Good News!

Today I got good news from the doctor. He gave me the okay to stop fluids soon! I had good labs this week and have been doing well on one bag a day for the past two weeks with limited vomiting so he thinks I will be okay without fluids. I have three bags left so will run them tonight, tomorrow and Saturday and then be done! I can't wait. I have to go all next week without fluids but still flushing the line with Heparin and the doctor would like me to have a week with pretty much no vomiting and good labs. If that is the case, then he will give the okay to get my PICC pulled the following week!

So I'll get through these next three nights of running fluids and see how next week goes. My nurse will come on Tuesday so I will find out labs on Wednesday and hopefully know middle of next week when/if I will be rid of the PICC! I will update then. :)

Oh and apparently I have "popped." Today four people stopped me at work and asked if I was expecting! Yikes! I am apparently looking large and in charge :)

22 Weeks

Another week has come and gone and I have lived to tell the tale. :) I am continuing to slowly feel better besides the ever present nausea which I have learned to coexist with. My appetite continues to be enormous so all I can guess is that baby is doing some major growing in there! I had my weekly nurse visit yesterday and got my lab results back today. Sodium stayed the same at 134 so still low but it was nice that it didn't dip back down. My potassium went UP from 3.8 last week to 3.9 this week which is great news since I haven't even been getting potassium in my IV bags for the past week. I was thrilled to see that! Glucose was good at 76 and my calcium was the only thing that was significantly low. So all in all pretty good lab results! The plan is for me to call my OB at the end of this week to check in with him and if all goes as planned hopefully he will okay for me to stop fluids. I have enough bags to go through Saturday so we will see. I am anxious to talk to him!

Not much else to report- I am just going to keep on keeping on and get through these next few weeks. I am trying hard not to get my hopes up about getting my PICC out because I was devastated when that didn't work out at 20 weeks so for now I will just make it a goal to get through the next two weeks when I have my next doctor's appointment. Until then, baby is keeping me good company and likes to play a lot at night! It is so funny to see my belly moving around with the little punches and kicks. I love it!

My nurse is unable to come see me next Monday so we have moved my appointment to Tuesday of next week. Hope to see good lab results again!

Since so many people have asked me about hyperemesis and what it is all about, I thought I would share this link to a website that has a lot of great information and has been really helpful for me.

www.helpher.org

There is a message board forum on the website that has been a huge support system to me- especially this summer when I was at my worst. It was helpful to read the stories of others and know that I was not alone in feeling so miserable! If you have time to check it out, you will learn a lot!

21 Weeks!

Tomorrow marks 21 weeks pregnant for me! I had my weekly nurse visit yesterday and got my lab results back today. My labs were exactly the same as last week. Sodium at 134 (still low) and potassium at 3.8 (low end of normal). I was really pleased to see that my levels didn't go down at all since I have been on one bag a day since Friday. Tonight I am running my last potassium bag so it will be interesting to see what my labs look like next week with me not getting potassium intraveneously anymore. My OB said he will take a look at my labs next week and if my potassium dips, he will let me try taking an oral potassium pill which will hopefully be better than having to run a long bag and have it burn in my veins! So after tonight- no more burning! :) Starting tomorrow I will run just one bag of sodium chloride or lactated ringers over an hour. It is silly but now that I know the end is near, I feel like time is ticking by more slowly. I should be thankful that I am down to one bag and that I am not hooked up for multiple hours each night but I am just SO ready to be done with the fluids and get this darn PICC out. Just another lesson in patience :)
Baby Grinstead 2.0 is a mover in there! He/she is kicking and punching all the time and we can even see my belly moving now with the kicks! Jeff got to feel movement from the outside for the first time last week which made him really excited! I found out that I have an anterior placenta which makes it a bit harder to feel kicks from the outside but our little one must be strong haha.
Throughout the pregnancy I have set mini goals for myself or milestones to look forward to which helps me have something to focus on and look toward. My next big goal is 24 weeks for a couple reasons. The first is that it is considered the first week of viability- meaning the first week that baby could be born with positive odds for survival. Now of course by no means would I EVER want baby born that early but it is just an important milestone to reach. Also at 24 weeks I will have my next OB appointment and glucose test which I am nervous for! So until then I will keep trucking along! Will update after my nurse's appointment next Monday!

