She's 10!

Well, she was 10 last month. 

She's a fun, funny, smart, stubborn, defiant kid. She loves animals and thrives in nature. She seems younger than her years. She has ADHD and Oppositional Defiance Disorder. She's creative, appreciative and thoughtful at times, and at other times she's selfish, rude and aggressive to an extent most parents don't experience on a regular basis. I have tried a million different approaches to help her with her frustration tolerance and anger management, but not much has stuck.

Yesterday I got a call from a doctor who had recently evaluated her, and I was told something I hadn't expected. She's being diagnosed as autistic.

I hadn't expected it because my kiddo is very social. She has good friends and makes friends easily. Earlier in the week, the doctor told me that one of the main determinants of autism spectrum diagnosis is difficulty in this area. So it seemed highly unlikely she qualified as being on the spectrum. But then the doctor talked to the team of therapists who have been trying to work with Sadie for the last 5 months, and said it was eye opening. Due, I suppose, to Sadie's unwillingness/inability to connect with any of them in all of that time, the autism diagnosis was made.

My daughter and I connect a lot. We look each other in the eyes, we make each other laugh, and we relish in doing so. It still seems unlikely to me that she's on the spectrum, but I haven't been sent the report yet, so I suppose I'll become enlightened then. Certainly I'll learn more. I hope the diagnosis means that she'll get more help with her frustration/anger.

Here she is, Miss America!

She's not really Miss America, nor will encourage her to go that sort of 

direction. But I love to say that and she's just such a cutie patootie! 

She's 4 months old now and doing great. She's all of 12 pounds, which is a little on the small side, but her growth chart is fine and I'm not worried.  She sleeps through the night now and is just a happy sweet wonderful kid!  We are very lucky parents!

35w6d rounder and rounder we go!

I haven't been a good blogger.  I got busy.  Reasons/excuses/truth is:  I have a 2nd job that takes up my time in the evenings, and for the last few weeks I've been in "nesting" mode, trying to get our home organized.  I think I've actually been in this mode for a few years now, it's not just baby related, though I think that the due date provides a nice deadline to adhere to.

However, I'm writing again because I reason there must be other 40+ moms-to-be, or hopeful moms-to-be, who could use a little info on those of us who are finally having healthy pregnancies.  When I was looking for hope, I found it very encouraging to read other women's blogs, other women over 40, so I didn't feel that I was a freak for wanting/expecting a baby at this age.  Freak not, my friends!   It does happen.  Not to everyone, and not right away for me, certainly.  3 pregnancies that didn't work were disappointing, and even more disappointing was that I was getting used to them not working out.  But I still reasoned that surely there must be at least one good egg left inside me, if not several.  It was just a matter of trying, trying again.  So that is the attitude I took, and it did pay off.  I have a sweet younger friend who is going through some fertility issues, she's only 34.  She's had two miscarriages so far, and they are devastating her.  I have tried to explain to her how lucky she is that she gets pregnant after only 2 months of trying each time -- she hasn't experienced the year-long waits that I went through between pregnancies.  At the same time I try to understand her pain, as it's valid and real and hers.  I don't want to diminish her experiences (much as I'd love to diminish her pain).  I truly believe it'll work out for her and her husband very soon, but that's not something she's able to hear -- and I can relate to that too.

So to update you on me and the niblet, we have gestational diabetes (GD), thanks to the placenta who has been quite pesky.  So I'm off the sugar, the white flour, and apparently any whole wheat pasta that isn't Trader Joe's  (that's the only one that works for me, I've found -- last night I made lasagna with a limited amount of whole wheat noodles from Whole Foods.  I got one of the highest post-dinner blood sugar numbers I've had, second only to the whole wheat Kraft mac n cheese night failure).  I eat very few grain-related carbs these days, a whole lot of string cheese sticks (Organic Valley is a million times tastier than Lucerne, BTW), some great high-protein yougurt (Stonyfield greek and Siggi's Icelandic style *who knew??*), all the non-starchy veggies and protein I want, and limited fruit.  I can do one small corn tortilla at a meal, or one piece of high-protein sprouted-grain bread per meal, or that TJ's pasta.  Oh - and quinoa.  Beans are great though.  For lunch today, I just had a salad with steak, chickpeas, veggies and cheese and I should be fine.  Dinners are easy, we do a protein and then usually 2 veggies (i.e. broccoli and cauliflower, or salad and roasted carrots), tonight I think it'll be meat-stuffed zucchini and a salad.  Then, my bedtime snack is sugar free ice cream with natural peanut butter as a topping.  I am not a fan of artificial sweeteners, but it sure is nice to have ice cream at the end of the day, especially since I can't have anything else I crave.  There are snacks I have to eat as well, it's a lot of eating, really.  And a lot of finger pricking after each meal.  It's doable, though, and it will end when the placenta is no longer inside me.

