Well, now that developments are quite a bit more frequent, I'll be posting more often (and hopefully less long-winded as the previous post). Current update: last Wednesday, we went to the specialist for the echocardiogram and they confirmed previous guesses: HRHS with Tricuspid Atresia. This basically means that the lower right ventricle is not formed and they believe she is missing her pulmonary artery.
The whole thing sounds scary at first, but what they can do now a days is pretty amazing when it comes to the heart. Also as a positive, the left side of her heart (which is the main part of the heart that is supposed to pump for a lifetime of work) looks good and strong. Ana will have to undergo 3 surgeries in her first 2-3 years of life, but after that should be relatively normal and live a happy life. No contact sports for her, but she can still be active and have kids according to the doctor. Here's another good thing about the internet: I've found plenty of stories where kids have grown up after these procedures and lived/felt normal and even recently had healthy babies of their own. Those stories give me hope and peace for the future. :)
Another thing that has given me inner peace as well as strength is the Hypnobabies class that Tim & I started this past week. One week and I feel completely changed and empowered! I knew this was the right class for us...I had no idea how thoroughly it would work and how quickly, though. My instructor, Susan, is absolutely awesome! She even shared with us another instructor's story to help give us added strength and peace. Lindsay had a perfectly happy and peaceful home-birth, in water. Her daughter came out and Lindsay was even surprised she'd come out already. 10 days later, they found out that little June had a heart defect (similar, yet different) and needed to go in for treatment. She was able to go home to mom & dad 10 days later and is on medications and awaiting her surgery in a few months, but is otherwise able to interact with siblings and family (and even do baby yoga class with mom). It's a very inspiring story...on top of the other stories I've found.
On top of all the inspiration, my Hypnobabies course has me relatively completely relaxed and in control of my emotions & future interactions with doctors/hospital staff/people who want to undermine my determination for still a peaceful, happy birth. I came up with a birth plan last night (& questions for the staff), ran it by Tim who approved, and sent it to Caroline (the social worker coordinating my birth) along with Lindsay's story from the news to use as fodder against the hospitals who seem bound and determined to strap me to a bed and "deliver" this baby from me. Lesson 1: I don't need to "be delivered", thank you very much! I will birth my little precious baby when she decides it's time and how I see fit. As long as I have my wits about me, that's how it's gonna be. /nods/
It's kinda funny...at first, I wondered, "what possible lesson or positive experience could this development bring?" But at this point, I know it'll bring Tim, Ana, and I closer together as a tight little family; I know it's making me stronger and more stable as a mom - I'm learning very quickly how to stick up for what I say will and will not happen; and Tim and I are both learning deeper communication and relaxation skills which are useful even beyond this adventure. I'm positive that Ana will be just fine. I've seen images of her happy and giggling as a baby, smiling and beautiful as a child, dancing and spinning in the sunshine, and I've seen her older and refined - glowing and beautiful. I might be delusional to some (crazy hippie girl!), but I honestly believe these things will be true. It's just gonna be a little different of a road to get there than we expected. :-)
As an end-note, I have to say how amazing and awesome Tim is as a father, partner, husband, friend, and supporter. He's right there beside me in everything - he's researching on starting a fund for little Ana, setting up a fundraiser event to help support her treatments in the future, and supporting me by buffering with our friends/family and notification/updates to what's happening. I love him more completely every day and I wouldn't want anyone else by my side in this adventure. I'm so excited for our future with our happy little family!
On a second-happy-end-note: I can feel little Ana kicking externally and moving around like my belly is an amazing little jungle gym all this week! Tim also got to feel her little head at our midwife appointment on Friday...and got to draw my blood for glucose testing because the nurse couldn't get it with the tiny needles. That's bonding right there! lol!
<3!
Adventure-Progress
Monday, June 18, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
Descisions & Listening To Your Inner Baby...
Well, so the pool thing was fun - but it was a LOT colder than I expected, so it didn't last long. But! It was a fun little spontaneous bonding adventure for hubby & I...and then we snuggled really well during sleep and I'm pretty sure I managed a full night without punching him. :D I'm sure he's pretty happy about that as well.
