UTI Update

So I peed in a cup on Monday morning for a urine analysis, right? Well, yesterday (Thursday) I finally called the doctor to see if I was dying or not. They told me, "Well, the initial analysis showed that something's going on, but the culture can take up to 72 hours, so we'll have to wait until tomorrow for that. For now we're going to put you on this antibiotic. It's important that you start taking it right away and take all the doses." Uh, thanks for letting me know when you got the results on Monday or Tuesday.
I'm not too happy with the service I get from this doctor's office. *I* have to call in to find out the results from my test, which are that I should be on antibiotics. Also, last time I counted, 72 hours is 3 days...I left the sample on Monday morning...Tuesday (1)...Wednesday (2)...Thursday (3)...yup, that's 3 days.
Also, when I had my 20 week ultrasound, *I* had to bring up to the doctor that there was something fishy on his neck, or she would have never even noticed.
Are all OB doctors so un-personable and busy because everyone and their mom are having babies around here, or did I just pick the wrong one? What has been your experience with OB doctors around here?
On the other hand, I really like the Perinatologist. She knows exactly who I am and what the situation is without me having to remind her. She had even done RESEARCH on her own time about the problem.

Pregnancy Update - Perinatologist Appt. #2

Tuesday morning I had my second Perinatologist appointment. Here’s the news:
The baby is now head down, thank goodness. He was lying on his side/stomach though, so it was hard for them to get a good view of the esophagus, which is what they were trying to examine.
She measured all the important bits like his femur, skull, stomach, my fluid, etc. From those measurements we know the following:
He’s measuring at 30 weeks even though I’m 28 weeks and 3 days.
He’s a little over 3 lbs already.
My fluid levels are normal (14 cm).
His stomach is visible.
His esophagus is visibly smaller.
The doctor had looked up a plethora of case studies on this type of problem and she found only 6 babies that had the same symptoms (enlarged esophagus, but still swallowing right, fluid levels not high, visible stomach). All 6 of the babies’ esophagi were normal by week 33 and none of them had chromosomal problems, like down syndrome. I know 6 babies isn’t much of a statistic to go off of, but I am going with that being a good sign.
They have me scheduled for another ultrasound on November 4th, when I’m 32 and a half weeks along. If the esophagus is still enlarged then, they’ll schedule a day for me to deliver up at U of U when I’m about 39 weeks along. If it’s not enlarged anymore, I’m assuming I can deliver any day I go into labor, and anywhere I choose.
So...good news!

UTI

On Sunday I started feeling like I had to pee all the time. I’m not saying it felt like there was a little more pressure than usual. You know what it feels like when your bladder is so full that you’re scared to walk to the bathroom for fear of peeing your pants? It felt like that…all day.
After trying remedies to get the baby to move and hopefully relieve some pressure, I decided it was probably a bladder infection. On Monday I called the doctor to see if I should come in, or if I should just consume enough cranberry juice to turn my skin pink.
They had me go pee in a cup at the lab, and, well, I’m still waiting to hear back. Meanwhile I’ve been drinking lots of water and cranberry juice and peeing as often as possible. I’ve even been setting my alarm to wake me to pee a few times throughout the night.
Side note: Last night when my 3am alarm went off and I returned to re-set my alarm again, I noticed I had an email time-stamped at 3am from my brother, Alex, who is on his mission in Germany. Usually he emails in the middle of Sunday night. We exchanged emails for a half an hour or so while he was burning 18 copies of General Conference to give to people.
I’ve been feeling better in the bladder area, since Sunday, so hopefully it’s getting better, but I’ll give the doctor a call tomorrow to make sure I’m not turning into a Britta water filter.

Pregnancy Update - Doctor Visit

I just had my 28 week doctor appointment. Basically my OB knows about as much about this condition as I do, since it’s so rare (1 in 4000 births or something). She said she saw a case of it in her residency, but none since. So here are the updates:
1. I still may need to deliver up at the U of U hospital to be close to Primary Children’s, but the Perinatologist hasn’t gotten back to me nor my doctor about what the Neonatologist said about that.
2. This condition is sometimes related to Down Syndrome, so they may want to do an Amniocentesis on me, but there’s really no point to finding out, because either way they can’t do anything about Down Syndrome.
3. Nothing else in the ultrasound 3 weeks ago looked abnormal.
4. I have to wait until my Tuesday appointment with the Perinatologist to find anything else out.
5. I have to do my glucose test this week or next week. I might do it tomorrow morning before breakfast.
6. I'm now on a 2 week appointment schedule.

Saturday is a Special Day

It's the only day I have to get stuff done. Today I felt like I was moving about as fast as a snail. It's days like these that make me miss not feeling like an invalid because I can't pick anything up that weighs more than 20 lbs, and I can't bend over to pick up stuff off the floor, and I'm just not balanced quite right. To make myself feel better, and maybe brag a little bit about how much I was actually able to accomplish, I'm going to post all the things I did today.

