Rollercoaster...

The past few days have been an absolute rollercoaster!!!!

Wednesday morning I go to my regular doctor appointment. I had been struggling with a lot of painful contractions, and I progressed from 0-2cm in one week. I also mentioned that I was afraid that I might be leaking a small amount of fluid, but wasn't sure. Doc had me lay down for awhile so she could test the fluid and while I was laying there, contractions started again. She comes back, tests the fluid, and one test says negative, but another says positive. Since I was having contractions again and the tests were inconclusive, she sends me over to Labor and Delivery.

So at L&D I get hooked up to the monitors and I am contracting regularly every 3 minutes and they are getting more painful. All believe I am in labor. Doc comes over and does a more reliable test for amniotic fluid and it comes back with a faint positive! Doc admits me to hospital to "labor" and says that she will come back tonight to likely start pitocin if I have not progressed much on my own.

During the course of the afternoon my contractions stop. Doc comes, says that she expected that I would still be contracting and says since the test was a faint positive she wanted to test the fluid again to make sure before she induced me since I was only 35 weeks. So she repeats the test and it is negative!!!! So, no induction! ARRGG! My mom is already on her way down to spend time with Riley.

But, it's still not over! Doc thinks that my water really did break but it is just a small leak so we keep getting differing test results. So, I stay in the hospital. That night I start contracting again and this time they are severe. Coming every 3 minutes again and reach a pain scale of 8 out of 10. I hit 3 cm dilated and 50% effaced, but since they don't know for sure if I am in labor, no epidural yet . So, I get two doses of Stadol for the pain because I also hadn't slept in a LONG time (side note...that stadol is CRAZY stuff. I didn't really like it and it didn't let me sleep. It did take away most of the pain though). Not to mention my contractions were all back labor. So, after 11 hours of painful, regular contractions, they STOP again!!! OMG...SO frustrated at this point and SO sleep deprived.

So Thursday morning....doc knows how frustrated I am and stays at the hospital with me in the morning even though it's her day off (love her!). She has the perinatologist(high risk OB) come to see me to figure out what to do. We decide to do the "smurf" test. So, I had an amniocentesis (needle inserted into uterus) done, they drew fluid to test for infection, and then injected blue dye into the amniotic fluid and had me put a tampon in for two hours to see if any leaked onto it. I had NEVER heard of this test before, but was told that if baby was delivered in the next 48 hours he may come out with a slight blue tinge, LOL! Still having contractions off and on throughout the day and some of them reach a pain scale of about 6 out of 10. Given Morphine, but it doesn't really help...just makes me feel funny.

Thursday night....no blue on tampon, so leak likely relsealed itself, no infection in uterus (THAT is GOOD!), and it's obvious that the contractions that I am having are not putting me into full blown labor . So, I am sent home.

Currently, I am an emotional wreck. EVERYONE at the hospital thought that I was going to be having my baby while I was there, and I go home still pregnant. My emotions are way out of wack and I can't stop crying. I've lost 6 lbs. because of all this stress and can't take being pregnant much longer. I'm really counting on a baby being born at 37 weeks....I think my doc is too.

I never thought that this experience would happen to me and I am totally miserable and stressed out. I am having a hard time not crying. On the plus side, I will be working from home next week to finish up some loose ends and then I am DONE. My mom and dad have Riley for the weekend in Lincoln to give me some time to recover, which is GREATLY appreciated. She will have her last week of daycare next week.

A Day at the Park!

Riley absolutely LOVES going to the park! The slides are her favorite part... The only problem is: when it's time to leave she is MAD!

Potty Time!

Although I am in NO rush to start potty training Riley, I figured I may as well get her used to sitting on the potty. So, today I bought her a little gift...her first potty chair (pink of course). She thought it was pretty funny sitting on it and sat for a good 3-5 minutes. Of course nothing in it this first time. I plan to just put her on it occasionally to get her used to the idea and I'm sure sometime I will catch her at the right time.

Bedrest!

