Friday, February 24, 2012

Viability

We made it to 24 weeks!!! Peanut better stay put for a looong time, but at this point she could possibly live outside the womb and 24 weeks is the first time docs would try to save her if she were born early. I would hate for her to arrive anytime soon, but it is somewhat of a relief to think that regardless my baby has a fighting chance at this point. With that being said, stay put little Peanut!!!

In other news, Spring is here. The trees are in bloom, the flower buds are opening, and the weather has been beautiful. This is great for several reasons. I love spring and all the nice weather and sunshine that comes with spring and summer. I also am moving this weekend so the weather should be nice for the move. Of course, with spring comes allergies. Ugh. I am back on allergy pills because my lungs get more inflamed in spring and I don't want to lose any of my lung function.

I have been pretty MIA lately. I picked up more tutoring shifts (really not a good idea), tried to keep my social life up, fell asleep at 8 twice this week, and have been trying to pack and get ready to move since we get the keys today. I have a feeling I won't be blogging much this week

Saturday, February 18, 2012

23 weeks

How Far Along: 23 weeks and 2 days
How Big Is Baby: The length of a pomegranate.
Total Weight Gain: Around 12lbs.
Sleep: I am still sleeping well. I wake up to pee between 1-4 times a night, but after 5 months I am getting used to it. 
Movement: She is getting so much stronger! I feel her all the time and starting to feel real kicks. We have yet to feel her from the outside though.
Food Cravings: Still no cravings. 
What I Miss: Sometimes I miss chai tea, but I am really trying not to have any caffeine. The doctors say a cup of coffee or so a day is fine, but I would rather just avoid the stuff. I am sure my princess will have plenty of caffeine in her life, but as a fetus I think she can do without.
What I'm Looking Forward To: Moving and setting up the nursery as well as feeling little Peanut kick from the outside.
Milestones: Baby sleeps between 12-14 hours. Her face is also fully formed. 
Symptoms: Peeing at night. I get acid reflux on and off and my skin looks like a teenager. I have also discovered more stretch marks on my chest. I would do anything for this little girl and so as much as I would prefer not to  have any stretch marks I will welcome them and hope no more make my their body home.

Other: My belly button is pretty much flat at this point. I figure it will pop out in a month or so. I wish that along with my belly shots I took belly button shots because it is so strange to watch a inner slowly morph into an outie. Also, my husband and I read through an entire baby name book one night only to find 2 names we like. After reviewing the two potential names this morning I am not so sure about either of them.

In other news I am spending this long weekend packing since we will get the keys to our new place in 1 week. Yay!! So excited to get a new place, but not so excited to pack especially since being preggo I can't lift anything heavy which makes it harder to get stuff done.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

How We Met

How about a little love story on the day of love. The idea was inspired by my fellow blogger Megan.
I feel like our love story could go one for pages because it was not a quick love story like so many you hear. With that being said I know nobody cares to read an unabridged version of love stories so here is the story of how we met in a  nut shell!

In 2008 my life seemed to be a hot mess full of possibilities and potentials. All in a few months time I broke up with a semi-serious boyfriend, moved from an apartment to a house with a bunch of friends, and was in search of a new job. During this stressful, but limitless time in my life I was also experiencing a decline in health that I couldn't get under control. I now believe all the stressors (both good and bad) were a huge contributing factor to my health problems.

I had been working in my industry (was actually using my degree), but funding was running out and I knew my time was limited with my company so I went to find the first thing that would bring me a paycheck. I found a job at a restaurant that was so perfectly...me. Let me explain, this restaurant is the most eclectic place you will ever see adorned with buddas, pictures of Frida, and statues of Lakshmi. It serves international cuisine as in a little bit of food from every country. The servers were funky, natural, and had the laid back vibe that I love. I knew that THIS was the job I needed for my transition time. I also decided since my life was a wide open book that I wanted to travel and do volunteer work.

Some people will call me crazy, but I knew that I would meet my husband here, but did not think it would be a coworker. I just knew that this transition time would turn my world upside down in every aspect of my life. Roll your eyes if you want, but it is true!

