I have made it through 5 nights. I have no clue how. I feel like everyday I have lived second to second in terror. I am an emotional wreck. I'm scared to move. I've lost my appetite. Each decision that is made I second guess. This morning I asked the dr if that since I have made it this far if she thinks my odds are better to making until Wednesday & she said no. She said they are hopeful but very cautious.
Wed I will be 23 weeks 5 days & that's when they will fight for baby after delivery. That's when I'll be moved to a different hospital. It's so hard not to just give up. My body is fighting against me. I have a ridiculous amount of ailments that make me want to pull out my hair. And it seems to add on daily. I just try to remind myself that in a month my body will feel better. I am not feeling up to visitors. I get so scared with every feeling that something is about to happen. And I'm way embarrassed to have that happen in front of anyone. My mom has been here when stuff starts to go wrong & I even send her out of the room until I'm stable. I also worry about Brian. I'm so afraid of being by myself at night bc if something is to happen it will go quickly and I don't want to be alone. So Brian has slept on a hard couch every night. He doesn't feel the best, or eat well. I'm not looking forward to being far away from home at a different hospital. Just means ill be alone more.
Please pray to give us strength & that things calm down & give us another couple weeks. At this point every day is so very important. Briellas life depends on days. I so want to bring her home to her cute lil room so that she can be just as spoiled as Aubrey.
And pray that Aubrey is okay since she basically has been removed from her home life. I know she is in great hands & is close to me for now.
Edited at 8pm- contractions have started again :(
We Are Walking in Honor of Briella. Please Help Us Meet Our Goal.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
A hectic day
I am so appreciative of every single comment, message, thought & prayer. It really helps give me strength when I feel I'm all out. Yesterday was pretty uneventful, just tried to rest.
Today's blood work showed my hemoglobin went up 1 point so I didn't have to have a blood transfusion.
Around 8:30am I started bleeding heavy again. Then came the contractions again. I was put on 2 pain meds & the contractions stopped around 3:30pm. However bleeding is picking up. I am so wore out emotionally. Brian is so strong. He reminds me that I can't give up. We have 5 days to get through before they will move me to the level 3 nicu hospital. Right now it's just an hour by hour situation. The nurses say just wait & see if I will deliver today. They said it will happen pretty quick. It's so hard to think I'm only a week a way to good odds of her survival. But it's not looking like we will make it. They said they will put a little hat on her & give her to us to snuggle with. Please pray that we are able to cope with whatever life brings. And pray hard for us to get to 24 weeks.
Thank you all again for every single comment.
Today's blood work showed my hemoglobin went up 1 point so I didn't have to have a blood transfusion.
Around 8:30am I started bleeding heavy again. Then came the contractions again. I was put on 2 pain meds & the contractions stopped around 3:30pm. However bleeding is picking up. I am so wore out emotionally. Brian is so strong. He reminds me that I can't give up. We have 5 days to get through before they will move me to the level 3 nicu hospital. Right now it's just an hour by hour situation. The nurses say just wait & see if I will deliver today. They said it will happen pretty quick. It's so hard to think I'm only a week a way to good odds of her survival. But it's not looking like we will make it. They said they will put a little hat on her & give her to us to snuggle with. Please pray that we are able to cope with whatever life brings. And pray hard for us to get to 24 weeks.
Thank you all again for every single comment.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
A Pretty Scary Day
I awoke around 1am with contractions. I drove myself to the hospital because I didn't want to wake up Aubrey who had to go to school, so Brian stayed with her. By the time I got to the hospital, the contractions were 5 minutes apart. By 3:45am I had started hemorrhaging. It was the scariest thing I have ever been through. There was so much blood I thought I was going to die. The nurse was just holding me. I told her I needed to be ok because i had a 6 year old at home. I got really weak & almost started to pass out but she talked me through it. The next couple hours were pretty rough. Brielle's heartbeat is still good-150s. This morning I met with the perinatologist. They said that my previa has moved away from the uterus-which is what we have been waiting for. But the previa has caused a snowball affect of problems. I have a subchorionic hemorrhage under my membranes. They are very concerned that my water will break soon. And even more worry some is that I now have a partial abruption. The placenta has torn away from the wall. Baby had been measuring a week ahead since
12 weeks & now she's measuring right on schedule. So it's of concern that in a month she has lost 6 days. But good that she's not a week behind schedule or worse. Dr gave me about 50:50 odds of making it to 24 weeks. Tomorrow I will be 23 weeks. He said even at 23 1/2 weeks they would try & fight for the baby. But she will have so many obstacles to overcome at 24 weeks. This is a very scary time. Right now I am not hemorrhaging but am bleeding. I have been bleeding this time for 17 days.