20 Week Appointment

Today I had my 20 week appointment and anatomy scan. It was a great appointment- first time I can say that! We started with the ultrasound and gosh that just never gets old to me. Seeing that little one on the screen moving around just gets me every time. Baby looked healthy and was very active! He/she was waving and bouncing around through the whole thing. The tech took lots of measurements of the brain, spine, kidneys, heart, stomach, and much more. It is so neat to me that they have the technology to see all those things and look for abnormalities. All organs looked great! The things I was most concerned with hearing about were the length of my cervix and the amount of amniotic fluid and of course baby's size. Since I have been having contractions for weeks now, one of the doctor's concerns was whether my cervix is shortening at all which would be a major concern. Good news- cervix is nice and long! He also said that I have a great amount of amniotic fluid so all these months of IV fluids are paying off! Such a relief! We did NOT find out what we are having and she had us turn away when she measured the femur bones in case there was something to see. :)

Baby Grinstead 2.o's cute little profile

The little foot! I love foot ultrasound pictures :)

After the ultrasound I met with the doctor and we went over all the results of the ultrasound. He said everything was looking great and baby is healthy. He asked about how I have been feeling lately and about how much I am vomiting and how much I am able to drink. I told him that my vomiting is really slowing down and I am drinking so much more now. Dr. decided that I am ready to go down to one bag a day again and see how that goes since I am doing so well with my drinking! He even said that I can stop my potassium since that is what makes me have to run the bags longer. YAY! You have no idea how happy this news made me after two months of all these IVs. I have 5 bags of potassium left in the fridge so we are going to finish those out which will run longer, but after that I will run just one bag of sodium chloride or lactated ringers a night which will only take an hour!!! Yay! Gosh it will be such a relief- an hour is NOTHING compared to what I have been doing and on the weekends I can even do that real quick in the morning and not have to worry about it at night!

The plan is for me to try one bag for about two weeks and I need to drink even more on my own and then if I am still feeling well and my labs are okay I get to try a week of no fluids and just continue flushing my PICC and getting Heparin to avoid blood clots. THEN if all is well I may just get to have my PICC PULLED in about a month!!! Now this is all best case scenario and I need to get through these next few weeks and have everything be okay but it is really looking good for me to get it out! A month from now would be right around my birthday- what a great birthday present that would be! That would put me at having the PICC in for a total time of a little over three months- plenty in my opinion! :) So I am going to take it one day at a time and try my hardest to up my oral water intake and go from there.

It was so nice to talk to my doctor today and hear from him that he is proud of all I have gotten through and to hear him say that I am being strong. He reminded me that I have been sick for almost five months- an unrelenting sickness that he said can just wear anyone down. He said he understands what a sacrifice the last two + months have been as far as all the IV fluids and things have gone and just wants me to know that it has all been so worth it and that I am doing a great job. It is just nice to hear that after such a rough few months. :)

At my weigh in today I was 3 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight so I am gaining lots and getting there slowly but surely! Looks like I will be at or past my original weight by my next appointment so that is good news. We did talk a lot about IUGR (growth restriction) that I had with Ella and he said that is a good possibility that we will be facing that again. There are significant risks that come with IUGR so he said it is very important that we stay on top of things. My next OB appointment is in four weeks and he will measure my fundal height and determine when my next growth ultrasound will be- either at 28 or 30 weeks. My fundal height became discrepant at 30 weeks with Ella and that's when her problems were first found so chances are things will still look okay by next appointment but it will be nice to have another look at an ultrasound to see how baby is growing.

Lastly, little one's heart rate was 132 today- down from the 150s at my last appointment. Seems so low compared to Ella's whose was always in the 160-170 range! I know not to believe in those old wive's tales but it is still fun to guess!