Little Ana is SUPER active today. I'm enjoying my salads, fruits, veggies and she's having a little party in there. I need to keep reminding myself to stick to healthy this week; glucose testing on Friday! I'm hoping I pass the 1-hour and don't have to do the dreaded 3-hour. I generally eat rather healthy and don't much care for sweets or breads (the breads are a total pregnant anti-craving for me). I drink tons of water every day and limit my tea to 1 glass of green-jasmine-sweet-tea when I get to work. I'm thinking I'll be ok hopefully. My BP has been completely awesome the whole time (and has actually gotten better as I progress) and I still haven't gained more than 2lbs...contrary to how my belly looks. I swear little Ana is taking everything I eat, lol.
So my monthly midwife appointment is this Friday - the last meeting wasn't too awesome. It followed my 20wk sono which ended with the flighty dr saying she couldn't see all of the heart well enough to get a picture of all 4 chambers at once. She assured my mom and I that it was probably okay, but they were going to send me to Children's to get another look "just to be sure". The midwife called me quite concerned and said that the dr put on the report that something was probably wrong and that I needed a fetal-echo to get the full heart picture...and even labeled it as Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome. All based on an uncertainty. I was pissed. But, getting pissed doesn't change anything...and neither does worrying. So, I decided to not allow it to affect me (mostly). I'm working on my mind-over-matter bit and picturing Ana's little healthy heart beating away all happy and bouncy like. I've sent many prayers up to the big dude in the sky. We'll see what happens at the testing on Wed.
On top of that whole possibility-facing-mess, the midwife (who is decidedly NOT the one I want to use...which I realize I may not have a choice) launches into a story about how her grandson had HLHS and had the operations after being born and died. *BAM!* The End. No uplifting words, no encouragement...just "Oh this happened to me and he died." We didn't respond how she wanted us to...not quite sure how she expected us to react, but yeah...WHO DOES THAT???
So we skip over that part and move to the next topic: how I'm doing, what I'm eating, what vitamins I'm taking, and birthing classes. When I was in there 2x previously, both midwives were in the middle of labour-delivery and I met with a student-midwife who told me simply to look into birthing classes. She didn't give me specifics, so I went on my own search for different styles and classes. I came across Hypnobabies - which uses self-hypnosis as a relaxation technique. I'm used to using meditation and other hippie-friendly things (diet change, sleep, natural remedies, etc) and this seems like a complete fit for how I envision my birth going: peaceful, happy, and actually exciting!
Go back to most recent MW visit with Ms. Negative: "We use the Bradley method, you should do that class first and use hypnobabies next time." Complete disregard for my reasoning on why I thought it was a good fit for me. On the dietary things we went over, "juice is full of sugar, you should get your vitamin C from supplements." Again, completely ignoring me when I said that I use mostly organics and natural foods (less sugars/no added-sugar) and that I have 1 glass of juice a day...the rest is all real happy fruits. I understand that I can take vitamin supplements and that I need to make sure I'm getting the right amounts, but I also believe that if you eat healthy, the need for supplements is negated. I've never eaten so healthy in my life! My cravings are all fruits/veggies lately. I eat a salad a day at least. Hubby and I both left that appointment feeling less than happy with her...but fortunately, we both have an awesome need to support each other and we collectively decided to disregard her attitude as a single instance for right now and reassess after the heart exam this Wed.
So, now I'm in preparation mode for the test on Wed and the MW appointment on Friday...I haven't started taking the extra vitamin C (btw, my multi-vitamin I am taking has 100% in it already), or the pro-biotic (which I do want to start taking - but figure if I start taking it that day, I can say "yes, I'm taking it"), and I haven't signed up for any birthing classes as of yet. The whole experience last month with her made me sink back into grrrr-panic-NO! mode...which I know isn't productive or good for the baby. I know I need to take classes and be prepared or natural will just not be any fun...so I did more research today. Thank God for the interwebs!
When I started my research today, I was of the mindset of: "well, she does have years of experience and I should follow what she says." I started looking into The Bradley Method and found no real concrete description of what it consisted of really...until I found the instructor pages which listed the curriculum. 12 weeks of classes (vs. 6 wks with the Hypnobabies), and no emphasis on techniques/relaxation practices other than weekly points of focus. Part of the whole Hypnobabies concept that strikes me as "right" is that you're given CDs to listen to where you have to devote 45 min daily to practicing with and relaxing. To me, this isn't simply a once-needed class but something that can be (should be) adapted to every-day life to make it more tranquil overall.
