First Aid & CPR Training

We recently attended the second training in a series of trainings, events, tests, etc to become volunteers at our church's transitional home for girls who will age out of the foster care system. The training was for first aid and CPR. It was great. We learned so much and really enjoyed the class. It was a great refresher from what we learned in the Army many, many years ago. A lot has changed since then. And the best part for us, it included infant first aid and CPR. Which was great! We learned so much we did not know about infant care and it will come in very handy to know next year when Baby Mommaerts arrives. As you can see from the image of Roger to the left, we used life size infant dolls to practice infant CPR. They were very realistic in weight and size. We both feel more confident knowing infant CPR. We highly recommend all parents and parents-to-be attend first aid and/or CPR training and becoming certified. We were looking forward to the training going into it and were very, very excited when we completed the training.

Four Ultrasounds In One Week

Well, this has been one roller coaster of a week. We ended up having four ultrasounds this week. Two planned and two unplanned. Let's start with the planned ultrasounds. You should know by now we don't hold back with details so get ready.

Monday was our first visit with the OB/midwife practice we are going to until I can get the birthing center contracted with Tricare and transfer. As you can see from the ultrasound image on the left we are having a little alien. All kidding aside, it looks the way it's supposed to at this point. The size of the baby indicated 8 weeks and 3 days old so my due date is still June 21, 2012. We didn't get to hear the heart beat but we could see it and it was strong at 150-160 beats per minute. We were excited to see the baby and learn the heart beat was great and everything looked good. They were also able to see an extra large corpus luteum cyst. Why do I always have to be above average? They asked me if I knew I had a tilted uterus to which I told them I had been told that many times. They also said that was not a big deal and wouldn't affect labor. We really had a great time during the ultrasound. The tech was so nice and funny. We were laughing so much. We'll definitely try to go back on her days for our next ultrasound. I will admit there was a tiny part of me going into the appointment that thought they were going to tell me during the ultrasound they couldn't see anything. I need to pray daily during this pregnancy against these attacks of lies. The labs all came back great except my urine tested positive for Group B Strep. So I get to take some antibiotics for that now and get tested again between 35-37 weeks. My next appointment was set for six weeks away.

Our next ultrasound was on Wednesday at the fertility doctor's office. Even though God allowed us to conceive naturally in the end, he does blood work at the first positive home pregnancy test and an ultrasound before he releases you to your OB/midwife. And even though we told his office we had already called our OB and set up our first appointment with them, their policy is to do the ultrasound to make sure everything is okay with the pregnancy and say good bye. It was a great visit with Dr. Kavoussi as he and his sons are the nicest guys in the world and it was great to share the excitement of our pregnancy. We all marveled at how shocked we all were to have conceived naturally. He was so excited for us. It was really nice. And another awesome thing about the visit was we got to hear the heart beat! It was so cool. We totally didn't expect to get to hear it so we were kind of startled by it when it started. Roger was shocked silent. I got teary eyed. It was great. As you can see from the ultrasound image above it shows the heart beat and Dr. K said it was 160 so very strong. He was pleased with how everything looked and we were on our way.

