Frustrations

Still here, still waiting. I'm 23 weeks and 1 day (woooo!) and it's officially 3 weeks since my water broke.

We are fighting hard. The neonatologist told us the absolute earliest they would intervene and try to save our baby is if (a) they are 23.5 weeks or more when born, and (b) they weigh 500g or more.

So we're almost there with the 23.5 week threshold (although I'd REALLY prefer for this baby not to be born before 28 weeks, but definitely NOT in October!!).

Sadly, I have no idea how much this baby weighs, so that's a bit of a wild card. Even though the "weekly development" calendar at BabyCenter says this baby weighs over a pound (which is GOOD), I know it really can vary so much at this stage. So, I'm just trying to eat lots of fruit and sweet things along with my healthy food, because I know that babies of diabetic tend to be a little bigger because of the increased blood sugars. Nobody coached me on this, it is just something I came up with on my own. I just hope I don't make myself diabetic from doing this...

Despite fighting hard and trying to keep positive, it has not been easy. Over the past week, I have been in tears numerous times. Mostly because I feel like the perinatology (high-risk) clinic at our local hospital has been giving me the run around (they were!), which completely frustrated me. And a decrease of movement by the babe over the Thanksgiving long weekend really had me worried too.

Luckily, I have found a lifeline. There's a nurse practitioner ("NP") at the high-risk clinic who ended up getting in contact with me this past week and she's been AMAZING so far, even in such a short period of time. We talked for a long while, as I've been very frustrated dealing with all the different doctors and specialists. It seems like each has a differing opinion, and I'm not sure who to listen to. It seems like all I'm doing is spinning my wheels at appointments with subsequent doctors, who pooh-pooh the advice given by the previous one. And then no concrete plan of action can be made. Some are so harsh about our baby's chances at life, that they are very dismissive of any of our concerns and questions. The rage and helplessness I feel at times is unreal. The NP was able to clarify many of the discrepancies, give Mr. Legalosaur and I some really good information, and we're now much more comfortable that our concerns are being addressed.

The NP also asked me to come in on Thursday for a check-up just to assess the slow down in the baby's activity. Luckily, all seems fine, baby is just moving in a different way now than before. He/she was kicking the doppler wand, which is a good sign, and the NP even felt him/her kick from the outside. She said anytime we want to hear our baby's heartbeat or have any concern at all, just give her a call and drop by. Having this lifeline is such a relief, you have no idea - I am starting to realize more and more than my ob-gyn is complete rubbish.

Unfortunately, I did have some contractions on Wednesday night, starting around 9:30 pm and going until about 4:00 am. Just one strong one every half hour or so, enough to wake me from my sleep, and a constant low backache. It was very scary. They seem to have disappeared when I awoke on Thursday morning, which had us breathing one HUGE sigh of relief. Let's hope they stay away. We need to keep this baby baking MUCH longer!!

Finally, we have something to look forward to... I have an ultrasound and a fetal echo appointment scheduled at the perinatal (high-risk) clinic for October 28th. And we'll be having a nurse come to our house daily starting in my 24th week, to do vitals monitoring and a fetal non-stress test. So, finally, we won't just be sitting around and waiting anymore. We'll be getting some medical monitoring as well, which will help me put my mind at ease a little more.

So, we're back to playing the waiting game. I'm sorry if my thoughts in this post are jumbled, but I kindof feel like my life is all a jumble as well.