I still wasn't quite convinced in switching back to my original class tho - the one instructor I had contacted took 3 weeks to respond to me and didn't pay attention to the information I was asking for - it took me 3x to get the cost of the course from her. I get easily turned off by people who don't pay attention after multiple attempts. So, I looked further to see if there were any other instructors, and I found another Hypnobabies instructor local to me who had MUCH more information on her site than the one I first contacted. I emailed Susan and she responded relatively immediately on her way back from NY even!! I've always known I'm an intuition kind of gal - and I believe in signs...a quick-response time vs. 3 wks is a pretty good sign of dependability to me - and a multitude of information available is even more reassuring.
I felt good about finding the right instructor, but how to comfortably counter the midwife on my decision was a different matter. More interweb-research!! I found this really awesome board from my google of Bradley Method vs. Hypnobabies and have MUCH thanks to the poster "Sudonk" who, I think, compared the methods quite concisely and informatively. In trying to decide which method to go with, I was worried that Hypnobabies might lack some of the information from Bradley Method...but after reading the posts in that entry (and others following), I feel like it would be an even better choice especially given that Hypnobabies was created by a previous-Bradley-instructor. The main difference being that TBM treats birthing as a painful experience that moms need to deal with and learn how to manage; whereas HB treats it as a peaceful experience that you can attain through knowing your body and how to guide the brain/body into a positive natural flow of birth.
What I've learned today: trust my instincts, do the research to back it up, go back to midwives prepared to say "No, this is my birth, I wanna try this way." and see what they say. :) I told Tim about my research and he's with me 100% of the way - it's such an awesome thing to have such a solid, positive, cheerful, and equally-obstinate husband and partner. I loves him to PIECES!!!! <3! I'm focusing on lesson 1 of the Hypnobabies ideals: picture the happy birth and how it should be - and applying it to my 2 appointments this week. I'm picturing a happy healthy heart in my happy little baby, and I'm picturing a happy MW visit with my favoured midwife where everything goes happy and how I want it to be. :D
Little Ana is SUPER active today. I'm enjoying my salads, fruits, veggies and she's having a little party in there. I need to keep reminding myself to stick to healthy this week; glucose testing on Friday! I'm hoping I pass the 1-hour and don't have to do the dreaded 3-hour. I generally eat rather healthy and don't much care for sweets or breads (the breads are a total pregnant anti-craving for me). I drink tons of water every day and limit my tea to 1 glass of green-jasmine-sweet-tea when I get to work. I'm thinking I'll be ok hopefully. My BP has been completely awesome the whole time (and has actually gotten better as I progress) and I still haven't gained more than 2lbs...contrary to how my belly looks. I swear little Ana is taking everything I eat, lol.
So my monthly midwife appointment is this Friday - the last meeting wasn't too awesome. It followed my 20wk sono which ended with the flighty dr saying she couldn't see all of the heart well enough to get a picture of all 4 chambers at once. She assured my mom and I that it was probably okay, but they were going to send me to Children's to get another look "just to be sure". The midwife called me quite concerned and said that the dr put on the report that something was probably wrong and that I needed a fetal-echo to get the full heart picture...and even labeled it as Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome. All based on an uncertainty. I was pissed. But, getting pissed doesn't change anything...and neither does worrying. So, I decided to not allow it to affect me (mostly). I'm working on my mind-over-matter bit and picturing Ana's little healthy heart beating away all happy and bouncy like. I've sent many prayers up to the big dude in the sky. We'll see what happens at the testing on Wed.
On top of that whole possibility-facing-mess, the midwife (who is decidedly NOT the one I want to use...which I realize I may not have a choice) launches into a story about how her grandson had HLHS and had the operations after being born and died. *BAM!* The End. No uplifting words, no encouragement...just "Oh this happened to me and he died." We didn't respond how she wanted us to...not quite sure how she expected us to react, but yeah...WHO DOES THAT???
So we skip over that part and move to the next topic: how I'm doing, what I'm eating, what vitamins I'm taking, and birthing classes. When I was in there 2x previously, both midwives were in the middle of labour-delivery and I met with a student-midwife who told me simply to look into birthing classes. She didn't give me specifics, so I went on my own search for different styles and classes. I came across Hypnobabies - which uses self-hypnosis as a relaxation technique. I'm used to using meditation and other hippie-friendly things (diet change, sleep, natural remedies, etc) and this seems like a complete fit for how I envision my birth going: peaceful, happy, and actually exciting!