Sleep in until 10
Get dressed
Let Monkey in
Discover what she chewed up yesterday:
- a $300 computer part (our cost)
- a book I was borrowing from a friend
- a tube of mascara I was going to sell to my sister-in-law
- a dixie cup
Scold Monkey even though I know she has no clue why
Call Dave to tell him the bad news
Make breakfast
Discover that we're out of milk
Eat breakfast
Switch laundry to dryer/hang up
Start load of towels
Go to Petco with Monkey to buy a new rope toy for $20
(hope that the mew rope toy will keep her from chewing our things as much)
Get Monkey's nails cut at Petco for $10
Return 3 maternity shirts to Target for $30
Switch towels to dryer
Set up music playlist for doing house chores
Do dishes (fit a few more in dishwasher, add detergent, start)
Sprinkle bathtub with Comet (...it makes your teeth turn green...)
Arrange flowers from birthday in vase
Scrub tub, sprinkle again with Comet (...it tastes like gasoline...)
Start going through junk in dining room
Take Dave's cast-off socks to John
Scrub tub again with pre-soaked Comet (...it makes you vomit...)
Wind up garden hose to return
Return garden hoses for $70 and get new hose repair kit for $2
Get groceries ($52) and allergy meds ($31!)
Repair hose
Remove moldy items from fridge
Put away groceries
Make & eat dinner (mac & cheese with rancid butter...ew)
Wash shower walls with scrubbing bubbles
Wipe down bathroom sink
Go through DVDs and post PS2 games on amazon for sale
Remember about the BYU game (too late)
Remember about the RS Broadcast (too late)
Take Monkey on a walk (1.5 miles)
Put away clean dishes
Dispose of moldy food from fridge
Take trash out
Clean out sprayer holes in dishwasher
Run dishwasher with vinegar
Blog about things I did today to make myself feel better/brag <----here we are!
Load stinky dishes
Run dishwasher again
Make and eat dinner
Fold laundry pile on bed
Change into PJs, brush teeth
Go to Bed

Baby Names

Yesterday I went on to new.familysearch.org to look up possible family names to use for Baby Boy Franz. There sure are a lot of names in there! Here are some names that won't make the cut. There are some real gems in the list:

Abel
Abijah
Adolf
Adriannes
Aelson
Ambrose
Anders
Andries
Arad
Archibald
Aren
Arie/Arien/Ariensz
Augustine
Berend/Berent
Bruyn
Bygot
Carbo/Kerbo
Cephas
Cheney
Claes
Claude
Clement
Cornelis/Cornelius
Crijn
Deacon
Dominique
Ebenezar/Ebenezear
Elbartus
Elipahalet
Engelhart
Francois
Frantz/Franz
Fredrik
Freegrace
Fortunatus
Gjert
Guilliame
Hal
Han/Hans
Harmon
Haynes
Henderiks/Hendrick/Hendrik/Henrick
Herman
Jan/Jansen
Jean/Jean Baptiste
Jeddiah
Jellis
Jens
Jeremah
Jerise
Jonas
Jorgen
Joris
Josiah
Jost
Karel
Kield
Kinsee
Kjeld
Kleis
Knud
Koop
Lambert/Lammert
Lancelot
Lars
Lorens/Lorentz/Louwrens
Ludwig
Mads
Mansuy
Mathija
Matthijs
Montgomery
Moses
Nehemiah
Niels/Nils
Ole
Ols
Oluf
Peder
Pehr
Percival
Petri
Pierce
Pierre
Rasmus
Sebastianes/Sebastianus
Smeadly
Stafford
Sulpice
Teunis
Thymens
Valentine
Washington
Wilmi

Complicated

At my 20 week ultrasound they saw some sort of cyst or something on baby boy’s neck. At my 24 week appointment I asked my doctor about it and she decided to send me to a Perinatologist to get another ultrasound. (Perinatologist has the same training as an OB plus more, specifically in ultrasound.) Honestly I was excited to get to see my baby again!

I had that appointment on Friday (two days before my 25 week mark). First an ultrasound tech just checked the usual things like measuring the brain, the femur, fluid levels, etc. She tried to find the cyst on the neck and couldn’t find anything. Then the Perinatologist came in…

She did a few measurements herself, and then started looking for the cyst. Turns out it’s not a cyst at all. She found what they thought was a cyst, and it’s the pharynx. For some reason it’s enlarged. She looked at it from all different angles. The thyroid is perfectly fine. We watched (while she recorded) him swallowing for a good 10 minutes. He swallows ok and my fluid levels are fine. (He actually got the hiccups while we were watching, which was amusing.)

Basically she told us that it could just be an abnormally large pharynx, but she’s pretty sure something’s not working right. She took the video of him swallowing, and a ton of pictures, and she said she’d consult with the other Perinatologists and get back to me on Monday.

Today is Monday. Luckily I didn’t have to wait long. She called at 10:40am (I’m sure she’d been at work for quite a while by then). She said that the other doctors agreed that the pharynx is enlarged more than it should be and that it’s either a narrowing of the esophagus or a Tracheoesophageal fistula (TEF).

So what does that mean? She said that since I don’t have extra fluid and he’s swallowing he’s fine for now, but he will probably need surgery to correct the TEF once he’s born.

I’m glad that it was spotted so early so they can watch it and know about it before the normal symptoms of “when feeding is attempted and the infant coughs, chokes, and turns blue.” I’m going to be scheduled for another ultrasound in 4 weeks at the Perinatologist again. She also said that she’d talk to the Neonatologist to see if I should deliver at the hospital down the road from us (which isn’t a small hospital by any means), or if I should deliver closer to (or at?) Primary Children’s Medical Center.

Since he’s fine for now and moving around quite contentedly in my belly, I’m trying to not stress about everything. Stress isn’t going to help anything.

Other than that, the usual updates on pregnancy: I’ve been gaining weight finally, which my doctor was quite happy about. He’s almost 2 lbs according to the ultrasound, which puts him about 6 days ahead of schedule (which doesn’t mean much really). He likes to move around a lot especially in the morning when I’m trying to “snooze” my alarm. I bought some more maternity clothes (10 shirts, a pair of shorts, a pair of pants, and a skirt). I can’t believe I still have 15 more weeks!

*Update* - I have another ultrasound scheduled with the Perinatologist on Oct. 5th, so stay tuned for the results of that.