I met my future husband while on a shift. I was walking into the back room to find a man with dark curls, glimmering brown eyes (I swear they really did glimmer), and the kindest smile. I went home that night and called my best friend to gush about this guy I saw. The problem was we hadn't spoken. I didn't know how old he was and my friend teased me that he could be 16 for all we knew (I was 23 at the time) and I decided I better get some info before falling in love.  I worked behind the bar and was somewhat secluded from everyone else so it was harder to talk than if he too worked behind the bar.

This is already getting long...I investigated to find out what his name was, and spent a lot of time going into the back so i could pass by him and smile or say hi. One day as we were closing he came behind the bar and just started talking. He had the cutest accent I had ever heard, but still had no idea where he was from. At this restaurant there were Hungarian accents, Mexican accents, Bolivian accents, and British accents, but this one I just couldn't place. He gave me his number and that's when it all started.

We were both smitten with one another, but we worked together which made things...more difficult. Also, I felt like my life was too out of order to start a relationship. I have this philosophy that in order to have a healthy relationship a woman must have her life in order. If you are not put together yourself how can someone else fit perfectly in your life? So we started off as friends. We called each other every single night after he got off work and would talk till the wee hours of the morning. I still wonder what we talked about for so long. I realized that I had completely fallen for him when one evening his phone call never came. I waited for his call only to hear silence from my phone. I wanted to call him, but my pride got in the way. I replayed our last few conversations over and over trying to find some reason for him to ignore me. I went to bed heartbroken. The next day I found that he didn't call because I had complained of not feeling well and just wanting to go home and sleep. He knew his call would wake me up and he didn't want to disturb my sleep. I realized that our friendship meant a hell of a lot more than friendship.

About 8 months after talking he was ready to be in a real relationship, bu by this time I was really falling for him and I felt so unbelievably guilty about dragging someone into my life of CF. I also hated the idea of falling in love with him and wanting to live a normal life (marriage, family, retirement). It was so much easier to except a short life when you didn't have to worry about leaving others behind. I made him read all these depressing facts about CF and kept telling him I would die young and never have his children. We spent every waking moment together and yet kept it as just friends. At the same time we were both officially in love with one another, but I was too scared to allow the relationship blossom. One evening he dropped the love word. I burst into tears. I too wanted to express how much I loved him because I loved him so much. Instead I cried and told him it wasn't fair for him to love me and he would have to sacrifice too much to be with me. He grabbed me and looked me in the eyes and said that he didn't care how many days I had on his Earth all he knew is he wanted to spend every single one of them with me.

I finally realized that he was strong enough and willing to be with a cyster and I so desperately wanted to be with him so we officially started dating. A few months later I was scheduled to go to Costa Rica to do volunteer work for 6 weeks and then was going to Mexico for another week. He proved his love to me once again when he called me everyday while I was in Costa Rica. One of those phone calls sparked the first real conversations about marriage and the rest is history.

In 2009 we were engaged and 2010 we were married. Now in 2012 we will be having our first baby. Had someone told me back in 2008 that not only would I fall in love, get married, find my health improve drastically, and have a baby I would have never believed that my life could have turned out so beautifully. I guess dreams really do come true sometimes!

Friday, February 10, 2012

My Body And Baby

Deciding to have a baby when you have CF is such a hard decision. I spent countless nights trying to decide what the right decision for my little family would be. Was it selfish to want a baby and risk my health? Would I ever be happy without at least trying? Would I be cutting into the time I have on this earth with my dear husband?

Fast forward to this week. I am 22 weeks pregnant and had a clinic appointment to check on my lungs. I was down a 3% last month and the doc wanted to make sure that it was not a trend of losing ground. Turns out I didn't need to worry. My FEV1 is now over 5% higher than my baseline and the highest it has been since 2004! My FVC is now 100% which is only a little higher than it was before, but I will take it! My weight is up almost 10 lbs and I am feeling amazing! My doc who was not overly thrilled that I wanted to get pregnant has always been supportive, but not overly excited about it. This appointment was different. He seemed genuinely pleased and was very optimistic about the rest of my pregnancy. He said I had a great chance of going full term (or darn close) and he predicts I will do well for the duration of the pregnancy.