Please pray that I don't have another hemorrhage & that little Briella hangs in there for weeks.
12 weeks & now she's measuring right on schedule. So it's of concern that in a month she has lost 6 days. But good that she's not a week behind schedule or worse. Dr gave me about 50:50 odds of making it to 24 weeks. Tomorrow I will be 23 weeks. He said even at 23 1/2 weeks they would try & fight for the baby. But she will have so many obstacles to overcome at 24 weeks. This is a very scary time. Right now I am not hemorrhaging but am bleeding. I have been bleeding this time for 17 days.
Please pray that I don't have another hemorrhage & that little Briella hangs in there for weeks.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Briella's Nursery
Last week the yellow & grey chevron curtains & sheets I bought came. I was excited to get them in the nursery & hold them up to the freshly painted grey walls. After doing so, I realized yellow & grey was not the main colors I was wanting. So together Brian & I also ruled out the chevron striped wall. I then spent the next 2 days doing nothing but scouring the internet for a theme I liked that went with grey, except Brian decided to make that extremely difficult. He said the room can have NO pink in it!! He says Aubrey's room is over the top girly with a chandelier & pink everything, so he wanted this room to be more neutral. So here is a picture of the bedding we ended up buying. I have bought some pale aqua feminine accents to go on the walls.
Within a month of us finding out we were pregnant, we had already bought the furniture set off Craigslist. When I moved out of a crib (1985) my parents purchased me a French Provincial bedroom set. My mom has since repainted it & uses it in Aubrey's playroom at their house. I found the exact same set on Craigslist for $180! That included a wide dresser with mirror, chest, night stand & twin canopy bed. I am going to use the dresser with mirror & chest in the nursery. I have decided to paint both pieces pale aqua. I cannot wait to see them finished & in the nursery. I have included my inspiration picture for painting the dresser aqua.
When Briella is old enough to move to a big girl bed, we will use the canopy bed and plan on painting the whole set whatever color she chooses for her room :) Aubrey says that she already has the trademark on pink so lil sis will have to pick another color.
Within a month of us finding out we were pregnant, we had already bought the furniture set off Craigslist. When I moved out of a crib (1985) my parents purchased me a French Provincial bedroom set. My mom has since repainted it & uses it in Aubrey's playroom at their house. I found the exact same set on Craigslist for $180! That included a wide dresser with mirror, chest, night stand & twin canopy bed. I am going to use the dresser with mirror & chest in the nursery. I have decided to paint both pieces pale aqua. I cannot wait to see them finished & in the nursery. I have included my inspiration picture for painting the dresser aqua.
When Briella is old enough to move to a big girl bed, we will use the canopy bed and plan on painting the whole set whatever color she chooses for her room :) Aubrey says that she already has the trademark on pink so lil sis will have to pick another color.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
1st Bump Pic
I went to a friend's baby shower yesterday. With a chance that this may be the last time that I am in a dress before Briella is born, I figured I need at least 1 "bump" picture. So here is 21 weeks. 
Thursday, September 13, 2012
21 Weeks Drs Appt
Baby girl's heartbeat was great! It was so loud this week! She has started to move higher up in my stomach. Now if we can just get that placenta to move up!
I found out that I am anemic since I have bled so much. Basically no big deal, just take an iron supplement. But that is why I have been so tired & weak.
I asked a couple of clarifying questions of things we discussed last week. I asked that since my previa was downgraded to marginal previa if that meant my threat of delivering really early went away. Dr said no, the threat remains until the bleeding stops, which won't happen until the placenta moves up. So please pray that the bleeding stops & placenta moves away from cervix.
I also asked if since everything looked good on the ultrasound if that mean we are out of the woods & if the Neural Tube Defect test could be a false positive. Again she said no. She said that the spine didn't show any major defect, but there are things that aren't as easy to pick up on the ultrasound at this stage in pregnancy. We will have another growth scan in a couple weeks & look for possibly a hernia in the stomach area that protrudes from the skin. That would require the baby to have surgery after she was born. But the surgery is not life threatening to a healthy full term baby. The other possibility is that there is something minimally wrong with the spine. Maybe a small area that was not completely fused at 3 weeks.
3 weeks is when we found out we were pregnant. What a journey this has been already!!! At 6 weeks the severe morning sickness started. At 10 weeks I got 2nd degree burns on my stomach from a clothes steamer. At 14 weeks my morning sickness went away. At 15 weeks I started spotting & dealing with the current problems. So I have had 4 great weeks of enjoyable pregnancy so far. And I am grateful for them!
This week Brian, Aubrey & I celebrated our 1st Anniversary!! Brian cooked a great dinner at home. I was craving chicken fried chicken, mashed potatoes & green beans. And we had leftover wedding cake that we had brought back from Jamaica. I had forgotten how different Jamaican chocolate cake was! So Brian & I had one bite each & gave the rest to Aubrey, who happily ate it all.
