We Now Call the Bay Area Home

Sorry it has been such a long time since the last post. The Internet at the Phoenix house has been broken and since I knew I was leaving I never got around to having it fixed. Anywho..... We are in California. We were not supposed to come up until the 20th, but things took a bit of a turn and the Doctors suggested we get up here as soon as we could. So Dad flew in last Thursday to Phoenix, I had the best going away dinner on Friday and we got in the car on Sat. to make our trek to the Bay Area. We got here on Sunday. I couldn't ask for a better place to stay. Casey's Aunt Terri and Uncle Jay have opened their home to a giant chocolate chip cookie making lots of sleeping pregnant woman. It has been such a blessing to be here and to know that I am among family.
I am sure that you want to know what made the doctors want me out here so soon, so before I forget I will digress. They measure little Dylan every two weeks or so to make sure that she is growing like she should be. The do an ultrasound in which they take a measurement of her femur(thigh bone), head, and abdominal cavity. IUGR (Interutirine Growth Retardation) is a common occurrence in babies with Gastroschisis. This means that the baby does not grow like they should partially because you absorb nutrients through your intestines and her intestines are not in normal working order. If IUGR sets in the surgeons usually want to get the baby out so that they can care for the baby and get her to grow. So.....at a recent Ultrasound in Phoenix we were informed that Dylan was in the 7th percentile. This means that 93% of babies are bigger than her. This also means that she has IUGR. The team in San Fran was concerned about this and asked for a copy of the Ultrasound. When they assessed the report(they know how to recalculate the numbers to not include the abdominal measurement because it is not an accurate measurement since it is missing organs) they concluded that Dylan was actually in the mid 20's as far as percentile. Twice a week I was having NST's (Non stress tests) done. During this I am sitting in a beautiful leather chair at the hospital for about an hour! They strap 2 bands to my tummy. One monitors my contractions or lack there of. And the other one monitors Dylan's heart beat. They want to make sure that her heart beat accelerates without any abnormalities. These tests have all come back beautiful. Literally beautiful, the doctor came in a told the doctor to take me off the monitor because everything was "BEAUTIFUL". The last test that I have run is an AFI which is an Amniotic Fluid Index. They do an Ultrasound in which they measure they 4 pockets of amniotic fluid in my belly. For those of you that don't know this, Amniotic fluid is the liquid that the babies live in, and it is also baby pee. An AFI level of less than 8 is not good and could mean the baby needs to come out ASAP. My AFI on October 8th was a 6.2%. As soon as the team in San Fran saw my AFI at 6.2% in combination with the Dylan's growth on the Ultrasound they suggested that it was in Dylan's best interest if I could get out to San Fran as soon as possible. So that is what we did.
Monday morning I had a meeting with the team at UCSF. My first appointment was a Ultrasound. After all of their measurements they said that Miss Dylan is 3lbs 15oz, so just shy of 4 lbs. This number is with a rough estimate of her intestines. They also said that my amniotic fluids came in at a 12.1%. WOHOOOO!!!!! That was cause to make chocolate chip cookies (not that I need much of a reason to make chocolate chip cookies these days). They also did an NST. The usually stubborn Dylan was very good and cooperative and accelerated her heart all by herself. Sometimes I think she is a mexican jumping bean in my tummy. She just hops all around in there. I was going to have to come back in on Thursday to meet with the Perinate Team. But I got a call on Tuesday saying that everything looked to good that they don't want to see me until Monday. I think that is the best news that we have gotten in a long time. So Monday I will be waking up at 3:15 to be at the hospital in time for all of my appointments. I can't wait for more great news.
And speaking of great news. I got Casey's plane ticket home. As of now he will be home on November 9th, just 4 days before his little girl will be here. We cannot wait to see him!!! I can't believe that it has been this long or that we are less than 30 days from having a daughter. The days are counting down, and I promise to to write more. We love you all and thank you for all of your support!