Now for the unplanned ultrasounds. Warning: it's going to get gross people. Wednesday night we went to the NAMI Walk Austin awards ceremony at Zilker Park Clubhouse as our team captain invited Roger and I since he was the highest fundraiser on our team. It was a great evening with delicious food meeting nice people and an amazing view of downtown Austin at night. On our way home we were going to stop at Walgreens to pick up my Group B Strep antibiotics. As I was driving I felt wetness in my under pants and it got worse as we drove. I joked with Roger I hoped the not being able to hold your urine hadn't already started but I wanted him to come in with me to the bathroom anyway. When we pulled into the parking spot I opened my door to get out and there was blood running down my leg, a good pool of blood in my seat and all over the back of my dress. Fresh, bright red blood which is not good. So I wrapped my jacket around my waist, waddled into the Walgreens bathroom and sat down on the accessible stall toilet. As I pulled my panty hose down a large amount of blood came rushing out then a big flat blood clot fell out into the toilet. Sorry, I warned you it was going to get gross. I said loudly to Roger, "I hope that's not the baby" and told him to call 911. The ambulance came very fast. While Roger was outside of the bathroom directing the paramedics in I prayed for God to take care of me and the baby and to give us peace. When the paramedics came in they asked me all the questions, took my pulse and blood pressure. They were shocked my pulse and blood pressure were so good considering. They were very nice and calm and told me the truth of what it could be but for some reason I didn't react in anyway. After they got me on the gurney, the other paramedic looked in the toilet to calculate the amount of blood and check out the blood clot. They told me in the ambulance it looked like it was just blood clot and nothing else and it didn't look like it was a miscarriage but the ultrasound in the ER would confirm everything. The paramedics were mainly concerned that there was no more bleeding for my safety. Roger drove my car home to grab me some clean clothes. I arrived at the ER at 9:30pm and it was a long, long night of waiting and wondering. Although Roger kept saying he didn't think it was a miscarriage over and over again. He examined the blood clot very well I found out later so he was more than confident it was just blood. They did labs first and a couple hours later did an ultrasound. The ultrasound tech told me the heart beat of the baby was strong so that's how I found out it wasn't a miscarriage. So Roger was right. About 2:00 am the ER OB did a pelvic exam and he told me there was still some blood from the cervix but it was closed so he wasn't concerned about a miscarriage and told me the ultrasound tech had also seen a fibroid. I was shocked by that because I had two other ultrasounds this week and they didn't say anything about a fibroid. He told me he was going to go ahead and release me because the radiologist was not calling him back regarding the ultrasound results and he didn't want us to have to wait 2-3 hours longer. I was more than ready to leave at that time. I was starting to lose it truthfully. There were periods of 1-2 hours when no one checked on us. We asked for water at one point and never heard back from them. My IV was killing my arm and I was so uncomfortable I couldn't sleep. We even turned off the lights and tried to sleep for a while but it was hard. It was just a completely unpleasant experience all around. I told Roger when I was sitting in the pelvic exam room that when I realized it was after 2:00 am I started to get really mad and if they didn't come back in 15 minutes to do this exam I was going to walk back to my room and walk out. I came very close to pulling a Harvey Sr. My dad who notoriously hates hospitals, makes nurses and doctors scared to death and has actually walked out of the hospital before.

So I was put on bed rest Thursday and told to follow up with my OB. I had called my OB about 10:00 pm at the ER before they had done anything to let them know what was going on. I spoke with a midwife who was on call with a laboring mother. She told me what they would do at the ER and to call her back directly on her cell phone no matter what time it was to tell her the results. She was so nice and calming. So I called her back about midnight with the ultrasound results as I thought we would be leaving soon since the ER OB told me he probably wasn't going to need to do a pelvic exam. She told me to make a follow-up appointment the next day with one of the OB's in the office and to follow the ER's discharge orders for the rest of the day. When I woke up on Thursday I called to make the appointment and was scheduled to come in Friday at 11:30am. All day long on Thursday Roger kept saying, "IF you have a fibroid" as his response to all our discussions about the fibroid. He said he really didn't think I had a fibroid. I was like, "Whatever Dr. Mommaerts." So this morning I went in and during the ultrasound they could not find anything other than a baby with a healthy heartbeat and that same extra large corpus luteum. They couldn't see a fibroid or any other indicator of why there was so much blood and the blood clot. They could see large blood vessels in the uterus which they said was normal during pregnancy. They thought maybe one of those or a cervical blood vessel could have ruptured but since there was no more bleeding they wouldn't be able to tell for sure. They said my cervix looked good but was very long. Again, always the over achiever. They did see my uterus was more than tilted and almost horizontal. But other than those things there was no indication that anything had even happened and there definitely was not a fibroid. Again, Roger was right. They also let me know they never received the radiologist's report from the hospital. I was not surprised. I won't be going back to that hospital again unless I am unconscious and right next to it.

Our community group from church which are very close friends of ours and our neighborhood group of friends all started praying for us and rallying around us Wednesday night while we were in the hospital. It was so nice to only have to contact a few of them and they got the word out and got everyone praying for us. We definitely felt covered in prayer, had a lot of peace and knew God was going to take care of everything. Obviously Roger knew God was protecting me and the baby very well. And I will start praying the rest of this pregnancy is boring and uneventful! ~ Holly

Is this for real?

So it's been a couple weeks since we found out we are pregnant and I have felt great. So great I didn't even feel pregnant. I even wondered if it would take hearing the heart beat at my first doctor's appointment on November 14th before I believed I was really pregnant. Then Sunday I stayed too long at the church garage sale and was so exhausted Sunday night I had to take a nap and still felt exhausted when I woke up. Tuesday I was driving home and felt like I could fall asleep as I was driving. And Wednesday I had what I thought was my first bit of nausea. For so long I didn't think getting pregnant would ever happen. And tonight as I was thinking about how hungry I was, again, I was like, "Wow, this is for real. I have a baby growing inside me. omg." :)

~Holly