I don't have to go back to the Drs. for 2 weeks, so hopefully we won't have any updates before our 23 week appt. only 3 more weeks until Briella is viable!
Thank you so much for all the prayers!!!
I found out that I am anemic since I have bled so much. Basically no big deal, just take an iron supplement. But that is why I have been so tired & weak.
I asked a couple of clarifying questions of things we discussed last week. I asked that since my previa was downgraded to marginal previa if that meant my threat of delivering really early went away. Dr said no, the threat remains until the bleeding stops, which won't happen until the placenta moves up. So please pray that the bleeding stops & placenta moves away from cervix.
I also asked if since everything looked good on the ultrasound if that mean we are out of the woods & if the Neural Tube Defect test could be a false positive. Again she said no. She said that the spine didn't show any major defect, but there are things that aren't as easy to pick up on the ultrasound at this stage in pregnancy. We will have another growth scan in a couple weeks & look for possibly a hernia in the stomach area that protrudes from the skin. That would require the baby to have surgery after she was born. But the surgery is not life threatening to a healthy full term baby. The other possibility is that there is something minimally wrong with the spine. Maybe a small area that was not completely fused at 3 weeks.
3 weeks is when we found out we were pregnant. What a journey this has been already!!! At 6 weeks the severe morning sickness started. At 10 weeks I got 2nd degree burns on my stomach from a clothes steamer. At 14 weeks my morning sickness went away. At 15 weeks I started spotting & dealing with the current problems. So I have had 4 great weeks of enjoyable pregnancy so far. And I am grateful for them!
This week Brian, Aubrey & I celebrated our 1st Anniversary!! Brian cooked a great dinner at home. I was craving chicken fried chicken, mashed potatoes & green beans. And we had leftover wedding cake that we had brought back from Jamaica. I had forgotten how different Jamaican chocolate cake was! So Brian & I had one bite each & gave the rest to Aubrey, who happily ate it all.
I don't have to go back to the Drs. for 2 weeks, so hopefully we won't have any updates before our 23 week appt. only 3 more weeks until Briella is viable!
Thank you so much for all the prayers!!!
Monday, September 10, 2012
Her Name.....
Well I was pretty adamant about having her first name be a French name. That is how I found Aubrey's name, on a French baby name website. Most of you know that my Grandmother was born & raised in France. So I narrowed the list from the website down to about 50 of my favs. I told Brian to pick out the names he liked and the ONLY name he picked out was......Brielle. After about a week of contemplating Brielle, we decided on Briella because it gave us an extra nickname, & Brian wouldn't even consider a name unless it could be shortened or had a nickname. So for Briella, we can call her Bri, Brielle, Elle, or Ella. Since a lot of people call Brian "Bri" we liked the idea of Briella being shortened to "Bri" (pronounced Bree).
We have not settled on a middle name. I really have pushed for a name that has meaning to me. Colette is the patron Saint of Corbie, the village my grandmother grew up in. After traveling to Corbie this year, I have fallen in love with Corbie & all of their history. St Colette was given her sainthood because she frequently performed miracles for women who were unable to conceive, had a hard time carrying the child to term & bringing stillborn babies back to life with her prayers. So I feel that this name has significance to us & not just in family history.
Brian doesn't dislike it, just waiting to see if anything else strikes his liking.
We have not settled on a middle name. I really have pushed for a name that has meaning to me. Colette is the patron Saint of Corbie, the village my grandmother grew up in. After traveling to Corbie this year, I have fallen in love with Corbie & all of their history. St Colette was given her sainthood because she frequently performed miracles for women who were unable to conceive, had a hard time carrying the child to term & bringing stillborn babies back to life with her prayers. So I feel that this name has significance to us & not just in family history.
Brian doesn't dislike it, just waiting to see if anything else strikes his liking.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
20 Week appointment
I want to start by saying we felt very uplifted about today's visit. I have (finally) started to gain weight back, after losing 13 lbs, I have gained 2 of the 13 lbs lost back.
Our Dr started going over test results from last week. The High Risk Dr has said that my Previa is marginal. That gives us a lot more hope that the placenta will move higher, away from my cervix, which will then stop the bleeding. So we are hoping that happens & we have a much healthier weight baby. Only time will tell.
My blood work came back from last week. I do NOT have the gene that causes blood clots, so hopefully that means Dad doesn't either. However, they found that I have developed an antibody that makes me susceptible to blood clots, the same thing the gene would've done. This is great to know. I will be able to tell all future Dr's & prevent the clots. Does not affect the baby at all.
