Great News!

We are thrilled to tell you that we had a follow-up ultrasound today to make sure the surgery did not disturb Little Rosey's rest and everything looks great!  It has grown to .6 cm and has a strong heartbeat at 145 bpm.  Everything in there looks good and even some of the expected inside effects of appendectomies were not too apparent!

So looks like we're going to have one strong baby!


So the only confusing things now are to figure out what symptoms to attribute to what.  Emotional...sweating...nausea...muscle pain...tired...I'm one big mess!  But a happy mess after today's news!


We love you all, thank you for your prayers.


Robyn

Minus One Appendix

Hello everyone!  Thank you for all of your love and phone calls during our big hiccup!  Wanted to check in with everyone and let you know that as of today all three of us are doing great!  Joe has been the best nurse ever - I'm very lucky to have had him around.

Before I tell you what happened, here's the newest picture of Little Rosey from Saturday.  The heartbeat was still going strong and it seems to have grown a few millimeters!

So our adventure began on Friday night.  Thursday and Friday at work my stomach had been feeling a little funky but I had no doubts it was just morning sickness.  Our friend, Tommy, was in town this weekend from Chicago and we had plans to head to Vancouver, Canada Saturday morning.  So Friday after work we met up with some other friends at a restaurant near my office.  I was feeling really cramped and couldn't really figure out what all the feelings were and decided to go home and rest while they hung out in the restaurant.  From the time I arrived home and when they arrived home an our or so later I had decided I never wanted to be pregnant again!  These were by far the worst pains I had ever felt.  I won't deny feelings of fear that God was taking our grain of rice up to heaven in those very moments, but to be honest, I thought I'd be heading there with it if the pain didn't let up!  

I called my mom and my doula Michelle and was just trying to figure out anything that would provide relief.  Finally I called the doctor and got the "ok" to take some ibuprofen.  Throughout the night the cramps definitely relieved quite a bit but new symptoms of fever, sweating, chills, vomiting were attacking all night long.  By morning I was feeling much better but decided to give the doctor a call just to be sure.  

Here are where the many blessings begin.  I truly feel so lucky.  The on-call doctor was Dr. Jokki.  He's 69 years old and prior to being an OBGYN worked for NASA.  He said Apollo 13 was what sent him in search of a new career.  He was heading to the hospital that morning and told me I should just come in and get checked out.

The main fears for us and those in the ER were miscarriage, dehydration, flu and urinary tract infection.  One by one they sought to cross everything off the list.  They gave me an IV which did make me feel so much better.  Then they took us up for an ultrasound and when we all saw the heartbeat you could even see the relief in the doctor's eyes.  I'd never been pushed around a hospital on a bed on wheels - it makes you feel like a queen!  Joe and I are working on buying one for our apartment!

We headed back down to the ER and before landing in our room the ER doctor, Dr. Luu said that he wanted to send us back up for another ultrasound to make sure it wasn't the appendix.  Usually they do a cat scan to evaluate the appendix and often finding it in an ultrasound can be difficult, but because I was pregnant, ultrasound it was.  It hurt like hell.

We weren't back in our room for 30 seconds until Dr. Luu came in and said it was appendicitis and that they would operate in one hour.  I felt relieved and terrified of the risks that having surgery at 6 weeks puts on the baby.  However, had they not found it, it would have been a much worse situation.  Even Dr. Luu said he was so glad that he didn't send us home.  

The drugs came quickly after that and the first thing I remember is talking the ear off a woman named Jean in the recovery room.  I told her all about how my Grandma's name was Jean and my mother-in-law's middle name was Jean and what a beautiful name that was.

I could not be more thankful for the doctors God sent to us that day.  They were thorough and caring and pre-cautious and were as worried as we were for everything to go perfectly.

Then there was of course Joe.  How lucky am I.  That guy can handle anything...and did because looking back I was only about 40% coherent for any of this!  Anyways, I could go on and on but we are so thankful.  And last but not least, we couldn't be more thankful for all of you - thank you for all of your love and concern, we feel very close to home having all of you on our side!

Small warning that some of these photos may not do well for a weak stomach, but wanted to show you the photos our surgeon sent us home with!

This was my apendix.

There's Little Rosey's home!

The removal.

There's a heartbeat!!! And it isn't a blueberry afterall.

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We are THRILLED to report that our little Rosey has a heartbeat!  Turns out - it isn't a blueberry at all - it's a grain of rice!  Guess we should stop reading those books.  But no worries, its 3mm size is perfectly normal!

