weeks, but I haven't had any more bleeding since about 10ish weeks. Here's our baby during that ultrasound!

That was definitely the most eventful part of our first trimester! Here's a few other highlights:

-Foods I Couldn't Get Enough Of: hamburger, steak, green vegetables (so weird), and yellow squash (totally random!)

-Foods I Couldn't Stand: Harvest Cheddar SunChips (so weird, I usually love those!), yogurt (although I did my best to eat it anyway)

-How much weight I gained: 5 lbs

-When I started showing: about 10.5 weeks

-Pregnancy symptoms: Peeing around the clock, hungry even after I just finished eating, boobs hurt like crazy, exhausted constantly, some others that no one wants to know about, some mild nausea, and at about 12 weeks my hips started hurting- I swear I can actually feel them moving.

How I'm feeling now: Relieved that the first trimester is over and the risk of a miscarriage is now so low; EXCITED!

Big Surprise

Okay so in my last post I warned you that I was going to be doing a lot of pregnancy posts because I don't want to forget a single thing about everything that has happened, and is happening. But since I'm already 14 weeks, I'm going to do a few catch up posts. Hope I'm not too boring!
Finding out I was pregnant was absolutely shocking. Thrilling, but shocking. Mostly because I have PCOS and was on fertility drugs when I got pregnant the first time... but that pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage about 5 weeks before. I wasn't on any medications this time. I honestly didn't thnk I was even able to get pregnant without drugs. And we were still waiting for me to have a few cycles so my body could recooperate. So really, when I say shocked... I mean COMPLETELY shocked. I decided to take a pregnancy test because I was having some similar symptoms to my first pregnancy. But I reallly wasn't expecting anything. When those two lines turned pink (VERY pink this time), my jaw actually dropped. I immediately ran out to the kitchen where Robbie was, but I couldn't even tell him. I couldn't say the words "I'm pregnant." I was still adjusting to the fact that I wasn't pregnant. I just looked at him with what I'm sure was a look of surprise/excitement/fear/confusion, and handed him the stick. I saw him look at it, realize what it meant, and then he looked up at me with that same look of surprise/excitement/fear/confusion. I remember his eyes got HUGE. And I remember he hugged me. But other than that, I just remember hyperventilating. I was so happy, but at the same time I was so scared to be happy. We freaked out together for awhile, and then I drove straight to my parents house. I walked in, said hello, and handed my mom the stick. I still couldn't even say the words "I'm pregnant." My parents were very excited for us, but I think they were just as surprised as I was. I wish we'd been able to tell Robbie's family in person, but we had just gotten home from visiting them and couldn't make another trip yet. I called my midwives' office the next morning and went in to start blood tests and verify that this was a viable pregnancy that day. But thats all for another post.

We're Having a Baby!

I've been wanting to do this post for what feels like forever. And I know most of the people who read my blog probably already know this... but I'M PREGNANT!! I'll be 14 weeks tomorrow, and I'm due October 5th (I'm so sorry Em... I guess this baby just wants to have the same birthday as their awesome Aunt Emily!)
I wish I could explain how excited we are about this! And this feeling of how I just want to remember every little thing about this pregnancy. I want to remember the look on Robbie's face when I showed him that pee stick, the food cravings, the foods I can't even tolerate, the aches and pains, the pure craziness that this first trimester was, and everything else.
I told Robbie I wanted to start a second blog as a way of kind of documenting this pregnancy, and he thought I was absolutely nuts. But I'm the world's worst journaler. I hate it. I really do. But for some reason I really like blogging, even though it's not all that different. So please don't hate me, but get ready for a lot of random pregnancy posts. It won't be the only thing I post about, but it might be a lot of it for the next while. And really, I'm a pretty open person. I hope I don't freak anyone out. ha ha.

Finally!

I am officially an RN! It feels so weird, and so good!