This news along with the stage of bleeding I am at (nothing is going to cause the bleeding to start, it will just start), the Dr thinks its a good idea for me to not be on a severe bed rest. She wants me walking around to prevent clots. I am going to bleed regardless. I was SO excited to hear I can go to the grocery store! Its been 5 weeks with no shopping of any kind!
Last week when they told me I had to have the genetic test done, I asked if I could have all of my 2nd trimester blood work completed at the same time. I had no idea what they were testing for, just knew it was "routine" 2nd trimester work.
Dr started off by saying that baby came back negative for Downs Syndrome & Tri18, but came back positive for Alpha-Fetoprotein (AFP). She says that there is a concern for Neural tube defects, the Spinal Cord (spina bifida), and the stomach & abdomen (gastroschisis). She said she called the high risk Dr that I saw for my level 2 ultrasound last week. While she was on the phone with them they looked back over our images & did not see anything wrong with the spine or stomach. Dr said she could send us for another level 2 ultrasound, but Brian & I felt comfortable with just having one last week & not seeing anything abnormal. I even remember the lady pointing out her stomach, abdomen, spine is obvious. So we left it at that we will just wait until our next ultrasound since I have them so often.
After coming home & googling it, (a big no no, I know!) I have found that there are other reasons for causing positives on this test & that there are false positives.
I am not upset or stressing over the positive. I am pretty calm (which is unusual :)
There is nothing that we would do different if there is a problem. So I am focusing my attention to the countdown to 24 weeks, when baby can survive outside me.
To celebrate me being to actually able to walk around, we went to Lowe's to get more sample paints for the nursery-we cannot agree on the shade of grey. I am wanting to do grey & yellow. One of the walls will be painted with a chevron print. I also looked for the color we want to paint the nursery furniture but no luck.
Our Dr started going over test results from last week. The High Risk Dr has said that my Previa is marginal. That gives us a lot more hope that the placenta will move higher, away from my cervix, which will then stop the bleeding. So we are hoping that happens & we have a much healthier weight baby. Only time will tell.
My blood work came back from last week. I do NOT have the gene that causes blood clots, so hopefully that means Dad doesn't either. However, they found that I have developed an antibody that makes me susceptible to blood clots, the same thing the gene would've done. This is great to know. I will be able to tell all future Dr's & prevent the clots. Does not affect the baby at all.
This news along with the stage of bleeding I am at (nothing is going to cause the bleeding to start, it will just start), the Dr thinks its a good idea for me to not be on a severe bed rest. She wants me walking around to prevent clots. I am going to bleed regardless. I was SO excited to hear I can go to the grocery store! Its been 5 weeks with no shopping of any kind!
Last week when they told me I had to have the genetic test done, I asked if I could have all of my 2nd trimester blood work completed at the same time. I had no idea what they were testing for, just knew it was "routine" 2nd trimester work.
Dr started off by saying that baby came back negative for Downs Syndrome & Tri18, but came back positive for Alpha-Fetoprotein (AFP). She says that there is a concern for Neural tube defects, the Spinal Cord (spina bifida), and the stomach & abdomen (gastroschisis). She said she called the high risk Dr that I saw for my level 2 ultrasound last week. While she was on the phone with them they looked back over our images & did not see anything wrong with the spine or stomach. Dr said she could send us for another level 2 ultrasound, but Brian & I felt comfortable with just having one last week & not seeing anything abnormal. I even remember the lady pointing out her stomach, abdomen, spine is obvious. So we left it at that we will just wait until our next ultrasound since I have them so often.
After coming home & googling it, (a big no no, I know!) I have found that there are other reasons for causing positives on this test & that there are false positives.
I am not upset or stressing over the positive. I am pretty calm (which is unusual :)
There is nothing that we would do different if there is a problem. So I am focusing my attention to the countdown to 24 weeks, when baby can survive outside me.
To celebrate me being to actually able to walk around, we went to Lowe's to get more sample paints for the nursery-we cannot agree on the shade of grey. I am wanting to do grey & yellow. One of the walls will be painted with a chevron print. I also looked for the color we want to paint the nursery furniture but no luck.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Another Run to the Hospital
I awoke at 2:30am and was bleeding heavy, the worst yet. I wasn't expecting it to be just 4 days after the first. After seeing the dr, she explained that I will be bleeding everyday now. Right now the concern is that I'm not hemorrhaging. If that happens in the next 5 weeks, they will have to end my pregnancy & deliver the baby & placenta to save my life. Once I get to 24 weeks, I go into the hospital for bed rest, get the steroid shots, & they will watch me & decide when to take the baby-before a hemorrhage. Dr says that if I can make it to 32 weeks baby is pretty much out of the woods & can go home healthy. So that is the goal, Although drs are just hoping to get me to 24 weeks.