We Have Movement!!

I think the most exciting part of pregnancy (besides getting to meet the little one) is finally here! We have Movement!!

Christmas was the first time I knew for sure I felt our little Peanut (well at the time I didn't know for sure, but I will explain). I got home from all the Christmas activities and I was beyond exhausted. We got home relatively early so I wanted to rest a little before bed. I sat back on the love seat and kicked my feet up and closed my eyes. Just as I was getting very relaxed I felt a little...how do I describe it..thumping(?) really low on my belly. My eyes shot open and I told hubber that I think I felt Peanut! I was so beyond excited, but it was so quick and subtle that part of me wondered if it really happened. My husband asked where I felt it and assured me that it probably was our little baby, but I still wasn't convinced.

I have heard people describe the feeling of fetal movement as butterfly wings, bubbles, and popcorn popping. These images really threw me off because it didn't really feel like any of these things. I guess bubbles would be the closest, but it felt more like a tapping or bumping?? It is really impossible to describe.

Peanut gave me the best Christmas present ever, but part of me still doubted that I really felt baby because it was so very soft and so very very fast. Since that day I have felt the same feeling 4 more times and am now 100% convinced that I am feeling our little Peanut. She loves to move when I lie down for the night or am very relaxed. Poor hubbers wants to feel her so bad, but it is such a subtle movement that I can barely feel so there is no way someone could feel her from the outside. He still tries. Last night as we were trying to sleep my husband asked me what was wrong because I kept moving and waking him up. I whispered that our little baby was awake. He quickly went from somewhat annoyed to laying his hand on my belly and trying to coax peanut into kicking. Poor guy doesn't stand a chance of feeling her yet!

I may regret this later, but I can't wait to feel some real kicks and jabs!

Seeing Red This Christmas

Seems that I have a new pregnancy symptom which is so fun. Part of me wonders if it is the dry weather of winter or if it truly is a pregnancy symptom. Either way I started to experience bloody noses for the first time in as long as I can remember. They really aren't a big deal and they don't gush, but when I go to blow my nose I find that my tissue is full of blood.

The reason I hate these bloody noses is that I cannot tell you how many times it starts during my treatments. I will be nebbing HTS, coughing, and spitting when all of the sudden bright red blood will fall into my cup. I panic thinking my lungs are bleeding only to blow my nose and find the tissue full of blood. If I wait five minutes of so it subsides and I can continue my treatment like normal, but it sure scares the crap out of me in the meantime.

I have an appointment again tomorrow with my high risk OB and will be sure to update. I hope I get a chance to see my little peanut again!!

Long Days, Short Nights

I have been crazy busy this week. Today I had a 10 hour work day with only a 15 minute break in the morning and a 1/2 hour lunch break. I had my regular job (with the 1/2 hour lunch/15 min break), the after school Math class, and finally tutoring. The problem with side jobs is there are no laws on breaks and it can turn into a VERY long day. I am just a little bit ready for break!

My principal approached me about teaching the Math class after school in January. I have decided for health reasons (and to avoid these very long days) I would not continue with after school Math after break. She asked me in a public place so I told her I needed to think about it. She was so amazingly sweet and told me that she wanted me to tell her what would make it a better experience for me since I was unsure I wanted to do it again. Since the ONLY reason I am not doing it is because I am pregnant and I have not told anyone at work yet I assured her I loved the experience and I would talk to her in private about it later. Tomorrow I will officially tell my principal, but won't tell the rest if my staff until January. I am sad I won't be teaching Math again, but I also know I need to make my health a priority.

In other news, tomorrow I am flying out to see my VERY best friend. The best part is...we are BOTH pregnant so we are having a preggo weekend getaway. She is a few months ahead of me so I am sure my bump will be wimpy next to hers, but I am so looking forward to a nice weekend with Shirley temples, Martinellis, preggo movies, prenatal yoga, and multiple bathroom breaks :)

Before I go off to bed I wanted to mention that I had my NT scan this past week and it was the most amazing experience ever. I will post in greater detail soon, but all I have to say is the tech said my baby has everything he/she could possibly need and that all he/she needs is to grow. She said baby looks perfect and she is 90% sure the gender. I have to say what a HUGE relief to know that despite my meds baby developed just fine AND I can't believe we kinda know the gender. I will post the gender after I get back from my weekend. In the meantime any guesses as to whether peanut is a boy or girl?

