Baby Kruse

Today I had a regularly scheduled 24 week check-up. I haven’t had any further bleeding episodes, which is good. Everything at the visit checked out fine. Baby girl’s heart rate was nice and strong and I am measuring right on track. The nurse was sure I was going to be anemic “because I looked so pale,” but I assured her I am just fair skinned! Sure enough my iron levels were just fine. My blood sugars are all normal so the Dr. thought I could go down to just testing twice a day. I am a little OCD about it so we will see if I can stand not testing after every meal. The Dr. also went over the procedure for a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section). Basically it should go the same as any other delivery except I will have an IV, the baby will be monitored at all times, the Dr. will be at the hospital the entire time I am in labor, and an anesthesiologist will be on call in case of an emergency. I would like as little intervention as possible - the IV is bad enough. I am confident that it will go fine and the hospital is prepared in case of an emergency. I am glad that I will be given the chance to have a med free natural birth.

Now that everything seems to be going well I am trying to relax and just enjoy the pregnancy. It is hard once you have had things go very wrong to anticipate things being ok. I am just trying to take one day at a time. I am still working three days a week, I really like getting out of the house, so working part time is perfect. I am having fun buying little girl things- I should probably get my shopping under control. I think she might have a different outfit for everyday for the first three months. It is all just so cute!

Emily is having a hard time accepting that her baby sister appears to be healthy. We talk daily about all the screenings that have been done, what was wrong with Kevin, and why we know that this baby does not have the same issues that he did. It is hard, but I do my best to reassure her, but also letting her know that life is fragile and we don’t know what is going to happen. Most babies are born healthy and we have no reason to believe that her little sister is anything but perfect. Then she said to me “Well, if they do find something after she is born, it is most likely not life threatening.” I have to admit it broke my heart a little to hear my 9 yr old say this. I know she probably heard me or Matt say it. We talk about life and death and I think she is coming to terms with it. She has had to grow up so much in the past year.  Emily is already getting a little basket of gifts around to give to the baby once she is born. I think that she is going to be a great big sister again.

Matt is doing a great job of keeping us all sane. Being pregnant and grieving does not always leave me in the most stable emotional state. He has been great at laundry, cooking, cleaning,and just stepping up in general to do the things that need to get done. My next appointment is in 4 weeks, I will check back in then.

Yesterday morning I woke up and was bleeding again. I called the Dr. and they wanted to see me just to make sure everything was still ok. I can feel baby girl moving around, so I knew she was ok. Everything checked out fine, the Dr. isn’t sure why I keep having these bleeds that seem to resolve after a few hours. She offered to do an ultrasound, but said that it most likely wouldn’t show anything. So we agreed that if I bleed anymore I would come back in for an ultrasound to see if we could see anything that would be causing the bleeding. She wanted me to take the rest of the week off of work and take it easy. Emily is on spring break all week, so that worked out well. So all is well, I really hope there are no more issues with bleeding, it scares the crap out of me!

I have a lovely cold right now with some intense sinus pain. I am too scared to take any medication, so I am drinking lots of water, using the neti pot to clean out my sinuses, and have the humidifier going. Matt is taking care of me, I think he likes to go to work to get a break from me

Today we had a fetal echo done by Dr. Pyevich, Kevin’s pediatric cardiologist. This was a scheduled appointment to take a closer look at the heart structure and see if there are any abnormalities.

As far as she could see, there is nothing wrong with the heart structure or function. It looks like our girl is as healthy as any other baby. Of course, there is still some risk of minor problems that would not be evident until when she is born, but that is the case in any pregnancy. The doctor said we do not need to see her again because everything looks good.

She said she remembered all Dawn went through with Kevin’s pregnancy, with many echoes and the multiple trips up to Wisconsin for special observation and experimental treatment to keep him alive until he could be born. She said again that not all mothers would go through everything she did. I agree – and having good news, no known problems, and a relatively "typical" pregnancy is exactly what Dawn needs and deserves!

We had our 20-week ultrasound today to make sure that everything was going okay, and it all looks good! They were also able to tell us that we are definitely having a girl!

This ultrasound was once again done by Angie, who we like very much. She knows us and knew right away to look at the heart first. Within a few seconds she had a view of the heart and it was beating away at a good rate, and everything looked normal. We still had some worry about the baby having heart problems, so it was nice to see it right away, looking great.

She did a scan of most of the anatomy and everything measured right on target – a few days over 20 weeks.

We are very excited to be having another little girl.

We see Dr. Pyevich tomorrow to have an echo done to take a closer look at the heart.

Enjoy the pictures! (click to enlarge)

We went in for a regular checkup today and everything was good. We had no reason to think something was wrong, but the 16-week checkup was when we were blind-sided with the news that Kevin had heart problems, so we just wanted to get past this one.

The doctor found the heart rate, and it was 156bpm, which is in the right range. Everything else checked out fine too. The results from the first trimester screens that were done last month were all normal.

We are scheduled for an ultrasound to check the baby’s anatomy on March 9th, then we will see Dr. Pyevich the next day for the fetal echo. We should be able to find out the sex of the baby on the ultrasound visit.

Dawn’s blood sugars have all been within normal range and she is not showing any signs of gestational diabetes. Most of her sickness has subsided, but she still gets waves of it every so often. She is just really tired now and waiting for spring to come so she can get outside.

We are looking forward to getting to the half-way point, knowing the sex of the baby, and that everything is okay!