I have my 36 week checkup in 2 days, I'm looking forward to that.  I like my midwife a lot, she takes a lot of time with me.  My next appointment at 38 weeks will be with a different midwife.  This 36 weeker will actually be my last appointment with my midwife unless for some reason they don't induce me at 39 weeks -- I do have a 40 week appointment with her after my due date.  But the GD protocol is to induce around 39 weeks.  I am going to push back on that if the baby and I both seem fine.  We'll see what happens.  I do have an OB and she is the one who will want the induction.  I've heard to prepare for pushback on my opinion.  The fear from doctors is that the baby will be big.  But since I'm controlling the GD with diet and a little medicine at night, she shouldn't end up too big.  Less than 50% of GD babies are bigger than 8 lbs. 14oz., which is their definition of big.  Here's the article I read that encouraged me even further in my opinion http://evidencebasedbirth.com/category/gestational-diabetes-2/

Of course, if there is good reason for induction I'll do it.  I don't need either of us to be hurt or worse.  

So hopefully my midwife will be on duty at some point when I go to the hospital.  It's a crapshoot though.  But if not, it'll be a different midwife.  Unless they say I have to be on the high risk side of the L&D ward.  Then it's just doctors.  So much is unknown.  Birth plan shmirth shmlan!  I will finalize one with my hopes and wishes, but I have to be ready to let it go, too.

The craziest thing is that in about a month, or less, or possibly more, there will be a little baby in this world to whom I am Mommy.

29w5d still here!!

Hello to anyone who was reading this blog and wondered whatever happened to me!!  I am sorry that I stopped writing, but life became busy.  I got a second job, which is a lot of computer work after my normal work day, so when I wasn't working one of my 2 jobs, I just wasn't up for sitting at the computer and typing away anymore.  Also, once I went public with my pregnancy, I was able to get my thoughts out verbally to friends and family, and didn't require the blog as much as it wasn't my only outlet.  Regardless, I know some folks have wondered, and others have stopped by and read it, only to see it unfinished.  They must have wondered whatever happened to me and my pregnancy. 

So I'm here to say that I and the baby girl are fine!  We are plugging along, battling gestational diabetes (which is not uncommon in us older moms, and will end as soon as the placenta is out of me), but otherwise fine.  Oh, but I'm slightly anemic, so I'm drinking an herbal supplement to amend this as well.  I've been having checkups every 4 weeks, my next one is in 2 weeks when I'm at 32 weeks.  At that point I'll also start having twice-weekly non stress tests (NSTs) for the baby.  These will be appointments where they hook me up to a belly monitor that will look for the baby's movement and listen to her heartbeat.  They'd told me long ago, before the gestational diabetes (GD) diagnosis that I'd need to do these, since I'm on a low dose of blood pressure medication (I have been for 3 years).  And now that I have GD as well, it's even more important for them to know that she's under no stress.  The only pisser of it is that it'll eat into my sick time, which I am counting on for my unpaid maternity leave.

I'll write more soon, but for now I'm posting this before I fail to do so for months on end!!

18w5d It's a....

Girl!

We had the anatomy scan yesterday and now we know.   I'm very happy, as I have a boy stepson, a boy husband, and two boy dogs in my house already.  I would certainly have fallen in love with a baby boy as well, but it's just nice to know that I'll have a little someone to help balance out the hormones in the house.  And who knows, maybe she'll bring more than we're ready for!  

I know nothing else -- the technician who performed the ultrasound could only tell us gender.  I have an appointment with my nurse-midwife later this week.

17w2d tests and good outcomes

I'm feeling really good these days.  I've taken the approach of believing everything is hunky-dory unless I hear otherwise.  It's made this pregnancy a lot of fun, and enjoyable.  No morning sickness has helped also!  I've had the reassuring symptom of very sore breasts the whole way through, and though it's horrid when our small dog steps on them to wake me up in the morning, they've been a great comfort to me that things are progressing as they should.

There are so many other blogs out there with heartwrenching stories and experiences.  When someone has a pregnancy loss, they usually just stop writing, it's so hard to go back to those memories of when there was still hope. When I see those blogs that stop with no explanation, I am so sad for them, thinking that's what happened.  I was just looking at this blog: http://elegyforamy.wordpress.com written by a woman who lost one of her pregnancies at almost 24 weeks.  I can't imagine how hard those later losses are.  But she is now almost full-term with a new pregnancy, thank goodness.  I found her blog today (though I've seen bits of it before) because I googled 17w2d.  It's nice to see how others were doing at the same point in time as I am.

