Positive Quad Screen?

Part of the second trimester of pregnancy involves getting a quad screen. This is just a screening where I give blood, it's tested for 4 different things, and that gives you some information about the likelihood of Down Syndrom, Edward Syndrom or things like Spina Bifida or other neural tube defects.

So I got the quad screen done and a couple days later, the doctors office called and said, "It's not an emergency, but the doctor would like to talk to you early next week if you're available." I said ok, hung up the phone and called Paul freaking out a little. He told me to call the doctors office to see if the Dr. would just call me back and tell me whats up, they wouldn't. So I made an appointment to talk to him.

While I was waiting the longest 7 days of my life, I did some research. This was not a TEST, it didn't mean my child HAD Downs, it just would mean that there was some levels of protein that were a little off. Since we thought that the doctors dates were off anyway, we figured the levels they found in the screening would also be wrong and that it would be a false positive. I armed Paul with this information and Wednesday finally came. We went to the OB and were not surprised that the screen gave us 1:128 odds of being positive for DS. That's it... a mere 0.8% chance. We were ok with the news because we did our research and we believe there are other factors that gave us a high result.

The next day,  I went to pick my mom up at work and we got to play with the ultrasound machine. She, of course, looked to see the gender right away. "HE'S GOT A SCROTUM, HE'S GOT A SCROTUM!" She started to chant. He for sure is a boy, or a girl with a scrotum! We checked him out and he looked fine.

This past Saturday, we had an appointment at the OB with a sonographer and she said that the baby looked great and amazing. At the end of the appointment, we told her about the quad screen and she said everything looked good, but the only thing that she saw was a Intracardiac Echogenic Foci. She said that this happens to a lot of children, it also happens with DS children, so it's not really a tell tale sign somethings wrong. After doing research on that as well, it appears to disappear in the third trimester. Again, not worried. We have a more detailed doctors appointment with specialists next week. We'll see how that goes!

Michelle's Visit w17

My best friend Michelle bought a ticket to come visit me from Florida in March and the one thing she said was, "don't get pregnant before I get there!" So when I did get pregnant, I called her and told her I had some bad news. Luckily, though, she had Paul here to do the hard hikes, the drinking and the eating of great sushi.

TMI SECTION!!!

I felt pretty tired and sick when Michelle was here, but I finally got Zofran from my OB so that I wouldn't be so sick all the time. The only problem with that was it would stop me up. So I had to chose every day, do I want to eat today? Or do I want to be able to have a BM? I went from going a good 2 times a day to going once every 3 days.

The first day that I was able to go, after 3 days of not, it was so difficult, I remember thinking to myself, "if I can't pass this, how am I ever going to be able to push a baby out!?" Horrible, horrible, horrible.

BACK TO THE VISIT

So we did a bunch of different things while Michelle was here. We hiked Diamond Head, Snorkeled Hanauma Bay, went to Laie Point, Haleiwa, Polynesian Cultural Center (Saw Anuhea play), Ate great sushi, Udon, Ted's Bakery, Saw 4th of July fireworks off Waikiki Beach, went to Nashville's, Rum Fire, Mooses, Saw the people of the PX, went to the Pali Lookout, Hung out on Lanikai Beach, ate banana/mac nut pancakes, ate at Dukes, toured the Royal Hawaiian, and I got her hooked on poke bowls and got her to try her first spam: spam musubi. I think the only things we didn't do were Dole Plantation, the Sugar Mill and Matsumotos, but we do have to leave something for her to do next time!

Teds Chicken Sandwich

Michelle Rocking out next to a surfboard with her likeness on it!

4th of July Fireworks

The Beginning

So I should have started this sooner, but I really didn't think I wanted to post all of my awesomely miserable moments for everyone to read. After thinking about it, and reading some other blogs, I decided that I wanted to try and document these moments and miseries for my child to read one day. One day when my kid says something like, "I hate you! You're so lame! You don't even love me!" I will calmly direct them to this blog and they can read what I went through without once thinking about aborting them.