It was unbelievable to see, but on the ultrasound (photo below) the little speck was fluttering!  You could see it clear as day and the fluttering was the heartbeat.  I can only imagine how big the heart is if the whole baby is just the size of a grain of rice.  We were relieved to see the fluttering.  They measured the heart beat and it is beating at 105 beats per minute!  Unbelievable.

And for those of you who are new at this like we are....look below...Little Rosey is the grey spot in the black circle.  The bottom section is the rhythm of the heartbeat and each circle is a beat.

So we are so happy!  Thanks for letting us share all of the love with you!

Nothing blue about this blueberry.

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Happy to report that (according to the books Joe has been reading) Little Rosey is now the size of a blueberry!  For better or worse, the blueberries I found in the back of our fridge are a bit wrinkly, but if we're honest, Little Rosey will probably be a little wrinkly upon arrival as well!

Everything seems to be going as the books say...tired...nausea...and forgetfulness.  Haven't read too much about it but I've seemed to lose my head these days!  I told Joe not to put me in charge of anything too important because there's a likely chance it will fall through the cracks of my brain.  I'm more aware than ever to make sure I have everything I need before I leave anywhere, but probably 3 days a week I'm turning my car around on the way to work to collect my phone...wallet...hopefully it will pass before I forget to put my pants on!

We are happy to report that in our 3rd week of our gym membership we are still going.  It's been great actually and probably is to credit for me not going to bed at 8pm every night.  Joe makes sure I don't overdue it - which is based on whether you can sing happy birthday or not - a song which I find difficult to sing even when not exercising!

Tomorrow is our ultrasound!  We are very excited, hoping that seeing a "picture" of it will snap us into the reality!  We'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Thank you always for all of your love.

Robyn

First Doctor's Visit

Today was our first doctor's visit! How exciting! It is very complicated lately to tell whether the nausea comes from Little Rosey or my nerves...then even more confusing since Joe feels nauseous as well. Our friend Eric was reading tips for Joe off the internet and told Joe he also needs to act like he is pregnant! :) This could be fun!

Regardless, our doctor's name is Dr. Slack. He went to medschool at Wash U so we already like him. But he really is great. He was very calm and patient and interested in all of our questions. He delivers babies at a different hospital location than where his office is because he believes they have more safety nets there in case the baby needs extra care. We appreciate that.

For better or worse the first appointment isn't all too exciting. We're saying that the due date is Nov. 14th but we are having an early ultrasound on Thursday to make sure! Everything is good but they are giving us an early ultrasound just to confirm everything for us. Hopefully we'll have exciting black and white blotchy pictures to show you on Thursday!

We spent the weekend with our nephew Eli and decided that we still really love kids! Eli is great, we are excited to bring in a new friend for him. We celebrated Eli's 7th month birthday while we were there! Erin is also doing great and is an awesome person for me to have so close by.

Just want to throw it out there that Doctor confirms having 1 Dr. Pepper a day is a-ok, so I'm pretty happy about that. He also confirms that us exercising is great, so we are happy to start our new year's resolution of working out in March - Uncle Kevin and Papa Bob inspired.

Well, I should be selling insurance so I should wrap this up.

We love you all!

Robyn

Week 5 - Size of a Sweet Pea

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Hello everyone!  Thank you for all of the love and support surrounding our little Rosey.  We couldn't be happier - or more terrified - of the great adventure that awaits us.  We wanted to keep you up to date on what's going on as we learn.  So if you want all the nitty gritty details, they'll be here!


We found out we were pregnant last Saturday.  We stalled in taking the test for a few days...probably just nervous to know the answer either way.  But there were some signs that gave me an inkling that things might get exciting but we didn't want to get our hopes up.  For me, the biggest signs were the crazy dreams I was having.  Poor Joe, I was waking up fighting monkeys and yelling for help.  Now we both have crazy dreams about all sorts of babies.  Other than some slight nausea and trying to will off my good friend Dr. Pepper there's nothing too much going on.  Joe might say differently but you'll have to ask him...I'm confident he won't say I've been crabby.


Right now our little one is just the size of a sweet pea.  We are going to the doctor to make all of this official on Monday morning. 


We will find out whether its a girl or a boy as soon as possible (I can't hardly wait) but we'd love to hear your gut feelings.  I'll tell you that both Joe and I have had the gut feeling it is a girl; however, whenever I make reference, I say him.  So that's confusing. 

Well, we will keep you up to date and would love your prayers.  Primarily for a healthy baby and for great peace for the next step of our family.  Also, winning the lottery would be awesome.


We love you all and hope you'll keep in close touch!  Here's Joe's to do list...