And again, how I am is pretty darn good!  I got results back from the last part of our sequential integrated screening, and my numbers are still quite comforting.  All screened negative, nothing lower that a 1:660 chance of anything it measures for: trisomies 21, 18, and Smith Lemli Opitz Syndrome.  It was also negative for spinabifida and other neural tube defects.  When we weren't sure if those numbers would be so good, my genetics counselor scheduled a tentative amniocentesis for yesterday.  But she called me earlier this week with the good information, and also told me that Kaiser will start covering the Harmony blood test, which is almost as good as a diagnostic test without being invasive and risking miscarriage.  So we decided to drop the amnio and do the blood test instead.  I feel good about the information I have so far, so it's not critical that I did this test, but since it's being offered at a fraction of the price it normally costs (I only had to pay my copay of $20) I figured I would go for it.

I am now waiting eagerly for June 10 to arrive so we can have the anatomy scan.  I really want to find out the gender of our lil' niblet, who apparently is not so little anymore, measuring about 5 inches from butt to head -- legs are still not measured at this point.   But 5 inches!  That's bigger than my Iphone!

I'm not feeling anything discernible in there yet, probably because I'm still so blocked up that I assume every sensation is just gas.  But I've read that most people don't feel the baby's movement until 18-20 weeks, and some feel nothing until 24 weeks.   So there you go.  I do feel the uterus stretching.  It feels like mild cramps.  Nothing to run to the medicine cabinet for, it's just keeping me interested.

On a more mundane note I finally bought some larger bras!  Very exciting for me especially since they were only 6 and 12 dollars at Marshalls.  My stepmom would be proud!  But now I can rotate off of the only one that fit me, and mix it up with 2 others.  Hoorah!

On that boring note, I shall leave.

15w6d meeting my doctor tomorrow

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted.  If anyone is following me, I am sorry.  Things have been fine!  Great, in fact.  I'm healthy, I believe the baby is also, and really no bad side effects of this little human taking over my body aside from extreme tiredness and the inability to climb 3 stories of stairs without feeling like I'm going to lose a lung.  I'm hungry like a baby is -- I need to eat all the time, though not that much.  I can't tell if my belly has "popped" yet, because I'm still suffering from bloating and constipation on a regular basis, so I often just think I'm bloated.  I'm a slender person, but I've always had a belly that protrudes, or can. I've conditioned myself to hold in my stomach for so many years that it's just odd to let it all out now, and that adds to my confusion of what is baby and what is my normal relaxed belly plus bloat.  

We'll call this the 16 week belly

So since the last time I posted, I had the first 2 of the 3 tests for screening, a blood draw and the nuchal measurement.  Both of those came out great (nuchal scan measured 1.3mm) and I'm considered screen negative for everything they were checking for. I will have my 3rd test, another blood draw, tomorrow when I go in for my 16 week checkup.  I will also get to meet my doctor finally!  The last checkup was with a midwife, and so now I'll meet the new doc to whom I switched after my very first prenatal visit since that man just didn't seem like he was going to be very caring or interested in me or what I want.

After we got those initial screens back, we were finally free to tell everyone that we are expecting.  I told my family, some friends, and work.  No facebook posting for me though, I am not extroverted enough for that.  Also, after 4 years of infertility, I know it can inadvertently hurt some folks who are also suffering from it.  I have 2 friends who have just given up trying.  And another one or two who are sad because they haven't met the right guy, or the guys they're with don't want kids.  Anyway, I'm sensitive to it, so I'll refrain from that sort of thing.  I've found that I actually like it better when someone else tells a friend for me -- I keep saying to my husband "Have you told her the news?" as an opener, then he tells the friend.  I don't know why I prefer it that way, but I do.  People are so happy for us, which is nice, but I can't quite match their happiness because mine's dispersed over weeks and weeks now -- each successful week completed or positive checkup has been another dose of excitement and relief.  I might be coming across as less happy than I actually am to those friends who have just heard.  But I am definitely happy and excited to meet that baby!

It's been a few weeks since the last appointment, and after tomorrow it'll be another 3 weeks til the next one.  So I'll try to post about tomorrow at some point, and if I don't post again after that for a while, I guess readers should just assume all is well.  That's been my approach to this pregnancy.  Assume it's all good unless I hear otherwise!