Love Hate Relationship With My Vest

I don't know if it is just me or the fact that I have an old vest or if this is a common problem, but my Vest can be SO annoying!!!! My number one big problem with the vest are the stupid hoses. The problem with the hoses is that they will not for the life of me stay connected to the stupid machine or the stupid vest for the whole 30 minutes! Now this problem has been happening forever so recently I thought to call the company and get new hoses. My old hoses were 12 years old-Yikes! The company promptly sent over two brand new hoses. I thought my days of annoying hoses was over. I was so very wrong!

I usually get my vest and nebs all set up and grab my computer. I then sit very still and try not to move too much for the next 30 minutes. Despite my best efforts to only allow movement in my finger tips (touch pad on the lap top) and my chest for breathing the stupid hoses pop off the machine or the vest about every 5-7 minutes. I then have to grab the flailing hose and reconnect it which guarantees at least one other connection of the other hose to pop off. My vesting treatment usually includes a lot of cussing and my husband laughing under his breath at how pissed off I get at my stupid vest. I do vest at really high frequencies because personally it feels better and gets more moving, but the higher the frequency the more popping that occurs.

I started trying to get a Vest upgrade when I was 18 and didn't want to lug a 50lb Vest to and from college. 3 insurance companies later and constant applying for an upgrade I still have my old machine and don't see a new machine in sight.

I thought about super gluing the hoses into the machine or heck even duck taping them, but thought I would see if anyone else has this issue and what the heck do you do about it?

Second Prenatal Appointment (not high risk)

I went to see my midwife yesterday for my first real appointment after my dating ultrasound. The appointment was much more frustrating and irritating than I had anticipated, but the frustrations had nothing to do with my little Peanut so I am grateful for that!

I had the appointment at 3:40 and got there a little early to find a waiting room filled with pregnant women. I felt a little left out as my bump looked like nothing compared to many of the women rubbing their big bellies. After waiting until until almost 4:00 the receptionist said they were very behind and maybe I should get my labs done first. No problem. I get to the lab and was told I have to get a glucose test and must return promptly in an hour. I explained I was waiting for an appointment and did not know if I could make it back in an hour, but the phlebotomist assured me an hour would be plenty of time so I drank the delicious elixir and off I went.

So I went back upstairs by 4:00 only to wait and wait. Grrr. I finally got called back only to wait some more. Soon the midwife comes in and seems so rushed I am not sure she would recognize me 3 seconds after I left. I told her I needed to get to the lab by 5:00 which made the rushing worse. I got a pap which was just as lovely as it sounds. I asked her about bleeding because my last pap (years ago) I bled after and knew I would freak out if I bled during pregnancy. Thank gosh I asked. The second she was done she said, "Yup, you are going to bleed, but don't worry it is from the outside of your cervix and baby will never know." She then explained that pregnancy can make your cervix very sensitive and more prone to bleeding. She quickly asked me about classes and breastfeeding and CF.

My favorite parts came next. She got the fetal monitor and I got to listen to my sweet babies heart beat. Of course I teared up and and was laughing at the same time. It was the sweetest sound I have ever heard. I love that little heart so much. She then asked me if I wanted to peak and baby. I would never turn a baby peak down so she pulled out the ultrasound machine. She said she was not doing measurements or anything besides looking for fun. She explained that dating ultrasounds are much more accurate than later ultrasounds. I then saw my little Peanut and was on cloud nine because I got a perfect view of Peanut's face!!!!!! I saw two eyes, a nose, ears, and a perfect little mouth that I swear on my life was smiling. I think my heart melted into a puddle on the floor. She snapped 3 quick pictures and turned the machine off. I think the total amount of time I saw my baby was 45 seconds, but it is amazing how much you can fall deeper in love in 45 seconds! I love thinking about little Peanut in my womb smiling!! Technically a fetus can make facial expressions and smile at 11 weeks. I am sure a smile at this point is simply practicing using facial muscles, but I love to think that little Peanut was purposefully smiling at me to let me know that he/she is happy and healthy.

