OB appt update

The appt was mostly good, but a little bad, in my opinion. I spilled a trace amount of sugar into my urine. I know my body has a hard time handling sugar, and I haven't exactly been an angel about the sweets, but in 6 pregnancies, this is the very first time this has happened. I asked the doctor about it right away. He said as long as my fasting glucose is under 105 that I don't have gestational diabetes. My last 3 readings were 90, 88 and 80. On the other hand, I feel that I probably should lay off the frozen Snicker bars and other chocolate confections. It was probably a bad idea to buy them during pregnancy in the first place. I hope I don't develop GD. To do that would put me at high risk for diabetes later in life, and that is one horrible disease. I remember when I was taking differential diagnosis examinations in chiropractic college. I told a friend of mine if the question was multiple choice, choose diabetes because diabetes causes *everything*. I'm not there yet, but I had better watch my p's and q's. So that was the bad news.

On the good side, the baby's heartbeat was 146, and my blood pressure was 106 over 67 (immediately after the nurse told me about the blood sugar). The fundus measured 1.5 weeks ahead at 36cm. Doc asked me if I felt bigger this time. I said that I usually feel miserably large at the end of all my pregnancies, so it is hard to tell. He seems to be under the impression that this baby is big. I'm not sure to set much store by that, though, as I recall he may have said that in the past and it didn't come true.

They ran a FFN test again, because I have been getting a lot of contractions. And as long as they were at it, they went ahead and ran the beta strep test as well. Doc said my cervix was neither dilated nor effaced. Typical. My cast iron cervix isn't budging, no matter how many practice contractions I have. Fine with me. A full term delivery is fine. FINE! ;-D

And I had them call in the prescription for heparin and syringes. I am supposed to switch from Lovenox to heparin at 36 weeks, so a week from Monday. That way it only sticks around for 12 hours instead of 36 hours, and so it should be easier to stop the shots when I detect that labor has started. Hopefully.

Thoughts about blood thinners

I forgot to mention that I asked the amnio doc afterwards about the Lovenox protocol. I was aware that my OB wanted to consult with her about it and so I decided to see what her opinion was. She told me that if indeed I needed Lovenox, it might be dangerous to stop at 34 weeks, as the reproductive immunologist's paperwork recommends as a standard protocol. I was inquiring if it would be OK to re-start baby aspirin if I was going to stop Lovenox. I am concerned about losing the baby to a cord accident (as my SIL did at 38 weeks) or having a stroke (high pg hormones is like taking birth control pills over the age of 40 and that is a risk factor).

The amnio doc said that it might be a good idea around 36 weeks to switch from Lovenox to regular heparin. That way, the heparin could wear off faster when I began early labor and I could just skip a shot then. That makes sense. I can usually tell I'm about to deliver within 24 hours of the birth. Since it takes 36 hours for Lovenox to wear off, that could pose a problem. The heparin shot needs to be taken every 12 hours, and that would increase the chances that I would be able to control the situation. She didn't think that baby aspirin would cause a problem with bleeding too much during delivery. But I know for a fact that when I take it at the same time as the Lovenox I get uncontrolled bleeding out of the injection sites, and large hematomas (blood-filled areas) when I strike myself, such as hitting my shin against a hard chair. Kind of scary.

The kids got their Knotts Berry Farm name tags today and went to the wardrobe area and found out what they would be wearing. They are so excited and so am I. It is great to find a job where they don't mind seasonal workers.

Remember to look at the bottom of the blog for an updated pic of the kids. They were all in the pool together, for once, yesterday and I decided to take advantage of the photo opportunity. I love them all so much. I can't believe that we will be adding another precious boy to the group. Thank you, G-d.

two more injections until amnio day

I'm trying really hard to remember to stop my Lovenox (blood thinner) injections on time for the amnio. It's really coming up fast now. I only have 2 more injections, Sunday and Monday morning. I skip Tuesday, and Wednesday is the amnio. I resume injections Thursday morning. I doubt I will be online Wednesday afternoon, more likely Thursday afternoon. The test is at 1pm PDT. I plan on going straight to bed/couch and staying horizontal for the afternoon of Wednesday. I will see Thursday morning how I feel. I remember at my last amnio, I felt a sharp abdominal pain if I got up to do anything on the afternoon of the test, but that feeling went away after a good night's sleep.

It will be fun to find out the gender, hopefully, at the ultrasound. I can't wait to see if the snowy white baby blanket I'm crocheting will have a pink or a blue border.

If they can't see the gender then I will know for sure by the time the amnio results are due, 2 weeks after the test, on July 4th.

How about another pic?

Here is another pic of a test I ran yesterday. I need it because this is the test that I will be using for comparison for next Monday's test.

My plan is to call the doc when I reach 7 weeks as long as my hpts are still dark and not getting lighter again. I have several reasons for not calling the doctor's office right now. First off, I'm still FURIOUS about what happened to my pregnancy in October. The reproductive endocrinologist told me to stop abruptly taking prednisone, Lovenox and estradiol at 4.5 weeks, which I did. Then two days later he said to go ahead and start taking the Lovenox again. By that time it was too late. I had bad night sweats starting immediately after I stopped the Lovenox. I feel that my body, specifically the anti phospholipid antibodies, attacked the placenta/baby those two days and halted the growth. After that, all the Lovenox in the world could not save the baby. Second, once you get in the doctor's field of view, you are forced to acquiesce to all of their requirements. Submit to three blood tests per week, one ultrasound per week, etc, even though the ultrasounds are not diagnostic until the 7th to 9th week. So why do I need blood tests to tell me about doubling when babies have survived all extremes of numbers? And why do I need 6 useless ultrasounds before I get the diagnostic one? And why would I want to expose delicate growing tissues to 6 useless ultrasounds? One gal suggested that if I didn't want to go through the "beta hell" stage of all this, I could at least get the doc to run my progesterone and estradiol. That is impossible. No doctor would treat me under those circumstances. If I refused betas and ultrasounds, they would boot me out as an uncooperative patient. The only way I could get those tests run would be to sign up for the full 9 yards, which I refuse to do. Also, the RE would be upset to hear that I am taking the estradiol. He is against that. He also feels the pio shots are useless, but harmless so whatever. He also feels that the Lovenox, even though his OWN blood tests showed I have elevated APAs in the IgM category, is useless. I think it would have to be IgG to get his attention. I asked why IgG is so much better at attacking babies than IgM, and he couldn't answer me. He said I was on the border about that and he would prescribe Lovenox if I "wanted it". Ugh!

So for these reasons and for the fact that I felt he was pretty damned cold about my losses, I want to delay my phone call significantly. I will get the ultrasound that I want when I want it. And I will not allow him or his bitchy staff to upset me at so delicate a stage in my pregnancy.

No early testing for me, for SURE!

I now have my coverline, so I am 3 days past ovulation. That puts me 14dpo on March 20. I'm out of town in Sonoma County, CA that entire prior weekend at a relationship seminar with my husband. So with the kids running around and MIL there to watch the babies, I doubt I will have the luxury to use hpts in the morning and obsess over them day after day, posting pictures for everybody. Maybe that's a good thing.

Maybe the morning of the 19th after I get back. 13dpo is a nice day to test. And I'll just have to sneak around with my pio and Lovenox injections/sharps container in my luggage. Not that I have any real hope. It was hard this month to even justify the pio shots. I really don't know why I bother. :-(

On a lighter note, have you checked out the Harry Potter video links on the left? Those are fun and your kids might enjoy them too. I can't believe the last book is coming out in July too. I sure hope she (the author, J.K. Rowling) doesn't kill Harry. That would hurt too many kids world wide, I think.