Crazy 3 Days, But Good News All Around

This weekend was a "long" weekend in more than one sense at our house. Aside from waiting for Tuesday to come around to find out Baby D's status, my 2 1/2 day weekend got extended by two days thanks to a nasty flu that provided a trial run to the hospital.

Sunday, we were supposed to do Christmas with Mom and Larry but we ended up in the ER - assuming I'd just get some fluids and do a quick BD check to make sure her fluids were good to go as well. But after replenishing fluids and running a few tests, I was checked in until Tuesday morning. Everything was looking good with BD, but my platelets dropped dramatically and they found protein in my urine (lovely, I know). With those two issues, the doctor felt I needed observation and BD may be making an immediate arrival should things not improve.

Fortunately, on Monday afternoon the platelet level was higher - to the point where I could get an epidural and/or other drugs should we need to deliver. After a 24-hour urine collection, the proteins had dimishised as well. Things are not totally "normal" per se at this point, but after a week's worth of steroids we will re-test and hope for better numbers. Either way, the doctor is considering inducing the first week of January since the platelets have been in such flux.

After having the baby monitored by several different people for the time I was hanging at at the hospital, I was feeling pretty confident that everything would go well at today's ultrasound. And I was right!!!! The perinatal lab determined that even though her stomach is a bit on the small side, her fluid levels are good and she is getting enough blood thourgh the cord and to her brain.

Basically, everything looks good from their perspective. She'll just be a little on the small side when she makes her arrival... the best news we'd heard in days!! Thank you everyone for praying for us and thinking of us over the weekend!

The only bad news is that in the spirit of Christmas and giving, I shared the wealth of the flu with my Mom, who spent Monday night in the ER in Springfield. Watch out for this stuff - it's nasty!

Update on Our Little Girl

We had our 36-week appointment earlier in the week, and subsequently Baby D's third ultrasound. Our doctor was on vacation so we met with one of the nurse practitioners, who noticed that BD's measurement hadn't changed like it should have since our last appointment a few weeks ago. Speculating that this was likely due to her being lower than last time, the nurse requested we get an ultrasound to be sure that everything was still on track.

Until this point, BD had been right on target to one cm smaller than what is considered "normal." I was a small baby and born early and Rog was an average-size baby and isn't the biggest guy in the world so the prospect of having a smallish baby isn't totally surprising. The ultrasound tech told us what she was measuring and the numbers, but didn't indicate that anything seemed out of the ordinary - and even estimated that BD is weighing in at 4 - 14 this week. Should anything need attention, our doctor would give us a call when she came back on Thursday.

This morning I got a phone call from the doc, who is concerned about the size of BD's stomach and scheduled us to see a perinatal specialist on Tuesday to get a better look and to check her blood pressure. She (the doc) seemed to think everything looked OK size-wise, but would feel better if the specialist checked it out to be sure. I asked what I should/should not be doing between now and Tuesday - which seems so far away. Since they really don't know what's going on, if anything, they've told me to continue what I'm doing but maybe eat more...difficult when I feel like I've been eating non-stop.

Everyone please keep your fingers crossed for us on Tuesday that she's just on the small side and nothing else.

Harry for the Holidays

Last weekend my mom paid us a visit for what in her mind was going to be a fairly low-key shower put on by my co-workers. Little did she know that after the shower, she would be about 20 rows back at the Harry Connick, Jr. holiday show at the Fox.

She absolutely LOVES Harry, so when we found out that he would be in town the day before her birthday it made coming up with a gift pretty simple! She was completely surprised when she opened her card with the tickets 20 rows back inside. And I must admit, it was a fantastic show - a good mix of Christmas music and some great jazz, including one of my favorite Mardi Gras songs that we actually played at our wedding reception.

We also got our pictures back that were taken with Rescued Racers. Even without the antlers, it was pretty obvious that Dream was less than pleased with Christmas card photos this year. If we could only read her mind in this one...

The Home Stretch

With one month to go prior to the big arrival, things are falling into place. With the exception of having a few issues locating the dresser that matches the crib, we've yet to run into any real problems. That's on the to do list for this weekend ... dresser shopping.

Once we get that and have a guy we know run some wiring for her ceiling fan, Baby D's nursery will pretty much finished. I'm still working on some artwork, my mom's working on window treatments and there should probably be some additonal decorating done. BUT it's just about good to go.

The crib and glider finishes don't match, but when you save 60% on the chair at 5 a.m. on Black Friday does it really matter??

The painting done in this room took much longer than either of us anticipated, but we're happy with the end result. Note to self - next come up with an idea that would use a stencil or something easier than free hand!

Shower

A few weeks ago, Heidi hosted the first and biggest of the baby showers. Baby D got lots of great loot, and miraculously we managed to squeeze it all into the Pathfinder. If there was one more pair of socks I don't think they would have fit!

Thank you to everyone, especially the ISU girls who hooked us up with our travel system. Rog and Dream had it put together by the time it took me to take a shower ... piece of cake!

Rather than posting a bunch of pictures of me opening stuff, I had to post this one of Heidi, Mom and I. When I saw it, that song from Sesame Street or whatever about one of the things not being like the others popped into my mind. Maybe I was wrong all along telling Heidi she was adopted :).

Baby D's nursery will hopefully earn its seal of substantial completion this weekend. After he put together the travel system, Rog headed to work on her crib. And this is the only picture I got because my batteries died - of course!

Whoa, Baby!

I thought with five days off over the holiday weekend that I'd get a few blog posts knocked out. Wrong again!

BUT today is deserving of a post - much more important than getting more done on Baby D's room or showers or the BS first round of "snow" we had last night.

In the midst of that snow non-event, Heather M., who a few of you may remember from my sneaky post announcing BD's arrival was due five days before us (on Jan. 6), was en route to the hospital thinking she had some bad Taco Bell and a bit of a belly ache.

Less than three hours later, Addison Blair Corum was born. Albeit a bit early, baby and mom are both doing well. As soon as we have pictures I'll post. This one is from my shower last weekend - more on that later as well.

Needless to say, with all of these babies coming early the pace of things has escalated at the DeHart house substantially.