When I write it out the appointment sounds long, but I all those things happened at record speed and it felt like a dizzying whirlwind. Luckily, I have a lot of choices for doctors as well as locations (perks to being in a city) and I love my high risk doc who I will be working with the majority of the time so I am not too upset, but  it was rather annoying.

I then ran down to the lab in the nick of time. The best part...I already got some of my results. Talk about fast- 24 hour results! I went online just in case and sure enough my glucose test was already back....and I PASSED!!!! Yay!!!!!!! So relieved. I will be tested constantly throughout pregnancy and I know diabetes can show up at anytime, but I will take every week or month I can get. I also passed some other random tests- blood clotting, liver levels..all good news. The one I am most anxious for is the first trimester screening (for chromosomal abnormalities) which should be back by tomorrow or Monday. Fingers crossed our little baby passes with flying colors.

Arrival of The Bump

I finally have a little bump!! I was having trouble figuring out what was bump and what was bloat. It is really common in early pregnancy to get a bloat bump which I kinda wish I didn't read because that is way less cute than a baby bump. I think now that I am almost 13 weeks it is officially a baby bump (an potentially a little bloat too, but I don't think about that)! Although I have been using a bella band since Thanksgiving I realized I had a real bump when my shirts consistently wiggled above my belly exposing the bottom of my bump. I kinda felt like an overweight truck driver with my gut hanging out, but then I remind myself I am prego and it becomes cute! Let me introduce...my small, but ever growing baby bump!

This is what happens when I wear normal fitted shirts, my bump breaks free!

Confessions Of A Pregnant Cyster

So I have some pregnancy confessions I thought I would share with you!

1. I love kids. I am having one of my own and heck I work at a school, but when my husband go out to eat for a nice dinner I HATE when the server sits a family with kids near us. Somehow it takes all the romance out of the experience. It kinda puts me in a bad mood!

2. I still get jealous of pregnant people. Uh, weird! The other day a girl I went through the credential program with announced her pregnancy on Facebook and I got jealous until I reminded myself that I was pregnant too!

3. I cry a lot! Luckily, I cry out of happiness rather than sadness. I think hormones get to me and when I think about being pregnant or my little baby I get all emotional. They are happy tears, but sometimes I feel like a freak driving down the freeway or while knitting my baby a blanket with tears streaming down my face.

4. Trying to think of baby names frustrated me to no end. I can't find even one name for either gender that I somewhat like! I find looking at names annoying.

5. I can't truly believe this is my last pregnancy. I know I have CF and I thought that if I could have a baby I would be so blessed and would play it safe with only one. Now that I am pregnant I keep thinking that this is my first, but not my last baby. Wishful thinking or mothers intuition? I dunno.

6. At my last ultrasound I was in awe of my baby, but left feeling a little confused/weird. The baby at 8 weeks looked nothing like the baby at 12 weeks and for some reason it was hard to believe that it was my same peanut. I felt weird not being able to recognize my own fetus and wondered where my little peanut went!

7. I know I am pregnant, I know I will have a baby in June, I have seen ultrasounds and the heart beating, but the reality that a little person is inside me moving around doesn't seem to register completely. Watching our baby jumping in my womb, but feeling nothing didn't help. I am hoping when I feel baby it will seem a little more real.

First High Risk OB Appointment

I am a sexist. I admit this and I was proven wrong. When I found out my new High Risk OB was a male I had a mini freak out. But a man can't get pregnant or have their own children, he could never possibly relate to me and my pregnancy experience. I want a woman! I wasn't expecting much. A lot of paper work and history and...well that was about it. The appointment was 25 minutes from my house, but I work in a small town 25 minutes from my house in the opposite direction so it was quiet the trek. Living in the city I don't usually travel for doctors appointments. In fact, my CF clinic is about 10 blocks from my house and walkable if I wasn't so lazy! Talk about spoiled. I survived the 50 minutes drive and here is how the appointment went.

