Getting Comfy in Bed Again

Well this stinks. Just after I post my fabulous Summer list of everything I want to do with the boys before the baby is born, I go to the doctor for a routine check-up and ultrasound and find out that my stupid baby-making body is up to its usual tricks. Someone in church once said, "If you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans." I agree.

Even though they did a preventative surgery this pregnancy at 12 weeks to sew my cervix shut - yes, that sounds pleasant, right? - it still wants to open and send the baby flying out into the world already! WHY!? I don't know. I thought it was behaving so well this time. When I had my ultrasound 4 weeks ago I was really nervous because I knew that I was put on bedrest with Caleb at 23 weeks because of the same cervix problem. But they said everything looked great and I kept on living my normal life this past month! Does this mean I was working out at the gym everyday? Of course not! (Anyone who knows me at all knows I would never do that... even not pregnant.) But I was taking the boys for walks with Zoe, running errands all day, grocery shopping, cleaning out the garage, etc. Well, apparently that was just too much for my weak little girly body and now my cervix is "funneling" again. This was a familiar word to me because they said it with Caleb too. It basically means that with the growing weight of the baby putting pressure on everything, the cervix starts to freak out and thinks it needs to dialate and shorten. This usually happens to regular women like, the week before you have your baby and then labor starts as usual, and you have your baby. For me, "funneling" started with Caleb at 19 weeks and then by 23 weeks it was like, open constantly to the point where my doctor was really freaked out and told me to go home and lay down and not move. But I still made it to 36 weeks! So that is reassuring. And I didn't even have the stiches in with Caleb, so.... hopefully that is comforting news that this will all still end okay.

When I was in the doctor's office waiting for her to come in and talk to me after the ultrasound (which, by the way is the worst 10 minutes ever... why don't they speed it up a little for situations like this?) I was reading this magazine article about bedrest and it said that at 26 weeks, a baby's chance of survival is 80 percent and they usually have a lot of problems in the NICU with brain bleeds, etc. But then by like 28 or 29 weeks the survivial rate is practically 98 percent and they can get by with having no lasting effects. So my first goal is to make it to 29 weeks, which is what Gabe was when he was born. Then the doctor said at 32 weeks, the baby's lungs start producing surfactant which is really important for their lungs.... so that is my next goal. Basically I can't have her before Caleb's birthday (I will be 30.5 wks pregnant by then) because A) It would be bad for the baby and B) Caleb has been knowing that the birthday order was Gabe's, then Dad's, then his for quite some time and I think he would be pretty ticked if she swooped in and had hers first. :)

So, no baby before June 6th. That's the way it has to be. The bad news is, that means I am probably looking at AT LEAST a month of bedrest ahead of me. Boo. And just as the weather is getting nice. I think Josh just went and bought me a reclining lawn chair today for my Mother's Day present so I can sit outside and watch the boys play. But my poor Summer Thrill Points list... it will have to earn a lot of stickers in the month of August maybe.

This next month is going to be a very delicate balance of babysitters and careful scheduling I think. The boys have the rest of this week and then 2 more full weeks of school left so the ride situation is a little hairy right now. Hopefuly we can make it all work! Everything I have read with the past two kids about baby's development between weeks 26 and 29 is so critical, so we have to try and at least get through these next 3 weeks! Wish us luck!