Just Plain Randomness

Above is a picture from the AMAZING babyshower that was thrown for Miss Dylan a couple of weeks ago. I feel so blessed to have such amazing friends and family. It was the most beautiful, pink, girly, loving afternoon that I could have ever asked for. We had an afternoon tea at a new tea room in gilbert called Tea Dreams. All of the guests got to dine on finger sandwiches, scones, the tea of their choice and my favorite COSTCO CAKE (pictured above)!! All of Dylan's Auntie's then decorated wooden "D's" with pink and green paint and jewels. They are now hanging above her changing table waiting for her to come home. Thank you again to all of my friends and family that sent gifts for this little angel. I don't know what we would have done without everyone's toughtfulness. I have found myself pacing around Dylan's room almost in tears feeling like I have forgotten something, but then I remember all of the amazing women that I have behind me making sure that I am completely equipped for this little girls arrival.

In more exciting news...Dylan has a cousin!!!! Ms. Bailey Lou Smith (Casey's Brother Chris and Wife Amanda) was born at 7:30 on yesterday. She was 6lbs 14oz and 20.5 inches long. I can't wait to make a trip out to ABQ to meet this new little bundle of joy. Grandpa and Grandma Smith are currently out visiting their first grandbaby! And in less than a month they will have number 2!!

Now on to my complaints. When I sat down today to write this I took a pole of what I should write about. Uncle Jay and Aunt Terri suggested that I write about my painful leg that they hear so much about. So, here you go....MY LEG HURTS!!!! Not both legs, just my right leg. I pretty much hate my right leg right now. I have had a great pregnancy! Nothing to really complain about, but this darn leg is really starting to annoy me. When I roll over in bed I wake up in excruciating pain. When I have been sitting (couch, car, you name it) and go to get up to walk, I almost fall. Dad and I went to the San Jose Flea markets yesterday (that's just what we do, 6am on Sat. equals flea market), I was so proud of myself, I made it through the first flea market no problem. But by the time we got to the second one my hands a feet were completely swollen (might have has something to do with my sausage biscuit from McDonald's for breakfast) and I couldn't walk. I thought I would be funny (also not wanting my dad to know how much pain I was in) and race Dad back to the car. This was the saddest moment yet. It was so special, I couldn't run, it wasn't even a run. It was a ghetto grandma hobble, all I was missing was a walker. So at tomorrow's appointment it is on the top of my list to figure out what this is. I am sure that it is just something that could happen during pregnancy, but I would like to know if there is a way to relieve it. I try and stretch and keep my leg elevated. But nothing seems to help. On another complaint, I have gotten heart burn these past couple of days. I know this is common too, it is just such a weird feeling. And lastly, since Miss Dylan has grown so much in these past 3 weeks, she has doubled in size, I have beautiful stretch marks to prove it. I can't tell you how nice it is to know that the reason I have these "battlewounds" is because my little girl is getting big and strong.

So tomorrow is a big day at the doctors. I go into San Fran to have my weekly tests run as well as meet with the doctors. Let's pray for more good news!!!

Growing Belly

This is a picture of my belly at 32 weeks. Miss Dylan was breech up until this day. I was starting to panic because all of the research that I did concluded that after 32 weeks the baby is usually in its delivery position. I had a hard time fathoming that a little girl that has been living with her head up for 32 weeks would now just decide to suddenly want her head down. I did some research on how to get her to into cephalic position (head down). Yvonne, our childbirth prep instructor, has let us know that she was recently reading a medical journal that said that breech babies will follow the sound of music and turn their body around. She had not had anyone do it before. I gladly volunteered to be the test subject. That night with CD player in hand I went and found the Baby Professor CD that the grandma's got Dylan. I laid down and put the headphones very very low on my tummy and watched magic happen. I could watch my stomach roll as Dylan followed Flight of the Bumble Bee down to the bottom of my tummy. And sure enough 2 days later we went to have an UltraSound and the Sonographer said "she is head down" and I let out a giant "WOHOOOOO!!!!!". It worked!!! And still to this day little Miss has her head down!

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!

Getting Bigger!

Details of Dylan's Big Day

Another commonly asked question is : Will Dylan to straight into surgery?

The answer to this is: Your Guess is as good as ours!

