Gastroschisis

 This is a picture of baby and her abdominal wall defect, aka: gastroschisis. Her abdomen is the circular object to the right and her defect (comprised of mostly small intestines and some large intestine) is to the left.

OB visit

Monday was another round of doctors appointments in Portland. I had three and Hank had one. We scheduled all of our appointments into one day and then saw Nistassa for dinner that evening.

First off, just catching everyone up to speed, the amnio results came back perfect… and it was confirmed again that she is really a girl 

Our day began at 4:15 when we woke up– eek, thats early! We left the house at about 5:30am and headed to Portland, arriving right at 7:30

Our first appointment was scheduled for 8am. We had an ultrasound to check baby, measure her, look at her guts, etc. She weighed 15 oz. — just one ounce shy of a pound. She was very anti-social (again) and would not let anyone get a good look at her face. We got a really great picture of her arm, which measured a whopping 1 1/2 inches from elbow to shoulder, and good pictures of the rest of her body (excluding her face)

Next I saw my perinatologist (specialized OB doc). He said everything is right on track for where it should be. I go back again for another ultrasound and check up in 4 weeks. At that time I will also do my glucose screen to make sure I don’t have gestational diabetes — pray I don’t! He said that from 30 weeks on we will be getting monitored a lot closer because that is where growth and development can slow down. Again, he stressed being ready to come check in at 30 weeks for monitoring in case anything looks less than perfect. All in all it was a good appointment.

Next we had a fetal echocardiogram (detailed exam of baby’s heart). By that time she had waken up. She was kicking and wiggling like crazy and make the tech earn her money by chasing her around my uterus. At the end they did get all the pictures of her heart that they needed and were able to see it’s perfect! We even tried again to get a face picture, but she wasn’t cooperating, other than to kick the anti-social sonographer  ~good girl!

We made appointments to meet with the baby’s surgeon next time (Feb 28th) and also get a tour of the NICU, and labor and delivery section of the hospital.

We grabbed a quick snack and headed across town for Hank’s appointment (follow up on basketball foot injury). That all went well and it turns out his growth plate was just irritated from overuse! Wow, a whole day of good news!

We met Nistassa for dinner and then headed home! It was a long day that started early and ended around 8pm!

Party and more

Tonight Ron has duty. Hank is going to hang out with him for a bit while I go to the Coast Guard Christmas party-yes, Christmas Party. The first Christmas party was scheduled for December, but we ended up with a terrible wind and rain storm that knocked out power in the area for four days in some places. Guess what? No power = no party. So, tonight we are trying again, can’t let my ticket go to waste – and hopefully I will win something.

Dinner party should be fun right? Here is my dilemma… what to eat. Usually not a big deal, right… Ok, entree choices are salmon fillet or Turkey. These days pregnant Pam DOES NOT eat tukey. Chicken and turkey are really the only two things that seem to come right back up after going down…. that leaves salmon. Salmon isn’t a problem, but what are the chances that the caterer is serving farmed fish? — I don’t believe in fish farming… so I guess the options are salmon, or extra portions of salad and side dish. I don’t really care one way or the other, but it’s really funny how pregnancy can put an odd spin on things.

On another note, Monday is our next doctor appointment in Portland. We’ll be seeing one doc for an ultrasound, the perinatologist, and then getting the fetal echo. I’ll post pictures when we get home.