Go back to most recent MW visit with Ms. Negative: "We use the Bradley method, you should do that class first and use hypnobabies next time." Complete disregard for my reasoning on why I thought it was a good fit for me. On the dietary things we went over, "juice is full of sugar, you should get your vitamin C from supplements." Again, completely ignoring me when I said that I use mostly organics and natural foods (less sugars/no added-sugar) and that I have 1 glass of juice a day...the rest is all real happy fruits. I understand that I can take vitamin supplements and that I need to make sure I'm getting the right amounts, but I also believe that if you eat healthy, the need for supplements is negated. I've never eaten so healthy in my life! My cravings are all fruits/veggies lately. I eat a salad a day at least. Hubby and I both left that appointment feeling less than happy with her...but fortunately, we both have an awesome need to support each other and we collectively decided to disregard her attitude as a single instance for right now and reassess after the heart exam this Wed.
So, now I'm in preparation mode for the test on Wed and the MW appointment on Friday...I haven't started taking the extra vitamin C (btw, my multi-vitamin I am taking has 100% in it already), or the pro-biotic (which I do want to start taking - but figure if I start taking it that day, I can say "yes, I'm taking it"), and I haven't signed up for any birthing classes as of yet. The whole experience last month with her made me sink back into grrrr-panic-NO! mode...which I know isn't productive or good for the baby. I know I need to take classes and be prepared or natural will just not be any fun...so I did more research today. Thank God for the interwebs!
When I started my research today, I was of the mindset of: "well, she does have years of experience and I should follow what she says." I started looking into The Bradley Method and found no real concrete description of what it consisted of really...until I found the instructor pages which listed the curriculum. 12 weeks of classes (vs. 6 wks with the Hypnobabies), and no emphasis on techniques/relaxation practices other than weekly points of focus. Part of the whole Hypnobabies concept that strikes me as "right" is that you're given CDs to listen to where you have to devote 45 min daily to practicing with and relaxing. To me, this isn't simply a once-needed class but something that can be (should be) adapted to every-day life to make it more tranquil overall.
I still wasn't quite convinced in switching back to my original class tho - the one instructor I had contacted took 3 weeks to respond to me and didn't pay attention to the information I was asking for - it took me 3x to get the cost of the course from her. I get easily turned off by people who don't pay attention after multiple attempts. So, I looked further to see if there were any other instructors, and I found another Hypnobabies instructor local to me who had MUCH more information on her site than the one I first contacted. I emailed Susan and she responded relatively immediately on her way back from NY even!! I've always known I'm an intuition kind of gal - and I believe in signs...a quick-response time vs. 3 wks is a pretty good sign of dependability to me - and a multitude of information available is even more reassuring.
I felt good about finding the right instructor, but how to comfortably counter the midwife on my decision was a different matter. More interweb-research!! I found this really awesome board from my google of Bradley Method vs. Hypnobabies and have MUCH thanks to the poster "Sudonk" who, I think, compared the methods quite concisely and informatively. In trying to decide which method to go with, I was worried that Hypnobabies might lack some of the information from Bradley Method...but after reading the posts in that entry (and others following), I feel like it would be an even better choice especially given that Hypnobabies was created by a previous-Bradley-instructor. The main difference being that TBM treats birthing as a painful experience that moms need to deal with and learn how to manage; whereas HB treats it as a peaceful experience that you can attain through knowing your body and how to guide the brain/body into a positive natural flow of birth.
What I've learned today: trust my instincts, do the research to back it up, go back to midwives prepared to say "No, this is my birth, I wanna try this way." and see what they say. :) I told Tim about my research and he's with me 100% of the way - it's such an awesome thing to have such a solid, positive, cheerful, and equally-obstinate husband and partner. I loves him to PIECES!!!! <3! I'm focusing on lesson 1 of the Hypnobabies ideals: picture the happy birth and how it should be - and applying it to my 2 appointments this week. I'm picturing a happy healthy heart in my happy little baby, and I'm picturing a happy MW visit with my favoured midwife where everything goes happy and how I want it to be. :D
Sunday, June 10, 2012
25 weeks!!
Ok, I'm really REALLY bad at this updating thing...once a month...hopefully I'll have more to update now that I'm 1 week away from my third trimester!! :D I'm SUPER excited! So many changes in the past week or so even.
