Still looking good! :)

Hi there! I had hoped to post this update earlier, but today (and really this past week) has just been one of those crazy times in life when everything seems to happen at once…

As some of you know we woke up on Sunday morning to discover that our entire basement was under about 3 inches of water (more in some areas and less in others). So much of our focus since has understandably been on getting the water out, preserving what we could of what was down there (most of our things are fine), cleaning up (this has been quite a project and it is ongoing) and working towards preventing such a disaster in the future. Thank you to everyone who has helped us in one way or another since our basement flooded.

Since then Sean, who just finished his antibiotic Monday morning to treat a bout with Scarlett Fever (which is really just strep throat with a rash), has come down with another fever and sore throat. My parents were gracious enough to come down here today to care for Sean and ultimately take him to the doctor, as our appointment for Baby Benson was a big one and we knew it would be challenging to reschedule all of the different components we had lined up.

Sean was given another strep test by his pediatrician and prescribed a different strain of antibiotic. The results of the strep test aren’t back yet, but his doctor told my parents that she would treat him the same way regardless based on his symptoms. Apparently about 10% of cases of strep are not fully treated/knocked out with the first round of antibiotics. Because Sean still had a fever late this morning, he won’t be going to school tomorrow and so I won’t be able to teach the “Yoga Sculpt” exercise class that I usually teach on Thursdays and so I had to arrange for a sub, which I wasn’t able to get, so now I am going about getting the word out that it will be have to be cancelled. Sean has already had his first dose of antibiotic and seems to be doing a bit better, though he still doesn’t have much of an appetite.

At the same time all of this was going on today, Bob’s mom was at the hospital with Bob’s sister who had an accident earlier this week involving one of her hands. She needed to have surgery today to repair a nerve, an artery and a bit of tendon damage in one of her thumbs. Please keep Bob’s sister and family in your thoughts and prayers as she recovers. Thank you.

So as much as Baby Benson is of course very important to us, all of these other events have certainly kept us, especially me, from worrying too much about our little miracle over the past few days leading up to our appointments this morning.

Today we had our “First trimester Ultra Screen” and also ended up having a consultation about our current pregnancy, taking into account our history, with the Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) specialist that we dealt with a lot during our pregnancy with Molly.

During the ultrasound portion of the “Ultra Screen” our baby’s heart rate was measured at 175 bpm! This was a HUGE milestone for us, as around the same stage gestation (between 12 – 13 weeks) Molly’s heart rate appeared to be only in the 120s, though it wasn’t long before we found out that it was irregular and that her atrial rate was actually higher and more “normal,” but that her ventricle rate was in the 50s.

Our baby’s nuchal translucency measurement today was in the normal range, which was reassuring. We will get the combined ultrasound/blood test results back, from the Genetic Counselor we met with today, in the next week which will hopefully make the odds of us having a baby with Down syndrome, Trisomy 13 or Trisomy 18 a lot lower. Our baby measured an average of 6.6 cm today, which converts to my being about 12 weeks and 6 days gestation. That is almost a week ahead of where I would be based on my last menstrual period. However, we understand that babies develop at different rates and our MFM said that he didn’t expect that our OB would change our due date from 9/23 to 9/17 based on today’s measurements. We did get to see our baby moving around a lot on the ultrasound today, which is always an awesome experience. We got a couple of nice pictures of our baby which I may scan and share here at some point.

We also spent a lot of time meeting with the MFM that we dealt with during our interstitial ectopic pregnancy and with Molly. He was very thorough and went over the “plan” for the rest of our pregnancy. We were impressed with his approach to our baby/current pregnancy. He has been in contact with the perinatal cardiologist who we saw often throughout our pregnancy with Molly. They decided that we will have our first fetal echocardiogram with her at approximately 15 weeks gestation on Wednesday, April 1. We were very pleased to hear that we will get to see her and have an echo so early. If things look good then, it would be another big milestone for us/our baby and we would likely tell Sean about the baby not long after that.

Our next prenatal appointment at our OB’s office is still scheduled for Friday, March 27, at which point I would be between 14 – 15 weeks gestation. We will return to our MFM’s office if and when we make it to 20 weeks gestation for a Level II ultrasound in early May. Because I had gestational diabetes with Molly, our MFM recommends that our OB has me tested earlier with this pregnancy, likely between 14 and 15 weeks gestation.

One other interesting event from today, that Bob later commented on, was that it was the first time we had been back to the MFM’s office since we had Molly and everyone (from nurses to ultrasound techs to our MFM) seemed to remember us and our baby girl. Each time we would talk to someone they would mention recalling what happened with Molly and how it was hard to believe that it has been almost a year. We had sent our MFM one of our Christmas cards (or “brochure” as he referred to it) and he told us that he really appreciated receiving it. He said that he found it and how we shared about Molly to be very moving.

Please continue to keep the news of our baby to yourselves. With each milestone that we reach and our baby seems to be okay, we are very encouraged. It is getting more difficult for us to not share about our baby with more of our family and friends, especially because I am not far off from having to wear maternity clothes. However, for reasons we have already shared, we think it still makes sense and we want to wait as long as we can before telling Sean and don’t want him to find out from anyone else first. We promise that, if things continue to go well, as soon as we go “public” you can tell anyone that you want. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

I know this was a very long update. If you are still with me, thank you for reading. At times Bob and I find ourselves feeling somewhat neutral about and disconnected to our baby/pregnancy, which we understand is normal after what we have been through. However, we do love our baby very much and are encouraged by what we learned today. We remain cautiously optimistic and are trying to take this journey one day at a time. Thank you for your continued support, encouragement, thoughts and prayers. We will keep you posted.