The hospital was HUGE and beautiful and we got a little lost on the premise thanks to me and my non existent sense of direction. I was nervous although I wasn't sure why and had no idea what to expect. It started like any other appointment with weight and blood pressure. My weight was up 3 pounds!!!! Woohoo! So excited that I am getting some fat for this baby. I don't even feel like I am working for this weight. I am eating uber healthy (obscene amounts of leafy greens, veggies, fruits...) and trying to avoid any unhealthy fats/processed foods although I do need a little junk once in awhile. I am eating more, but not anything different from my usual besides trying to make even healthier choices than before because my little peanut does not need to be developed with preservatives and high fructose corn syrup. Anyways, I digress.

So I am in the room and instantly see my favorite thing ever since being pregnant- an ultrasound machine!!! OMG now I am excited and wish the doctor would get his male (that I wish was female) butt in here. So in comes this man with a great smile and an awesome personality. I instantly like him and I could sense my husband did too! He went over my history and I have to say he was super impressed with the work I put into my health. I think we forget how much work CF is and it is so nice to have someone commend you for all the hard work you do. He works with a lot of asthmatics and it was actually really helpful since I have an asthma/inflammation/allergy component. He was asking me about what I do to control my environment in which I do pretty much nothing. He explained that there was so much I could do to help out the inflammation by changing my environment  Everything from wrapping my mattress and pillows in allergy/dust free products to having a minimalist bedroom. I actually really want to take some of his advice. He was also freaking out that when I do my home peak flow I usually hit 400-450. I guess that is good!

Anyways a quick overview of the appointment and why I love him. He hates the word high risk and said I am normal with a few potential challenges. They are going to watch baby closely to make sure the birth weight is good. They are going to watch my health closely to watch out for diabetes, preterm labor, and my lungs. He said that other than those challenges I am really just a regular pregnant woman. He said that I know my body and should have a zero tolerance uncertainty rate. Meaning no matter how silly it seems to CALL if anything seems abnormal or worrisome or for questions. He made me promise. He said that if things run smoothly and I get to delivery healthy that I should have any type of birth I want. He wrote in my chart to not be scared of any decision birth wise just because I am high risk. He said I could have an OB, a midwife, whatever as long as at the time of delivery everything looks good. He also talked to my husband in very thick American accented Spanish which my husband thought was cool and I know it was one factor that won him over.

We then got to my favorite part, we got to look at our little baby!! When he turned on the machine I got so nervous. What if the baby stopped growing, what if the baby wasn't even there, what if the baby was missing something vital like his/her head. Yes, I had these thoughts race through my mind in the 3 second it took to turn on the machine. The second my baby showed up on the screen I saw the heart beating away which melted away any fears. I knew my baby was alive and well. I then went into shock at how enormous this baby was. Last time little peanut was a little tiny thing with a head and a body, but now peanut was a baby with visible limbs and hands! Right after we saw the baby, he/she decided to jump twice! Ha, so cute! I think the baby went to sleep after because there wasn't much movement after that. The little baby had one hand straight up in the air as if to wave to us. I have to admit that the first ultrasound was much more clear because we could see a better outline of the face. I think because it was an internal ultrasound the first time and this time it was a regular ultrasound and so it was a little more blurry, but still obviously our sweet baby. The doc pointed out the body and then pointed to the skinny legs as he called them. This made me laugh because the baby may already take over me with skinny legs. The baby measured 2 days ahead of schedule which made mama proud that little peanut is doing well and growing just as he/she should! It was surreal to see this little life and think that the little baby is wiggling around in my body and I can't feel it. I feel like I love this little peanut so much and think about my little baby all the time! We got a video of the ultrasound on my husbands phone and I can't stop watching it. I want to meet this little person so bad and get to know his/her personality. I cannot wait until June to meet my sweet little June bug!