I will start from the beginning... Sunday Connor dropped. So, not only does my belly look totally different (and smaller), but he's also causing some "problems". Ever since he dropped I have been having a lot of pressure and cramping when standing and have been contracting a lot more...including some painful, "real", ones. Thankfully, generally as long as I am sitting down or laying down, I usually only have about 3 contractions per hour (which is considered "normal"). Unfortunately if I just sit all day long, without putting my feet up, my ankles become as big as softballs (seriously)! So at my appointment today, my doc decided that some "rest" may be in order. Having delivered Riley, she knew that complete bedrest would be out of the question for me, and probably wasn't really needed since I have made it to 34 weeks (which means a lot to OBs). So until my appointment next Wednesday I am on "modified bedrest", meaning that I am working from home with my feet up and taking breaks to lay down. I am NOT strapped to a bed, thankfully.

Everything else with Connor seems to be great. My uterus is now measuring just 1 week ahead of my due date and at an ultrasound today all anatomy looked great. He is head down and ready to go in good birthing position! We also saw that he had A LOT of hair. You could see all of the fuzz surrounding his little head.

So we are just waiting patiently and hoping that he stays put for 2-3 more weeks!

So you can see the difference in my belly...

31 weeks


Monday

Riley Roo is 18 Months!!

Mommy is stealing the blogging rights away from me...with two children she is afriad it will get too confusing : )

It's hard to believe that my little baby is officially 1.5 years old! It seems like I was holding her tiny little peanut of a head in my hand just yesterday! I'm not an overly sentimental person or anything, but it's hard to believe that my tiny baby is now this beautiful big girl standing next to me repeatedly demonstrating how a sheep says "baa" (with the throat shake and all, haha).

Between 12 and 18 months Riley has made HUGE strides in her development. She runs all over the place, loves to go up and down the stairs, says over 50 words regularly (and will repeat other ones after her dad or I say them), eats well with a spoon, and amazes me EVERY DAY with the directives and instructions that she understands. One of Riley's favorite things is to play outside...she is actually obsessed with it and gets up sets if she isn't able to go out. Riley is also a terrific eater and will eat almost anything you put in front of her including "stranger" things like asparagus, cabbage, and some pickles. Her favorite foods of all times are probably hot dogs, strawberries, and bread, though. She is still doing fantastic with sleeping in her big girl bed and STILL won't get out of it unless I tell her she can (well, except for one occassion this weekend and gramma and grandpa Bryant's house). One of her new favorite "tricks" is picking people she knows out of pictures. She especially like identifying her mommy, daddy, and self in pictures. She has also gotten more teeth. She now has her four front ones on top, three front ones on bottom, and her top two one-year molars. Her fourth bottom tooth and one of her bottom one-year molars also just broke through her gums. So, that 11 teeth so far! I'm sure I am forgetting MANY of the other fabulous things that she is doing, but it's so hard to think of them all when you are blessed enough to experience the joy of the Roo every day!

Here is a new list of things that Riley is able to say, sign, and identify for keepsake purposes:

Words By 18 Months:
Dog
Bye, Bye
Milk
More
Thank You
All Done
Mama
Dada
Grandpa
Wally
Water
Night, Night
Bird
Elephant
Diaper
Eye
Shoe
Up
Book
Open
Apple
Hot Dog
Lion
Duck
Mouse
Mouth
Uhoh
Baby
Flower
Please
Riley
Heidi
Lola
Ryla
Outside
No
Bus (as in "Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round...")
Wow
Whee
Frog
Bottle
Ball
Turtle
Hot
Help
Bear
Banana
Bath
Baa (like what a sheep says)
Moo
Hello
Hi
Rock (if she is rocking in a chair or on a horse)
Bread

Can Sign:
Milk
Please
Thank You
Help
More
All Done
Eat

Can Identify:
Eye
Hand
Head
Tum-Tum
Foot
Nose
Ear
Tongue
Toe
Teeth

Some pictures are to come probably next week with the posting of her 18 month stats from her doctor appointment.