Baby Name...

I totally forgot to post that we picked a name. Her name will be Briana Emily Hayes.

Update... Apt. 9/28/09

Mommy came down with a horrible chest cold Saturday night. It immediately went into my chest and stayed there. I can barely talk (like my wedding day). At the appointment yesterday, we met another staff member Kelly Caramore-Walker. She is a midwife. She listened to my chest and looked in my ears and throat. She said my chest sounds extremely tight, my ears are full of fluid and my throat is very red. She put me on antibiotics, Robitussin, an inhaler, Vicks shower tablets and Tylenol. She told me that she has to take me out of work for three days to rest, so I can get rid of this cold.
I am going to go take a nap now.
~Angela

Update from Monday 9/21/09 Apt. (Sorry it's so late!)

We had the sonogram first and this was a wonderful experience. The lady doing the sonogram this time had been out for a while because she broke her arm. She is great. She talked to us through everything she was looking at (unlike the last two we had where they didn’t say two words to us). She also wanted to experiment with 3D sonogram pictures. They were really cool. We talked a little about the Echocardiogram from last week, and she was telling us that she read Dr. Smith’s notes that the baby wouldn’t cooperate. She has had the privilege of going to his office and working with him directly, so she knows exactly what he is like. My first question to her was, Is the baby still breech? She said no, she is head down. She was also able to get great images of the heart that Dr. Smith wasn’t able to get. She said “If Dr. Smith was here he would be jealous.” She told us the measurements look good, and she weighs about 2lbs, 9 oz. right now.

After the sonogram, they hooked me right up to the NST (non stress test) monitors. There are actually two monitors, one that monitors the baby’s heartbeat and movements, and the other determines if I am having any contractions. These were both very good according to the nurse. When I first got in the room, they gave me a really sweet drink, because I had to be tested for gestational diabetes. What happens is you drink this really sweet drink, and then in one hour, they draw your blood. We got in the room at 3:55pm. The monitor took about a half hour.

Then we went into another room to meet with the nurse practitioner and the Dr. This was the shortest part of the whole visit, because we had to get to the lab at 4:55 to have my blood drawn. We met with the Nurse practitioner first. She spoke with us and told us that everything looks great. The baby is growing very nicely. I did get some homework to do though. Everyday, I have to monitor the baby’s movements. I have to count 10 movements an hour, three times a day (they gave me some advise, the baby likes to move around after eating, so probably breakfast, lunch and dinner times will work best). We met with Dr. Nosovitch briefly, I think the only question he asked was do you have any questions? And we didn’t because we had already asked the nurse practitioner and got our answers. Then we had to get down to the lab.

We didn’t leave Syracuse until around 5:30pm. (this was one of the longer visits, which they told us about so we were expecting to be there late.

The next few appointments are going to be shorter we are hoping. We will have the NST and talk to the Dr. each week for the next three weeks.

They also set us up with the NICU consultation (10/5/09) (we will get a tour of the Neonatal ICU and they will go over the procedures of where our baby will be and what will be done. We also have an appointment set up to meet with the surgeon Dr. Ratner (11/4/09). We have many questions for him about what will go on in during and after the surgery.

September 15th Appointment

We had our appointment yesterday, this was just a routine weight, blood pressure and measure my belly growth. Everything is going just fine with all of that. Now for the Echocardiogram appointment, well let's just say we have a stubborn little girl. Our appointment started at 3pm we didn't leave the office until 4:20pm. We always see the nurse first, so she can do the pictures of the heart for the doctor to review. She did very well with what she had to work with. The baby is still breach, and face/body are flipped on her side. The side where the heart is, is the furthest away from the sonogram as possible. The nurse was trying to get her to flip with no luck. The nurse tried many things with me as well to try and get her to move. First I start out on my back, she had me roll over on each side to see if she could get better images. No luck again. She told me that she is more gentile than Dr. Smith, and she had to push a little with the sonogram monitor to see if she coud get anything. At this appointment, we saw Dr. Smith. He tried really hard to get images too. The baby woud not sit still for longer than 3 seconds for them to get a clear image of the heart. Well, I guess we have a very stubborn little girl. Let's hope this is something she will continue through her hard battle when she comes out. Basically at this appointment they didn't get a clear shot of the heart and woud like me to come back in 6 weeks, October 23rd. Hopefully the baby cooperated better then.