I am not naive and know I have up to 20 weeks left (if baby comes late) and anything can happen. CF is unpredictable and as baby gets bigger and squishes my lungs it will be harder to clear them out, but I never in my wildest dreams thought my body (CF and all) would do so well during the first half of pregnancy. I heard so many stories and was fully prepared to be very sick, weak, and tired during my 9 month pregnancy.

So how did this happen???  Many people on CF forums say they would never attempt pregnancy if their numbers were below 70% and others say they wouldn't try with numbers below 60%. And yet here I am with PFTs in the 50s (pre-pregnancy) and  doing so well. My question is, how?  I wish I could take credit for doing so well, but it really was luck!

My doctor said that there are usually 2 routes they see with CFers who get pregnant. One, the patient has trouble gaining weight and loses lung function throughout the pregnancy. The beginning transition to pregnancy is often the hardest for women and this is often when the first trouble occurs. The other category is somewhat of a phenomena. Some women seem to do better during pregnancy than when in a non-pregnant state. They gain weight easily, they watch their lung function increase, and feel better than before.

Why? Well, because CF and pregnancy is not well studied, nobody knows! It does not make sense as creating a human life is draining and very hard work so how would a taxing situation on the body also be the time that a person is their healthiest?  My doctor said some people believe it has to do with hormones, but that is really just a guess.

When I was telling a few friends about my appointment they responded by saying I should be so proud of myself, but I am NOT! I am proud that I have been working hard and doing my treatments, but I do not feel like I can be proud of my increase in lung function. I had no say in how my body responded to pregnancy and therefore cannot be proud of something I simply got lucky with. Would I feel bad about myself had I not done as well? No, because I would not have chosen that either. If my lung function starts dropping quickly by my next appointment will I feel like I failed? No! I try not to personally attach myself to things I have no control over. I AM however, grateful every morning I wake up and feel well. I feel like I am dreaming that I will be a mommy and am still waiting to wake up. The fact I am doing so well makes it that much more surreal. Not a day go by that I don't stop and thank my body and realize how lucky I am to be feeling well and loving this pregnancy.

At first, I felt weird writing about this (I had an appointment on Monday and delayed writing till today) because I felt like I was bragging and know that many cysters are not finding pregnancy so easy. I decided that I wanted to write this because I had so many doom and gloom comments about CF pregnancy from the CF community and I wanted cysters to know that it isn't always a bad experience even with someone with lung function in the 50s. Of course, we all know it is a risk and there aren't always happy endings, but we need to hear the good with bad.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

It Kinda Feels Like You Have a Baby In There

Working at a school while being pregnant can be exhausting because as everyone knows kids have a ton of energy. At the same time I can't imagine having more fun being pregnant at any other job. I wanted to share some cute stories kids at my school have recently shared. Here is the previous post about some student's advice and questions on pregnancy.
  1. "Is the baby still a girl or did she change her mind?
  2. "Did your baby come out yet?"  I get asked this most often on Mondays.
  3. "I know what part babies come out of, but I can't say because it is really inappropriate!!!"
  4. A student I worked with last year still hugs me every time he sees me in the hall. He hugged me today and placed his hand on my belly. He then casually said, "Huh, it kinds feels like you have a baby in there..." When I told him I was pregnant he got so excited. It was such a funny way to ask, but not ask if I was pregnant.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Things I Never Knew About Pregnancy

The top ten things (both good and bad) I wasn't expecting about being pregnant.

1. That it would be such an enjoyable beautiful experience and that I would truly love being pregnant. I always thought I would like being pregnant, but I thought all pregnant women got sick, had back pain, and had so many obstacles during the 9 months that it would be hard. I can say that I have never enjoyed my life as much as I have the last 5 months.

