25 Weeks & 5 Days: Bed Rest Day 40, & Emoree's birthday!

This past week has not felt like bed rest at all, thankfully! I've been busy and had no alone time, which is why I haven't posted in 10 days :-P We went to the ocean, celebrated Emoree's birthday, I had quite a few appointments, & Emoree's 4th birthday party!! So I have alot to say, and I hope I remember it all!!

I like things in chronological order, so that is how I am going to start :) Saturday, May 26th we went to Ocean City, MD!! Emoree has been asking for months to go, and this trip was a suprise quick one night trip. I thought when we drove over the drawbridge into the city she would know where she was, but she didn't. I finally told her and she was so excited!!!!

Just before we got into Ocean City we went to the outlet stores, namely Children's Place. I love that store! I spent $27 and bought Emoree 2 shirts and a dress, and Anya 4 or 5 items. I really can't do much since I am restricted to bed rest, so the only thing we really did Saturday afternoon was go out to dinner. We went to Dead Freddies, which is pretty awesome! Emoree never even sat at the table.. she was too busy playing on their huge pirate ship!

Sunday morning we went out to breakfast, then went back to the place we were staying and packed up. Then we went to the boardwalk, the highlight of my trip because I finally got my Thrasher's fries!!!!!! They were SOO good and I smothered them in apple cider vinegar. Yum! They also have the best lemonade too :) While I ate my fries, I sat on a bench and Emoree played in a castle on the sand for nearly an hour! We went to Candy Kitchen because I wanted peanut butter and chocolate fudge, and got Emoree a lollipop and ice cream. Then we headed home.

I also want to throw in my belly pic here, at 24 weeks & 4 days since I had my mom take a picture of me in the sand :)

On Tuesday, May 29th, I had an appointment and met with the pediatric cardiac surgeon again. He is pretty awesome, and just wanted to make sure I knew what to expect after Anya is born through the first surgery and between surgery #1 & #2. I also had an appointment to tour the NICU where Anya will spend her first few weeks! It is not as impressive as GBMC's NICU where I had Emoree, but UMMC cares for these heart babies, so that is where she needs to be! There are 3 seperate rooms where the babies are, and each room is based on what level of care they need. They also explained to me that I will most likely not get to hold her right after she is born, but I expected that. They need to stabilize her and start her on prostaglandin IVs to keep her fetal shunts open until surgery. Once they clean her up in the delivery room, they will show her to me to say hi real quick before taking her to the NICU. They request no visitors to the NICU for the first 1.5 hours, because that is when they are working on stabilizing her and getting her hooked up to everything. Grandparents (my mom and dad) and I are really the only ones that are going to see her while she is in the NICU, but I will post many pictures and updates. I may take Emoree to see her, it depends on how Anya is doing.

On Wednesday, May 30th, Emoree turned 4 years old :) Hard to believe my little 3lb 15oz & 17" baby 4 years ago has grown up to be this incredible 47lbs & 43"!!!

For her birthday, first Grandaddy took her to Denny's for breakfast, then we went to the B&O Railroad Museum. They had many trains to see, and we also got to ride one! They have 1 mile of track that they do tour rides on in a commuter train. They also had a little train and carousel that Emoree liked too.

Next we took her to Chuck E Cheese for a late lunch. She loves the rides and photo booths there :)

That night we had cake and presents with just family. I got her a Dora balloon too, because she requested previously that she HAD to have balloons on her birthday!

On Thursday, May 31st, I had two appointments as well. The first was with pediatric cardiology for a fetal echo. I was there for an hour and everything checked out okay, Anya is growing appropriately and there is no change to her heart. The second appointment was just for my cervix check. The tech had a hard time measuring my cervix :-P as they usually do. She couldn't get an accurate measurement, and I saw that the numbers she was getting were all over the place. She told me I have a 'dynamic cervix', which means it is constantly changing. They decided that my cervix is still over 2.0cm, and it could be anywhere from 2.0cm-2.7cm. Anya wasn't cooperating for her photo shoot... Her face picture is distorted by how low she has her head in my uterus, and the 2nd picture shows part of her foot. They did tell me she weighs approximately 1 lb 11 oz now!!! She is growing!

Sunday, June 3rd was Emoree's birthday party!!! We had such a good time. She had a few friends her age that she loved playing with too, we had a pinata with LOTS of candy, and she got LOTS of presents too!!!

And of course, Emoree & Mommy :) I am 25 weeks & 4 days here (taken yesterday). Yes, I wear this dress alot.... it is my favorite and only 1 of 2 maternity dresses I own.

This morning I had my first appointment with my new OB. I am so glad I like her! She is very thorough too. My BP today was 131/87 (I'm recording it, since I actually remember it, lol). She went over my pregnancy history and medical history. Due to my unicornuate uterus, she is sending me for a renal ultrasound to check my kidney function, since having half of a uterus can cause kidney issues (meaning, they don't know if my left kidney is functional, and she would like to know since I have a family history of kidney problems). She also sent me for bloodwork (they took 7 vials!) To recheck basically everything, including my thyroid function (since I am hypothyroid and on meds for it). We also talked about the failed 1hr glucose test I had... and I told her I don't want to do the 3 hour test. She said my other option is to test my blood sugar daily, which I agreed to so she gave me a script for a glucometer. She also took me off of my metformin, since I was taking it for PCOS and she said it doesn't do much help after the first trimester of pregnancy. Which means yay, no more PM pills for me!! I only have AM prenatal vitamin and thyroid medicine :)

The highlight of my appointment this morning is that my new OB is in total support of a VBAC!!!!!! I am SOO EXCITED! Note to Anya: you BETTER stay head down or you are punished! I found out only last month that my uterine scar is NOT vertical, but that it is transverse! She explained the risks, and said there are more risks involved with a repeat c-section then with a VBAC w/ previous low transverse uterine scar, which is why she supports it. She said she was going to check over my old surgical notes from my old OB to make sure that due to my unicornuate uterus they didn't "extend" my incision into the upper part of the uterus, but as long as it is a  low transverse scar, I go into labor on my own (which REALLY shouldn't be a problem for me!), and Anya stays head down and doesn't show signs of stress during labor, that I shouldn't have a problem with a VBAC! This made my day and week!!

One side note... my doctors have decided that my due date is September 8th rather than the 12th... I don't know where they came up with this, but I am not changing MY dates, since I know what day my insemination was!!!! So... today is 100 days until my due date!!!

25 Weeks: 192.4 lbs (+3.8 lbs)