The way it looks is that Dylan will not go directly into surgery. I will be laboring in the beautiful "Golden Gate Bridge View Room", then when I am close to delivering I will be moved into an OR. The reason I will be moved into an OR is because it is such a sterile environment and Dylan has organs outside of her body therefore she needs such an environment. After she is delivered they will pass her through what looks like a drive through window. On the other side of this window is a team of doctors and surgeons in another sterile environment. They will immediately place Dylan into a bowel bag. A bowel bag is a plastic bag (the same kind that they use on adults in the ER) that Dylan will literally be placed in. It will got up to her armpits and then kind of wrap it around her, this is to ensure that her organs stay moist and that they stay sterile. The nurses will clean Dylan up while the pediatric cardiology team assess her heart (every time they check it they say it is great, but they just want to be SURE), the pediatric surgery team will assess her intestines and general state in order to game plan their next moves, and the neonate team will be getting her into her isolette and move her into the NICU. At this point Casey and the grandparents will be leaving and going with Dylan to the NICU. I will be finishing labor in the OR.
If Dylan just had a few loops of her bowel out then she could go straight into surgery and they could do what is called an "enclosure surgery". They would assess that bowels to make sure that there is no atresia (endings, deadspots) and then insert the bowels into the body and sew her up. The baby would then be medically paralyzed in order to make sure she didn't move. Adults breathe with our lungs and our chest go in and out, whereas a baby breathes with their diaphragm going in and out of their belly. If she now has organs in there that she is not used to then she could squirm and be in pain or possibly stop breathing.
The most likely scenario is that she will not go into surgery for two weeks. From our last couple of Ultrasounds it looks like all of her large and small intestines are out of her body, as well as her liver. Her little body was not made with an empty whole to place all of these organs. Therefore the surgeons have to make room for her organs. They will place all of her external organs into a plastic bag that is known as a SILO. The only way that I can explain it is as a cake icing tube. They will place her organs in this and then a spring loaded piece is inserted into her opening. The bag is then suspended above her body. Gravity then does the rest. The nurses could twist down the bag a little everyday in order to get more to go into her body. This allows gravity to just create space for her organs. The doctors will then preform the surgery closing up her abdominal cavity.
If Dylan's intestines come out black that means that parts of them or all of them have died. She will then go into surgery very quickly. But during my current Ultrasounds they have detected great blood flow through the intestines which indicates that nothing has died. She could also have to go into surgery right away if her intestines stop at a certain point. As you know our intestines loop around and loop around, but if she has atresia this could mean that is just stops looping.
We are hoping that Dylan will not need this last surgery that I discussed. But you just never know!

What it feels like to be pregnant!

Everyone wants to know what I feel like being pregnant. I think the following clip sums it all up in a matter of seconds!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms3QdGIzltU

Enjoy!

To "C", Or Not to "C": That Is The Question

One of the most common questions that I get asked when people hear of Miss Dylan's Gastroschisis is " You will have a C-Section, right?". So, I thought that would be one of the first topics that I addressed in the long list of questions that I am asked. The answer is "No!". Dylan will be born naturally. Or at least that is the plan. My initial thought was that she would have to be delivered by Cesarean section. How could she be delivered any other way with her intestines like they are? But after talking to many doctors and doing my own research I have found out that C-Section is not the answer. According to UCSF (where Dylan will be born), a premiere research hospital, there is no outcome difference of babies born via c-section versus vaginal birth. And because it is safer for the mother's to have a vaginal delivery not only during this pregnancy but also in future pregnancies they advocate for a natural delivery if at all possible.
After meeting with the Neonatologist in Phoenix I learned USC pediatric surgical and obstetric group differs with this opinion and advocate for cesarean at 35-36 weeks. Other obstetrical or pediatric surgical literature or practitioners do not support this approach (that of cesarean). UCSF advocates for induction of vaginal delivery at 36-37 weeks. The plan is to induce me at 37w1d. If all goes well I will progress in a safe and steady amount of time and Dylan will come naturally. I will be on close monitoring throughout the labor and if for some reason Dylan gets distressed and needs immediate delivery we will then proceed with a c-section. I will be administered an epidural fairly early in the delivery and they will up the dosage if c-section is required. My goal is to deliver Dylan naturally in a fairly quick, low pain labor. But, I also want a million dollars, so we will see what happens! I will labor in one room surrounded by family (at least the grandmothers and husband), as as labor progresses I will be moved into a sterile OR/Delivery Room for the actual birth. Dylan will not go in to her surgery right away, but because her organs will be outside of her body we want to make sure she is delivered in as "clean" of an environment as possible. I will go into more detail of Dylan and her surgery in an upcoming blog. I feel like I am overwhelming people with information.

I do want to take a minute to thank everyone that has sent me an email about the blog. I really appreciate all of the kind words that have been expressed. Everyone that reads this has a special place in My Family's heart. Thank you for taking your time to read this and take interest in our daughter's fight. She is such a blessed little girl to have so many people praying for her and already loving her before she has even entered this world. I cannot wait to tell her that the reason she recovered in such a record time was because of all of the love she had from so many people. I just don't feel like I could ever say "Thank You" enough. Please know that Casey, Dylan and I appreciate it more than you will ever know. THANK YOU for being a part of our new family and THANK YOU for being a catalyst in our daughters survival.