2. That my bladder control would have issues so quickly. I still have issues with sneezing and sometimes find that no matter how empty my bladder is at treatment times I will leak a little or a lot. I found through reading pregnancy forums that this is not that uncommon so at least I am not alone...

3. That my husband would fall in love with our baby so quickly. I knew being the woman and carrying my baby I would love her instantly (and it was instant), but my husband has been equally attached since day one. Just the other day he said, "I just love this world so much now that we have Peanut." He is totally smitten by this little person that he has never met or felt.

4. That I would leak pre-milk WAY before baby ever got here. I leak (very small amounts) after the shower, but not enough to cause any problems like leaking through shirts or anything (yet). Not gonna lie I was so excited that my body knew how to make milk even if it is a little premature. My husband thinks its adorable that my body is ready to feed baby 4 months early even if it is not true colostrum yet.

5. That I would feel so healthy! I expected to have trouble gaining weight, need to take time off work, and need medication throughout the pregnancy. I never expected to make it 1/2 way without having any CF related issues. My body is so much stronger than I gave it credit for. I am pretty sure I will need some CF help before baby gets here, but I am pretty damn proud of my body for making it this far.

6. That I would pee so much in the night that I can pretty much go to the bathroom in my sleep. I used to hate being on meds because it would make me pee during the night, but now I celebrate when I make it through the night without getting up more than once.

7. That I would be on a baby high for 5 months and counting. Seriously, babies really change your perspective on life and really how can anything upset you when your biggest dream is coming true?

8. That picking baby names would be so darn hard. Gaah!

9. That I would get stretch marks somewhere other than my belly. Yes, I got a few stretch marks on the underside of my baby feeders. Even more surprising, I do NOT even care one bit. I really don't want a million on my belly, but I really don't mind my new found badge of motherhood.

10. That this pregnancy would make my heart grow 10 times as big. The love I feel for this baby is beyond words and the new love I have for my husband is enough to make feel like the luckiest woman in the entire world!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Daddy's Girl

So in the past week this little one is getting a lot stronger! I am obsessed with wondering what she is doing. I still can't distinguish if a tap is a kick, and jab or a head butt for that matter because she is still so small. I have however, noticed that certain things really get her moving.


  1. She likes to move after I eat especially if it has sugar, but really any meal will get her kicking. The hungrier I am before the meal the more it gets her moving. 
  2. Music! I went to see a Broadway show over the weekend and the music made her dance around like crazy! She seriously moved during the entire first half of the show and went crazy whenever there was a song. I think she wore herself out because she was pretty quiet the last hour.
  3. My favorite!!! She loves to move when her daddy comes home. I don;t know if she likes his voice or the way i feel when he comes home from work, but she instantly starts kicking away.
Last night my husband and I both worked late (Wednesday is both of our late days) and so when we both got home we sat on the couch to catch up with each other. Peanut got so excited when he started talking that she started kicking harder than I have ever felt her before. I told him to come over and put his hand on my belly. He placed his hand and started talking to her and she went crazy kicking harder and harder! To both of our disappointment and my shock he couldn't feel anything. It felt so strong from the inside that I can't imagine how strong it will be when he can feel her. I love that she loves to move for him, but I have a feeling that despite the fact that I feed and home her I may already be losing the favorite parent battle. 

Bad Habits

I have gotten into a really bad habit lately that I need to break. In the evenings, especially on my long Wednesdays, I find myself laying on the couch for a little while only to wake up several hours later. I should just go to bed earlier, but instead I find myself  unconsious on couch at least once a week. Why is this so bad you ask? Take today for example, my husband went to play soccer around 8:30 leaving me unattended. Bam! Next thing I know I am waking up at 11:30 at night without any of my nightly ritual done including treatments. Now here I am past midnight nebbing and doing my treatments. Ugh! I have to wake up in 6 hours, but my little 3 hour nap will surely interfere with my 6 hours left of sleep. Sigh, I think it will take all 9 months of this pregnancy to learn that I need to slow down, not lay on the cough after 8:00, and go to bed earlier! Come June I won't sleep more than 3 hour increments anyway so maybe it is good practice??