High Risk OB

I thought I would mention that tomorrow I am going to a new high risk OB. I loved my original OB and I may be able to use her, but because of weird insurance issues I may have to switch so I am going to meet another OB through a different hospital to establish a relationship. I basically have special circumstances because my insurance does not have an accredited CF center that they are affiliated with so I can go outside my plan to see my CF doc. The high risk OB that works with my doc is not technically under my insurance. Since my insurance does have high risk OBs (just not OBs that work directly with the CF clinic) I may or may not be able to get coverage if I go outside my plan. I am trying to be open minded about tomorrow and see how I feel about this new OB. I will be sure to update and am very curious as to what the appointment will entail!

Blood and Pregnancy Don't Mix

My easy pregnancy luck had to come to an end at some point and Monday at 10:15 in the morning my luck ran out. I was in the reading room quickly grabbing some books for my reading group as I only had a few minutes when I felt a cough coming. I quickly walked to the hall to cough in "privacy" and had a rather heavy productive cough which is rare during the day for me lately as my lungs are usually pretty clear. I then felt what I believed to be a plug in my mouth along with a foul taste. The coughing didn't stop there and my mouth started to fill with this slimy foul mucus. I ran as fast as I could to the bathroom to spit knowing something was terribly wrong. As I slammed the door shut I was spitting into a paper towel only to see to large balls of gelatinous blood followed by thin regular blood. What the hell?! I have never felt better lung wise these past 3 months how the hell are my lungs bleeding? I started freaking out in my head. I think the recent death of a fellow cyster due to a massive lung bleed made me much more panicky than I would have been otherwise.

I had no idea what to do, but I also knew that I had 8 first graders waiting for me to start a reading group and I was already late. I ran from the bathroom and to the classroom with tears still filling my eyes. I luckily pulled it together before the kids noticed and got through the next 1/2 hour. Of course I have another group immediately after and didn't have time to check the status of my lungs.

The second my lunch break started I ran into the bathroom and called my doc, leaving a message. I then started coughing and spitting. It seemed to only be streaking at this point. I was so baffled and afraid of what the doc might say. He called me back pretty quickly and went through a whole explanation as to the causes, course of action, and that although scary the amount I coughed up was not reason for concern. He believes the plug I coughed prior is what caused the bleeding and that the jell-o like blood had pooled in my lungs before the plug was completely coughed out. Of course the slimy fresh blood was just that. Since I am currently taking Cayston and feel great he did not put me on antibiotics. He told me to call immediately if it happened again.

When I got home from work I went straight to bed for a 2 hour nap. I figured my body needed healing time and I wanted to take it easy. I should have looked online because everyone says not to lay flat after a bleed. Oops. I woke up feeling like my lungs were full of crud till I coughed out all the pooled thick blood. I then couldn't stop crying (hormones?) because my husband and I were supposed to set up put Christmas tree and I slept through the whole evening. We ran to Target to buy Vit K (couldn't find it) and to get a tree stand. A little back note before I had taken my nap I ripped off my work pants (who sleeps in pants) and upon awaking I quickly pulled them on to go to Target. As we are getting a Christmas tree stand (after being there about 25minutes) I suddenly realized my pants were INSIDE OUT! You could see the stupid seems and everything! My husband thought it was hilarious and after a good laugh myself I just wanted to bolt. We did get the tree stand and I waited in a busy line with my inside out work pants. Sheesh!

Fast forward to the evening. I slept propped on a bunch of pillows (not comfortable) and slept fine until 1:30. I could feel once again old nasty blood pooled in my right lung (now I know where the bleed came from) so I got up and coughed as much of the old nasty crap out of my lungs. This was the last that I have seen the blood besides a little streaking. I get some old dark blood sometimes with my mucus, but overall it is gone.

Here is the part that freaks me out the most. This is the first and only time I have ever in my entire CF life had true hemoptysis! I have had streaking sure, but afew Tablespoons of pure blood? Never! My lungs have never been bleeders and it freaks me out that in pregnancy it has to start. From forums and message boards it seems that some people start hemoptysis during pregnancy (please have this a one time deal for me) and some people with chronic hemoptysis stop bleeding during pregnancy. There seems to be no scientific studies on this topic, but I think it is about time the CF world looked deeper into CF, bleeds, and pregnancy!