Fear

I have many fears with this pregnancy. But the one I want to blog about is my fear of another premature baby. Dr. Love has already stated that he would be happy if he could get me to 34 weeks. I would looooove to get to 36 weeks. I have 2 children that I wasn't able to hold right after birth. I wasn't able to nurse them. Nate had an extreme case of jaundice that required him to be under lights most of the time so that we could take him home so I only held him for a few minutes at a time multiple times through out the day. We were able to take him home one week after he was born. That was two days after I was discharged. I thought that was hard until Abbie. I learned what it was to be a parent of a preemie with her. Nate didn't feel like a preemie. I mean, there were other moms around me who had been with their babies for months and were still waiting to take their baby home when Nate was discharged. But I became that mom, the mom who watched other moms and babies go home when Abbie was born weeks before that baby was, but yet they were going home and I still couldn't hold my baby for more than 20 minutes a day. There were many sleepless nights because of anxiety. I consumed myself with thoughts of the NICU calling and giving me bad news. And during the day I would try and spend time with Nate before leaving on my one and a half hour journey to the NICU Abbie was at so that I could hold her for 20 minutes. Hopefully changing her diaper, taking her temperature, and maybe even feeding her through her o.g. tube. I called the NICU every morning to check on her. To see if the doctors said anything different from the day before, find out if she gained an ounce of weight... I had a routine of questions I always asked and before long the nurse would already answer my questions before I even asked them. *Has the doctor seen her yet? If so what did they say? How much did she weigh today? Did she have any spells (apnea)? Is she breathing room air or does she still need oxygen? Did the doctor say anything about when we can try to bottle feed?* I was able to hold her for as long as I wanted when she was 5 weeks old. That was one week before we took her home. Thankfully, we took her home without any special equipment and she weighed 4lbs .5oz at 6 weeks old.

Any NICU mom will tell you it's the hardest thing to have to leave your baby and go home. And to do it day after day, week after week is almost traumatizing. I remember resenting the mothers on the same floor I was on when I was still in the hospital. I would hear their babies cry and would get angry. I wanted my baby in my room. I wanted to console her when she cried. I wanted a nurse to bring her to my room instead of having to make a journey down the hall, take a left, go past the corridor to the elevators, go down 3 floors, take a right, then take the first left, go all the way down that hallway until you come to the only brown door with an intercom system. Buzz in and let them know you are the parents of Baby McKee. Wash your hands all the way up to your elbows with warm water and liquid soap and scrub them with the disposable scrub brushes provided to you above the sink for 3 minutes. Rinse and Dry. And then you can see your baby through a plastic window. And only touch her thru the doors provided on the incubator and don't touch her too softly as that will hurt the baby since their nerves aren't fully developed. Yes, don't rub, gently press your hand up to her back and hold it there.

Please Baby McKee #3... I plead, bake for as long as you need to.

Project

I love knitting projects and a friend of mine has given me one. She would like for me to make her 2 year old daughter a hat. I absolutely love the pattern. I'm going to post the link for it on here, because it truly is too cute.

http://www.petitepurls.com/Spring10/spring2010_pprecious.html

Why I Blog

I want to chronicle this pregnancy. There are so many things that happened when I was pregnant with Nate that I remember because he was first, that I don't remember with Abbie's pregnancy. I remember when I felt Nate first kick. I remember what we did after the ultrasound when we found out Nate was boy. I don't remember those things with Abbie. I don't remember what it felt like to ever feel her move inside. And although those things are trivial, it's important to me.
So far I haven't had any weird cravings per say. But I have craved things that I don't necessarily like. Milk is one. I'm not a huge fan, but yesterday I drank half a gallon by myself. Orange sherbert is good, but eating an entire gallon in a 3 day period is a bit much. I hate fish, and although it has made me throw up everything except my shoelaces everytime I eat it (and that's probably due to the fact that I don't own a pair of shoes that have laces), I crave it.

I feel the "quickening". It feels like a little rubber ball being bounced in my stomach. It's extreme when I hiccup though. I hate the hiccups with a passion, but I love the "bubbles".

I feel like the baby is a girl and I can't wait to find out since I was right about Nate being a boy and Abbie being a girl. Hopefully we will find out in about 4 weeks.

Deja Vu

I was rereading posts that I made back a little over a year ago... It made me sad. It made me cry. It made me think. On June 21,2009, we found out we were pregnant. But because of complications, my husband and I decided to end the pregnancy. The hardest thing I've ever had to do and something that I can't do again. With that being said... you can't imagine my shock when I found I was pregnant on June 18, 2010. This was not on purpose. This was very surprising to say the least. You could say that my husband's and my relationship wasn't the same after last August. Nonetheless... I am pregnant. Another shocking factor? I'm not sick. Not like I was. I had typical morning sickness, but nothing outside of morning sickness. I am currently 13 weeks pregnant and haven't experienced any sickness in over a week. *I sure hope I didn't jinx myself with that comment.* I've decided to see a different o.b. than I did with Baby Boo. But I actually only see my ob regularly. I have a perintalogist that monitors me bi-weekly if not weekly. I've seen him weekly for the past 3 weeks, but my next appointment was made for 2 weeks after the last one. YAY. I've had 4 ultrasounds... Needless to say that they are making sure that history doesn't repeat itself, so far it's working.

The baby is actually big. And perfect. I have experienced a lot of negativity from those who are supposed to support me. That's o.k. I actually expected it, but I've received a lot of support from people I didn't expect to. Especially my doctor who I will call Dr. Love. Because I do loooove him.  He has been excellent especially after finding out what kind of support system I have with 2 babies already. He was very patient when I had to bring Nate and Abbie to an ultrasound appointment due to the lack of support. He sat up 2 chairs next the bed so they could see me and then put a "tv" screen in their view so they could watch the baby. Loooooove him!

I can't tell you why God has blessed me with another child. I don't understand. AT ALL. But I'm very grateful and blessed.