In the Beginning

Paul got back from Afghanistan on Easter, April 8th, 2012. We got pregnant on Easter, April 8th 2012. Somehow, though, I think there is going to be a HUGE wave of military brats born this winter because of the same thing. It will be our own little version of a "baby boom."

Paul and I had been talking about getting pregnant pretty much the entire deployment. We were planning out dates that would work for our careers, talking about names, but I think our plan was really just to let nature take its' course and when it happened, it happened; so when it happened instantly, it wasn't a huge, "Oh my god, what are we going to tell our parents!" moment, but we were still a little shocked it happened right away. I believe Pauls' reaction to me showing him the test was actually a high five, lol. 

The first thing I started to do was the math. Date of last period... when Paul came home... kind of off by about a week. But not being regular and a 'faulty' last period meant I was fine with that. "Is there something you want to tell me?" was the response I got from my best friend, which from what I hear, isn't a completely weird question to ask a military wife with a deployed husband these days (don't even get me started about these situations!). Though I was fine with the date discrepancy, I was a little worried that Paul would think something was up. I mean, not really, but still. "I don't think you would be stupid enough to have an affair so close to me coming home," I believe was his exact response. 

The second thing we did was take another pregnancy test. It was positive almost instantly. At this point we were sure, so I set up an appointment with my Family Doctor (who I had never been to yet) so that I could get a referral to an OB. I met my doctor, got a referral to the local military hospital (Tripler) and was on my way. (The military then outsourced my referral so I asked if I could go to a doctor that I chose, so I chose someone on Honolulu's Best list.) At this point, the main symptom I had was sleepiness. Until this point in my life, I could never nap during the day, it took forever to actually fall asleep. All of a sudden, I would get home from work, fall asleep till about 8, eat, sleep at 9 and sleep the entire night! It was so strange but greatly appreciated!

So I was off. Time to be healthy and incubate this thing until it was go time. About 5 weeks in, around May 7th (the second to last week of school) a new symptom, morning sickness. Morning sickness struck with a vengeance! I couldn't even sit up without having to throw up. Sitting on the toilet I had to hold a giant yogurt container to my mouth because squeezing in my stomach, I wasn't sure which end it was going to come out of. It was, to say the least, no bueno! So I ended up missing the last two weeks of school with my students, I didn't get to tell them I wasn't coming back the following year or anything.  I think the worst part of the whole MS thing was that I had to make it through a family vacation!

May 18th, Paul and I flew to Mexico to meet his parents and brothers. I figured, I feel horrible so I will just keep munchies in my purse and I'll sleep the 6 hour flight from HNL to LAX and OF COURSE I had the only noisy a-holes behind me. A loud little girl, an oblivious mother, and a grandmother, sitting across the aisle, who had her headphones on and was yelling to the mother in Japanese! I thought about throwing up on one of them. I should have.

We got to LAX, exhausted, and then found out we had a 6 hour layover. I slept on the ground as Paul watched our stuff.

Finally we got to Mexico. It was painful. I wanted to do so much there, but I couldn't because I felt horrible! I was sick and tired the whole time. We finally got out of there, got to California, and got to relax for a while until Billy and Mal came up and we road tripped down to San Diego. Before that though, Paul made me hike a 7 mile, 2000 ft. elevation hike to the top of a waterfall in Yosemite. Everyone was INSANELY patient with me, and we finally got down and we were pooped! 

The rest of the road trip was a lot of fun. Monterey Bay Aquarium, Highway 1, Hearst Castle,  Tar Pits,  Hollywood Sign, Sea World, San Diego Zoo. It was a lot, but I got through. The last night in San Diego, I felt really sick. The sickness was only worse on the flight home where I threw up twice on the plane and then hardcore when we finally landed in Honolulu. The worst part of being sick in public is the looks you get from people when you leave the stall. Yeah, like I got THIS wasted on baby bottles on the plane.