I have a nurse appointment on Monday and will update with lab results after that. Praying that this may be my last month of weekly nurse appointments!

Half Baked!

As of tomorrow, I will be 20 weeks pregnant and officially HALFWAY DONE! I am so excited- this is a milestone that I have been waiting for for a long time and I remember so many times this summer thinking I would never get there. I had high hopes of having my PICC out by this time but have come to terms with the fact that it will need to stay in a little longer. It is just a good feeling to know that after tomorrow, I will have less time to conquer than I already have which is huge after all that I have been through the past few months. I like to tell myself that I am 5 months pregnant now (even though I know its really more like 4.5 months). Here is a belly pic from today at the halfway mark:





And I thought it would be fun to compare what I look like now compared to when I was pregnant with Ella. Here is a picture of me in the same shirt at 20 weeks in both pregnancies. I feel like I look completely different this time around- I look like I am carrying higher and less "out." This is funny to me because the baby is actually really low so its weird that I look like I am carrying high. I am still in regular clothes but am guessing in the next month or so it will be time to break out those maternity clothes!

20 weeks with this baby

20 weeks with Ella

This week has been pretty good as far as my health goes. The vomiting is slowly easing up and I am down to about once a day on average. I think I had two days this week where I got sick more than that and one day where I didn't vomit at all! That hasn't happened since I found out I was pregnant! I really hope that I am turning a corner in all of this and starting to get better. I am still nauseous all the time but I will take that as long as I'm not vomiting! I have been weaning off my oral Zofran and have had several days without taking it at all and a few days where I have just needed one dose in the afternoon. I am still getting the dose that is infused in my IV bag. I have also been eating well and drinking a ton of water. I am up to about 50 oz a day now! I drink 32 oz at school and another 2 or so glasses at home. I am trying so hard and my motivation is to get that PICC out!

I had my weekly nurse visit yesterday and all was pretty routine. My blood pressure was good at 96/65 and the rash under my bandage didn't look too bad which surprised me since it has been itching like crazy! I got my lab results back today and they are getting better! Still not normal but at least improving. My sodium increased to 134 from 132 last week (136-145 is normal). Potassium also increased to 3.8 from 3.5 last week (3.7-4.5 is normal). My glucose was also good at 75. I am so glad that my levels improved from last week and that they are creeping towards the normal range. I am so hopeful that this continues!

I have my 20 week OB appointment and ultrasound for the anatomy scan on Friday morning. I am really anxious to see the baby again since we haven't seen him/her for a few months! Praying that baby looks good and all is healthy! I am anxious to see how my amniotic fluid levels are and how baby is measuring. Ella measured average to high average at the 20 week ultrasound and didn't slow in growth until about 30 weeks so even if size is okay now we aren't out of the clear for IUGR but we will cross that bridge when we come to it! This is the ultrasound where most people find out the sex of the baby but we are once again opting to not find out. We both LOVED finding out that Ella was a girl in the delivery room and Jeff says one of his favorite moments was going to the waiting room and telling our families "Its a GIRL!" So those of you that were hoping for a gender update later this week will have to keep waiting a little longer. :)

In a sidenote, we got a rather large bill from Iowa Home Health Care this weekend. It was six pages long! This particular bill was for $4000 bringing our running total to a little over $15,000! We only have bills through the end of August so more will be trickling in. All I can say is thank goodness for insurance! We may rack up more in bills before baby comes than we do during labor and delivery!

I will update after the appointment on Friday. Hoping for lots of good news! :)

Go Hawks!

What a great victory for the Hawkeyes this weekend against their rival Iowa State! I actually felt bad for Iowa State because it was such a lopsided game but it was fun to watch. Jeff rigged up a projector in our garage and it turned out really nice and was fun to watch the game out there with some neighbors.

I can't believe it is already Sunday though- the weekends just fly by! I had a pretty good week overall last week with several days of only vomiting once! I am starting to wean off my oral Zofran and so far its working pretty well. Friday was a not so great day where I had a little relapse but I am feeling better now. It is funny that to me feeling "better" is probably how most women feel at their sickest during the first trimester. I still feel nauseous almost all the time but I consider it better if I am not actually throwing up. The Zofran doesn't help with nausea anyway so I figure if I am not throwing up as much I don't really need it.

