WE HAVE SNOW!!!  It snowed here early this morning, and everything is covered in white.  It’s beautiful here!!

Okay, we’ve had a couple appointments, and a trip to the emergency room since I updated the site last.  According to the doctors, Damian’s arrival is imminent.  My cervix has dropped to only 6mm long, and if you recall, a normal cervix should be around 35-40mm long.  My doctors say they have never seen a woman have such a small cervix and still be pregnant.  The cervix is completely open on the inside, but still closed on the outside, and the doctor said that the slightest pressure or strain could cause immediate labor.  I am on full bed rest, nothing new there, and they want me in the hospital but I’m trying to stay home with Rob until he leaves.  We’ll be 26 weeks on Sunday, so we technically only have about 14 weeks left.  The doctor doesn’t think I’ll make it another week – but we’ll see!  Damian looks great, and is doing well, but we need him to stay put for as long as possible so that his lungs have time to mature.  Getting to about 31-32 weeks would be give Damian the best chance at surviving, and being healthy, so we’re praying that we can make it another month — the doctors don’t always know everything!!  We’ll go back next week!!  We also added two new ultrasound pictures!

Back from another appointment!!  We did a growth ultrasound today, which is when they measure all the baby’s bones, and his waist, his head, etc. to see how well he’s developing.  The doctors exact words were “he is a gorgeous baby”.  Everything is where it should be, and he’s growing very well.  He already weighs about 13 ounces and is about 7-8 inches long from head to rump.  He is already a chubby baby!!  And boy is he limber, he stuck his foot in his nose today!!, and he kept opening his mouth and swinging his arms.  He’s quite active in there, and I can feel him all the time now bouncing around.  My cervix measured 16mm, which according to the doctor is fine – even though it was 17mm last week, they said that by only being off by 1mm, that really signifies no change… so it looks as if it’s holding steady for now.  We’re 20 weeks and 3 days along, so we’re half way there!  I’m still taking the heparin injections 2 x day, and a medicine to relax my uterus so I don’t have contractions, but my doctors say everything looks really good!!  I’ll go back next week!

Just got home from another appointment.  I meant to update the site last week after my Wednesday visit w/ the doctor, but did not have time — so I’ll give you the latest from last week and this week all at once.  Last week my cervix had shortened again, to about 12-15mm, it was about 23mm the week before.  It’s getting smaller, and the doctors don’t have any idea why, so there really isn’t anything they can do to fix it.  I’m also having light contractions, so they put my on a medicine to help relax the uterus.  The meds make my heart beat super fast, and my whole body starts to tremor… it’s not a fun medicine, but it seems to be helping.  The doctor has told me to stay on strict bed-rest.  There isn’t anything else they can do at this point, so he told us to rest, eat well and pray.  The baby looks good, it’s just my plumbing that appears to be broken.  I went back to my regular doctor today, because I was having some bad cramps, but everything looked okay, we’ll go back to the high-risk doctor tomorrow and he’ll be able to tell us whether or not my cervix is still shortening.  We’re 18 weeks and 2 days today, 22 more weeks to go if we go to full term.  I’m starting to look like a blimp!!  Well, that’s it for now, we’ll update again after tomorrow’s appointment.

It’s been a while since we updated the site.   The last few doctors visits have been less than good news, and I just wasn’t sure how to tell everyone the information without worrying anyone.  It appears now that I have a small cervix.  Small doesn’t mean weak, but most often those go hand in hand.  If I do have a weak cervix, also known as incompetent cervix, that could mean that when the baby starts putting on real weight, my cervix may not be strong enough to hold him in.  Women w/ weak cervix are a greater chance of miscarriage, because their cervix isn’t strong enough to support the weight of the baby.  The good news is that it could just mean I have a small, but very strong cervix, so I am now back on weekly doctors visits.  Every Wednesday I go in and have my cervix measured and some other tests done so that they can gauge whether or not it looks as if it may be weakening.  So far there hasn’t been too much change, which is good.  But I have been put on limited physical activity, w/ bed rest hanging over my head.  If it looks like things might be getting worse, they will probably have to perform a surgery on the cervix, giving me what they call a cerclage.  That would be a drawstring like stitch in the cervix, which will close it up, and then I will be put on full bed rest.  The procedure runs a small risk of instant miscarriage, and about a 25% chance of early delivery.  You can see why they don’t want to do this unless absolutely necessary, so right now we’re playing the waiting game.  We’ll keep you all up-to-date as we find out more.  On another note, the sex of the baby is definite now!!  It is definitely a boy!!  We are 16 weeks and 2 days along at this point, so we’re almost half way there!!

The baby is growing like a weed!  He/She is now about 58mm long, which is about 2 1/4″ long.  We’re almost 12 weeks along, and after our 13th week we’ll be out of the 1st trimester.  We’ll still be high risk until this baby is born, because of the previous miscarriages, but the baby looks FANTASTIC!  We heard the heartbeat again, 160 bpm.  The nurse is thinking it’s a girl because of the high heartbeat.  I weigh about 1 pound more now than I did on August 22nd when we found out, but you can definitely tell I’m pregnant, I’ve gained the baby weight, but lost other weight while I was sick.  But I’m doing great and so is the baby!  We’ve added the latest ultrasound picture to the site.  We’ll go back next Wednesday.