26 week appt update

I had my 26 week appointment yesterday.  Overall it went amazingly well, especially since I had landed at Labor and Delivery the night before with bleeding.  They kept me on the monitors for an hour or so and then let me go.  Of course Baby, who had decided to doubly scare me by not moving at all, started punching the sensor as soon as they strapped it to my belly.  I sat there watching the thing jump off my skin because she was punching it so hard.  Yesterday I had an ultrasound to check for growth.  Baby weighs 2 pounds (56th %tile), my fluid is fine, and the placenta is great.  They had no explanation for the bleeding.  No bedrest right now, but I am supposed to take it easy.   


I found out what the plan for my Lovenox shots is.  I will take Lovenox until 36 weeks and then switch to heparin.  Starting with my next appointment I will be having twice weekly appointments - one for ultrasound and one for non-stress test.  If there are any signs of pre-term labor they will switch me to heparin earlier.  Heparin clears the body faster than Lovenox, which is good.  With Lovenox any spinal anaesthesia is a no-no because it can cause paralysis.  Thus, epidurals are not possible with Lovenox nor are spinal blocks.  If I had to have a C-section it would have to be under general.  The stinky thing about heparin is that you have to inject twice a day.  My poor belly has had just about enough of these injections.  I am really hoping that I pass the gestational diabetes test because I can't imagine having to inject insulin in addition to lovenox / heparin.


My blood pressure was lower than it has been.  I'm going to start monitoring it at home so that we can catch it if it starts to creep.


Next appointment is at 30 weeks (!) unless my bp starts to rise or I have more bleeding.     

Alice is having an upper GI scope and colonoscopy on Monday.  All prayers are appreciated.  We're hoping to get some answers to the chronic abdominal pain that is making her miserable.

On a much lighter note - here is our garden!  I have nothing to do with this.  Tim and Alice do all the dirty work and I process the harvest.  Seems to work well for us.  A few weekends ago I canned 10 and 1/2 pints of German red cabbage.  Looks like the tomatillos are getting ready to pick, so I will be canning salsa verde in the near future.  Right now I've got a batch of watermelon pickles going from yesterday's obligatory 4th of July watermelon.  I've also got a bee in my bonnet to get the peaches DONE.  Canned peaches and peach pie filling were our hands down favorite thing of anything I canned last year.  (Well...  The salsa I put up was pretty amazing, too.  That was Tim's favorite thing.)  It was so nice to have those jars of summer goodness in January and February.  Every time I have an OB appointment looming I feel like I have to get things done NOW just in case I wind up having my activities restricted.  Next OB appointment is Tuesday.  I expect I'll put some peaches up this weekend.


One view of the garden.  The picture doesn't do justice to how enormous the garden is.  


Tomatillos.  Tim had no idea what these were.  They looked interesting, so he decided to grow them.  They have taken off - exciting to me because green salsa is delicious!


Regular tomatoes.  I can't tell you how many plants Tim put in - 8 or 10?  He really liked my salsa last year.


All hail the bizarre rhubarb plant!  I have no idea what that giant stalk in the middle is.  Also, I thought rhubarb was a spring plant.  This rhubarb did nothing all spring and then suddenly went nuts a few weeks ago.  This is year 3 for the plant, so it will be the first year we can harvest.  I'm waiting for the stalks to get a little bit thicker.


This is a peach tree growing out of our compost pile.  We did not plant it.  Eventually Tim will move it and if we're lucky maybe we will get some peaches in a few years!

 
Alice's flower garden - a little wilty from all the heat.