The bump is definitely there...and prohibitive lol. I keep forgetting I can't bend over a sink or climb over the bed and reach something on the other side of the room like I'd normally do. There's definitely a baby there now.
My energy levels are duplicitous: While I have a TON more energy (happy bubbly glowing energy!) since I don't feel like yacking every day as I did through the first 19 weeks, I also have less stamina when it comes to that energy. If I don't sleep good, I wake up tired....juice and healthy fruits and veggies help a lot. I have to work til 11pm and little Izzy (the monster-dog) wakes me up every day at 930am - so lasting until 11pm can get hard. Tonight, I'm making a point to go back home with Tim & lay in the recently-erected kiddie pool tho...I think relaxing before bed might help the quality of sleep. He also mentioned last night that standing in the cool water might help my body temp to cool down before bed. I have the most horrible time right now getting cold enough to sleep. The thermostat says 73, my stuffy head and lungs say 92.
Cravings still aren't all that weird; I've more or less settled into a really good pattern of enjoying a wheat english muffin with PB&Strawberry Jam for breakfast (with side of cantaloupe), some kind of veggie/salad/something for lunch with more fruit for snacks, and whatever I feel like for dinner (usually something basic and healthy...or pizza once in a while...I just can't do the bread so often - it doesn't feel good to my brain which is craving nutrients).
Movement: She's been moving around a LOT more...I felt external kicks on 3 different days...and yesterday I was sitting outside, felt a pressure/pinch in my rib...felt it with my hand, and the pressure was still there when I pulled my hand away...I felt it again and could feel the hard shape of a foot or hand...I'm assuming it was a foot; it felt bigger than a hand. :D COOLEST.THING.EVER!
Wednesday is our little Ana's heart exam. I'm praying everything turns out completely fine and normal. Once that's cleared (as it hopefully will be), I'll be able to be completely excited about baby and the fun and joy of it all. This whole baby thing still doesn't feel completely real yet on some days. I have days where I still just feel blah and bloated and fluffier than normal rather than having some living little thing inside of me. Playing with Tim's grandbaby, Maddie, helped make it much more of a reality. I'm SO EXCITED!!! I can't wait to meet our little Ana Leigh!!! :D
The bump is definitely there...and prohibitive lol. I keep forgetting I can't bend over a sink or climb over the bed and reach something on the other side of the room like I'd normally do. There's definitely a baby there now.
My energy levels are duplicitous: While I have a TON more energy (happy bubbly glowing energy!) since I don't feel like yacking every day as I did through the first 19 weeks, I also have less stamina when it comes to that energy. If I don't sleep good, I wake up tired....juice and healthy fruits and veggies help a lot. I have to work til 11pm and little Izzy (the monster-dog) wakes me up every day at 930am - so lasting until 11pm can get hard. Tonight, I'm making a point to go back home with Tim & lay in the recently-erected kiddie pool tho...I think relaxing before bed might help the quality of sleep. He also mentioned last night that standing in the cool water might help my body temp to cool down before bed. I have the most horrible time right now getting cold enough to sleep. The thermostat says 73, my stuffy head and lungs say 92.
Cravings still aren't all that weird; I've more or less settled into a really good pattern of enjoying a wheat english muffin with PB&Strawberry Jam for breakfast (with side of cantaloupe), some kind of veggie/salad/something for lunch with more fruit for snacks, and whatever I feel like for dinner (usually something basic and healthy...or pizza once in a while...I just can't do the bread so often - it doesn't feel good to my brain which is craving nutrients).
Movement: She's been moving around a LOT more...I felt external kicks on 3 different days...and yesterday I was sitting outside, felt a pressure/pinch in my rib...felt it with my hand, and the pressure was still there when I pulled my hand away...I felt it again and could feel the hard shape of a foot or hand...I'm assuming it was a foot; it felt bigger than a hand. :D COOLEST.THING.EVER!
Wednesday is our little Ana's heart exam. I'm praying everything turns out completely fine and normal. Once that's cleared (as it hopefully will be), I'll be able to be completely excited about baby and the fun and joy of it all. This whole baby thing still doesn't feel completely real yet on some days. I have days where I still just feel blah and bloated and fluffier than normal rather than having some living little thing inside of me. Playing with Tim's grandbaby, Maddie, helped make it much more of a reality. I'm SO EXCITED!!! I can't wait to meet our little Ana Leigh!!! :D
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