Tomorrow I have a nurse appointment after school to change the bandage and draw my blood for lab work. Here is a picture of my PICC from this morning- you can see the bruising peeking out the edges:

It will feel good to get the bandage changed. I am crossing my fingers that my labs look better this week. Hopefully my sodium and potassium will both creep up a little. I will update when I get my results on Tuesday.

19 weeks

Today I am 19 weeks pregnant! Slowly but surely I am crossing off the weeks and getting closer to meeting the little one! I had a nurse visit yesterday and thank GOODNESS got my bandage changed. I only had it on an extra day because of the holiday but it was hanging by a thread! The skin is just so darn irritated now that cleaning and bandage changes are extremely painful and my arm itches and burns so intensely for hours afterwards. Yesterday I literally had to sit on my other hand and bite my lip to keep from clawing off the bandage it was so itchy. She ran my labs and called me back with the results today. Would you believe that my levels were the worst they have been this whole time?!? I just don't get it. My sodium dropped to 132 which is a new low for me and I remember my doctor saying that 130 is when they get VERY concerned. I haven't had normal sodium levels in months but I just can't believe it dropped when I am getting sodium for four hours a day in my IV! My potassium also dropped out of normal range to 3.5 (it was 3.7 last week). Doctor's orders were to continue with the two bags and retest on Monday. I got to thinking about it and am wondering whether the fact that I have been drinking more water on my own the past week is part of the problem. I think that maybe I am getting TOO much fluids and this is diluting my blood too much. I will talk to my doctor when I see him again next week and maybe go down to one bag a day.

I am very excited that I have been able to drink more water lately. It feels so good to be drinking semi normally and I am getting anywhere from 32-40 oz myself in a day. That is HUGE! This summer I couldn't even take 8 oz orally! I also am having a huge appetite lately and can definitely tell I am gaining a lot of weight. I know it is all good and for the baby but I feel like I am gaining a lot all at once! I guess I have some catching up to do. I don't want to jinx myself especially since I had an awful day on Sunday but yesterday I only threw up ONCE! Once. I haven't only thrown up once since the day I found out I was pregnant. So far today I have only gotten sick once also so we will see. Could the vomiting possibly be slowing down or even ending soon!?

Besides this marking my 19th week of pregnancy, the other big milestone is that tomorrow marks two months that I have had the PICC in. TWO MONTHS. I really can't believe it. I never thought I would ever have it in this long and yet here I am. I am proud to think that I have survived the awfulness that has accompanied having the PICC for this long and I guess looking back that I am maybe stronger than I realized. Here's to hoping that I will get it out before the three month mark!

Labor Day

Ah... a three day weekend! I really needed one of these! It is so nice to know that it is Sunday night and I don't have to go to work tomorrow. We have had a good weekend so far. Watched the Hawks in their opening game on Saturday and got some errands run. Today we went down to see Jeff's parents at their lake house in Sun Valley. Ella had a blast and would have stayed in the lake all day I think if we let her. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling the greatest and ended up having to go in the basement to rest for awhile. It is frustratign when I get really sick out of the blue, especially after having a good few days. The good news is that I have been really thirsty and drinking a lot more the past few days! Thursday and Friday I drank 32 oz both days! I think drinking the water helps me feel better than even getting it in the IVs. I'm not sure why but I felt better those two days than I had in a long time. I am hoping if I can keep up the increased fluid intake, my doctor will give me the all clear in two weeks to go back down to one bag a day. I would LOVE that. The two bags a day are just really starting to wear on me. A couple of days this past week, we had some malfunctions with my pump and ended up wasting 45 minutes each time which really frustrated me since I'm already hooked up enough as it is! So for now, I am going to tell myself that I need to get through this week and next with two bags and then hopefully I will be down to one! My nurse will be here Tuesday so I will update when I hear back about levels...