Nursery and Belly Shots

Here are some pics of the nursery.  It is pretty much the same as with Lor but we did buy a glider/ottoman.  We still need to rehang all the pictures and Lor colored 2 pics and we framed them for baby Michael. 

Here is my belly today at 24 weeks even...finally showing, but still not super pregnant looking.

24 Weeks

Finally came to a decision to go for the homebirth!  We decided that home is the best place for us to have this baby and we have a ton of faith and trust in the midwife who will be assisting us in bringing Michael into this world.  After all the let downs by nurses, midwives, and doctors at Borgess and the uncertainty of which of the 8 midwives will actually be on call (if we knew Trinie would be there it would be a whole different story), we just aren't comfortable with any "simple errors" happening during delivery and really just want the comfort of our own home and the one on one attention of a midwife that we know and love.  We are so stoked that Loralei will be able to be with us during labor/delivery and definitely able to snuggle and participate in those first few precious hours.  Now I have ensured Mike that pizza hut delivers if he is worried about not being able to order food for every meal and if I can just get a janitorial staff to clean up after us, we will be all set.
Loralei had a blast at the zoo yesterday even though it just rained and rained.  Here are a couple pictures from our trip.

sharing with mommy

best .99 lollipop ever

train ride to wild africa

always squinty!!

can't figure out how to rotate this one...but it's at the snake exhibit

23 WEEKS!!!

Had a very boring and routine appointment yesterday and it was fabulous!  The doctors all talked and think maybe baby Michael had meconium plug syndrome which basically means he made a ton of poop that outgrew his intestines so they backed up until their growth caught up.  But who knows.  Either way my midwife was very relieved with my 3rd u/s and quad test.

Our insurance denied our 20 week u/s so back to the battle field with fighting them...does it ever end?  The lady in billing said she would submit my ER/Labor and Delivery paperwork and rebill it and that should do the trick.

Mike picked up and is putting together our glider/ottoman.  I am psyched...but man it wasn't cheap.  But I can't wait to snuggle baby Michael in it.

We are still debating the homebirth/hospital birth.  The cost of the homebirth is making me not want to do it and the very rare chance that an emergency will happen...but Mike is leaning towards the hospital birth.  I am just so afraid one of the midwives I don't love will be there to deliver.  I also worry about the transfer to the hospital but know that I want to stay home until 7cm so I don't get that darn epidural again.  Ugh, and spending 2 days in a nasty hospital room is horrible, but someone else will clean up after us and bring us food...and we can check out early I would think.  Hmm, guess we'll see.  Wish my darn insurance would cover cpms. 

We can see baby Michael move in my belly now and it's just amazing!  Can't wait to meet him!  Next prenatal is in 2 weeks and my first doula meeting is in late June.  I can't believe how fast this is all going.

Praise God

Praise God!!! The geneticist first informed us that the stupid nurse misread my results...my quad actually gave me 1:10,000 odds for down's syndrome (she read the normal risk for my age column, not the my specific results)...so we decided to put off the amnio until 28 weeks...then we had our level II u/s...and the bowels AREN'T echogenic!!! So of course, we are just skipping the amnio all together!  The perinatologist said ob's typically use the wrong frequency transducer and misdiagnose echogenic bowel. She quoted my odds based on u/s and quad test as 1:15,000 or better.  I am crying tears of joy for this little boy!!! We have decided no more tests and are trusting all is well!!!

What a great day!!!

Today is the day...

Well, I have my appointments as follows today:

Intake-12:30
Geneticist-1:00-2:00
Level II ultrasound -2:00
Perinatologist/Amnio-2:30? (after u/s)

I am terrified out of my mind.  I am supposed to be on bedrest for 24-48 hours after the procedure...but that is not really possible with a 2 year old...hoping to do my best.  Where is family when you need them?

A few updates

Well my torch screen came back negative (Toxoplasmosis, rubella, cmv, herpes,).  The parvovirus one was a mail out test so we won't know about that one until next week.

Also, I am not a carrier for cystic fibrosis...which is great news.

Unfortunately that means that it wasn't something simple like an infection, or something scary but a little easier like cystic fibrosis...we are now down to finding out if it's down's syndrome.

Prayers, our amnio is Monday afternoon, and we will hopefully have some good news from the hopefully speedy FISH results (by the end of next week).

Pray for baby Michael!!!

Another Ultrasound and Update

We had another u/s this morning with the dr. in the room.  He said the bowel no longer looked dilated and the colon looked fine and the echogenicity of the bowel was actually less.  This was all great news except that he said at one point he thought he saw a "double bubble" or duodenal atresia, which is associated with down's syndrome 30% of the time.  He then spent 10 minutes looking for it again and couldn't find it.   He said it could have been something else that he saw and not to worry about it since he couldn't find it again.  But, of course, my mind is thinking maybe it's just starting to form so it's tiny or he just couldn't get a good angle.  That would put my odds at more than 1 in 3 combined with the echogenic bowel.  The specialist has my odds at 1:140 based on my quad and the echogenic bowel.  I had a torch test and parvo test today bc apparantly parvo is going around and that can cause echogenic bowel...but i won't have the results for 7-10 days.  Hoping the level 2 u/s shows no double bubble and even less echogenicity and the amnio comes back with "normal" chromosomes.  Still waiting on the cystic fibrosis results...hopefully tomorrow they will come back negative.  Trying to hold it together and face reality of what we will do if we are given devistating news.

On a bright note, we got some great pictures of our son today...think he even flipped us off in one of them.  :)

Please continue to pray for Michael.