Dawn had some bleeding this morning and of course was worried that things were not okay. She called the doctor and they wanted her to come in, so we had an unexpected doctor visit.

They couldn’t find the baby’s heart beat using the doppler (it’s early and they can’t always get it at this stage), so they decided to do another ultrasound just to make sure things were okay. Unfortunately they couldn’t do it for an hour, so we had to go keep ourselves busy for an hour, not knowing if something was wrong!

But everything turned out to be okay. The ultrasound was done by Angie, who we like very much. She did almost all the ultrasounds of Kevin and we hadn’t seen her since then. She’s very understanding of our worries and takes extra time to look at everything. She also has come to know Dawn’s personality a bit and that she likes to know all the details and have nothing sugar-coated. She gave us a thumbs-up after just a few seconds of looking around, to relieve our anxiety.

The heart rate was 164bpm, which is just right. We could see the baby’s little hand and could count all 5 fingers. They had no explanation for the bleeding and just told Dawn to take it easy. She is still very tired, and tonight she feels worse than she has the whole pregnancy. We’re hoping it’s the last round of sickness and she will start feeling better soon, because this has been very hard on her.

(click pictures to get a larger view)

We had an appointment in Iowa City today, primarily for an NT Scan. We chose to do this optional screening just to ease our minds and to make sure that things are progressing normally.

Everything looks good. They gave us a measurement of 1.2mm, which is well within the range of normal (<3mm). Dawn also had blood-work done and we will know the results of that in 7-10 days.

During the ultrasound we saw the baby much more developed than last time. We could clearly see the head and shape of the body, including arms and legs. The baby was moving around quite a bit and even got the hiccups while they were scanning, so they stayed on that and let us watch for a little bit. It is comforting to see everything in place and correctly formed and moving correctly.

It is still early, so there are many things they can’t see yet (like the sex!). We will have another ultrasound at about 20 weeks where they will be able to really look at the heart and other structures to make sure everything still looks fine. We didn’t know of any problems with Kevin until 16 weeks, so we still have a while to go before we feel more at ease, but positive days like today are reassuring.

Below are some of the ultrasound pictures from today.

Dawn had another appt on Thurs Dec. 11th . There was no exam since she had a ultrasound last week. The Dr had a few issues that he wanted to discuss so the appt was needed. Dawn had gestational diabetes with both Emily and Kevin, and she has been tested several times while not pregnant and the tests always come back okay. The Dr. wants her to keep track of her blood sugars early since it is likely that she will be diabetic with this pregnancy as well.  Second, we are scheduled for a visit to Iowa City on January 5th. They will do a nuchal translucency screening via ultrasound. Basically they measure the fold of skin on the back of the neck. This measurement combined with bloodwork will let us know the risk for any chromosomal abnormalites or neural tube defects. These tests are a little nerve-racking, but we feel it is best to know if there is a potential problem. Thirdly, Dawn will have a fetal echocardiogram of the baby’s heart at around 20 weeks. The OB sent the referral to Dr. Pyevich (the same Dr. that diagnosed Kevin’s heart defects). It will be difficult to go back to her office, but we feel she is the best person to go to. Lastly, the OB wanted to know if we will want a repeat c-section or try a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). He said that Dawn is a good candidate for a VBAC, he is going to review all of her charts just to make sure, but as long as baby and mom are doing well he saw no reason why we couldn’t try to avoid another c-section.

Dawn is doing well, she has been pretty sick and unable to cook meals for weeks. We have to be careful what food we have around her so we don’t set her off! Working almost full time and being very sick and tired have really been taking a toll on her, so we all are anxiously waiting for that to go away. Hopefully in a few weeks things will get back to normal.

This is what I wrote in my Journal on December 4th:

I got the best news ever!

I am geting a brother or a sister in July! I was thinking about the name Harper if it is a girl. I also like the name Summer. We have no idia for a boy!

I miss my brother sooooooooooooooooo much. I wish he was here for our new baby. Our baby I think would like him. I am soo ixited for our new baby. Even thou it is 8 months away!

We went in on November 25th for the first doctor visit. We answered all the questions and got all the basic stuff out of the way. Everyone was really nice to us and knew about Dawn’s previous pregnancy with Kevin and his death this year. It was kind of emotional, but we got through it.

The doctors seemed very understanding of Dawn’s extra worry this time, so they did an early ultrasound to make sure that things looked good so far. It was still very early, so they couldn’t see a heartbeat or anything, but they did confirm that it was a pregnancy and things looked good. And there is only one baby! Whew!

They scheduled another ultrasound for December 3rd, which would be just under 7 weeks. This time we saw a heartbeat. It was reassuring, even though it’s still very early and the heart is barely a flicker. The baby is measuring the right size and things look good.

After this ultrasound we felt comfortable enough to tell people that Dawn was pregnant. We also told Emily, who was very, very excited. She’s aware that it’s early and that things don’t always go as planned, but we reassured her that there is no reason to think that things won’t go just right. Once Emily knows anything, of course, the school and the world will know soon after. So I think the word has spread.

Dawn has another routine visit on December 11th, but no ultrasound. I’m sure we will have a number of them as the pregnancy goes on, and we will probably make a couple visits to Iowa City for checks and probably a look by the cardiologist. Although it’s pretty surreal to be in those kinds of environments again, we are comfortable with it and we are staying as cautiously optimistic as we can.

Below is the first ultrasound picture we got. The very first picture of Baby Kruse!