Table for 5 Please

Our family of 4 will become a family of 5.

We are expecting a baby BOY early January 2013.  

I am 23 weeks today.

We went in for our screening ultrasound on Tuesday at the Maternal Fetal Specialists.  We are back there for a few reasons one just being that our insurance does not cover a screening ultrasound at the doctors office and I would have had to go to the hospital and neither I nor the doctors were okay with that.  Since I had the complications with Eloise's pregnancy it made since that I should go back to the specialists for the screening and my insurance would cover it once we met our deductible and with all of Eloise's appointments we have met that deductible.  So back we went.  The appointment went very well but not without tests and follow ups.  The baby is growing well and measuring in the 50% for everything.  Everything with the baby is looking great.  There are a couple of things we need to watch with me.  I have an ovarian cyst that has been there since the beginning of pregnancy and is not growing but has not gone away yet.  I also have a partial placenta previa, where the placenta sits close to the cervix.  This is pretty common at this stage of pregnancy and the doctor said that 9 out of 10 women find the placenta moves as the pregnancy progresses and have no problems with it.  So we will keep an eye on those two things during follow ups.  The biggest concern the doctor had was that we had no cause to the reason for Eloise's small placenta which most likely caused her Inter Uterine Growth Restriction (IUGR),  The doctor order a large series of blood tests today (11 vials worth) to test for any blood clotting or autoimmune disorders that I may have but do not know of.  The way he described it to us was that if the blood clots to fast it can cause small clots in the vessels from the uterus to the placenta causing it to not grow properly. So we are waiting on the results from those tests to determine a course of action.  He did put me on a low-dose aspirin a day regiment to help with any blood flow issues.  If the tests results come back negative I will continue the aspirin and we will continue to monitor the baby closely.  I go back to the specialists in 4 weeks for a follow up ultrasound.  I will continue to see my regular doctor also.

Cecelia is very excited to have a new baby.  She even said she will get up in the middle of the night to feed him.  If only that could actually happen.  Eloise understands there is a baby in mommy's tummy and is in love with babies right now.  We can't wait to meet him and watch the girls interact withe the new baby.