A new birth plan for Ellie, plus weekend updates

On Thursday, we had our first appointment at Perinatal Partners in Miami Valley at 2:45 pm [which is where we'll deliver].  When we arrived, a nurse navigator greeted us and took us on a tour of a labor and delivery room and showed us the NICU.  We were blown away by how amazing the NICU was.  The smell of the NICU is something that would take some getting used to.  I'm sure it's a mixture of cleaning products, sterile equipment, and hand sanitizer... but it smelled more "hospital" than "home" - which in this case, is a good thing, I guess.  Each baby has his/her own room, plus plenty of space for parents and grandparents to gather in privacy with the baby.  Our boys would be allowed in, too - as long as they're healthy.  Hopefully, we won't be needing the NICU, but since it's a real possibility, we wanted to know as much about it as possible.  The cardiology team will make that call for Ellie when she's here and breathing on her own.  They suggested that we might labor in one room, then move into the O.R. to deliver (naturally, still).  This is because the O.R. is adjacent to the NICU, so it'd be a quick transition, if we needed it.

After the tour, we met one of our (3 possible) doctors for delivery.  We met Dr. Kovac and she was fabulous!  She's the doctor that delivered our nephew, Jake, two years ago.  She sat with us and reviewed all of our information that had been transferred from Dr. Dev and cardiology at Dayton Children's, as well as all the information that was already in their system from our appointments in Vandalia.  It's kind of awesome that everything is in one place and ready for delivery, right??  We discussed our labor and delivery experiences with our boys and our goals this time around.  Since I've never gone into active labor on my own and we're familiar with the induction process, and since our boys were both delivered after their due dates, we set up an induction date for Ellie so that we felt comfortable with the plan and so that the hospital was able to plan on having the teams she'll need on hand.  As much as I'd like to have the "oh my gosh, it's time to go to the hospital" moment... I also like the peace of mind that comes with a plan, especially since we're now an hour away instead of ten minutes.  So, if Ellie stays the course, we'll go in for an induction on Tuesday evening, September 2nd.  Did I mention that's only 15 days away?  Ahhhh!  If she wants to arrive earlier than that, anytime after 8/28 would be best (which will put us at 39 weeks).  With complications, we don't want Ellie to arrive any earlier than 39 weeks.  Her heart & lungs need those last few weeks, for sure.

We were supposed to end our appointment with a quick ultrasound to measure amniotic fluid levels, then be on our way.  However, when they measured fluids, they were concerned that the fluids were so low.  Up to this point, we've been measuring somewhere in the 18-23 cm of fluid range.  On Thursday, we had 5.6 cm.  Dr. Kovac said that they like to see measurements over 12 cm.  She said that 8-12 cm is okay, and 5-8 is a gray area.  Less than 5 cm is a concern because if baby doesn't have enough fluid, it's hard for her to get the nutrients she needs, and could indicate that fluid is leaking.  We went from our ultrasound room, into a room for a non-stress test.  During the non-stress test, they gave me ice water to drink and monitored Ellie closely.  Ellie did fantastic!  She moved around plenty and had good accelerations in her heart rate.  Dr. Kovac said, "Now, that's a happy baby".  Smiles!  We were finally released to go around 5:30 pm (almost 3 hours after we started).

Since we were kid-free, B and I went out to dinner quick before heading home.  I don't know how long it's been since the 2 of us went out to dinner alone.  We had to laugh at how little time it actually took us to eat this time since we weren't going on potty breaks or cleaning up spilled drinks, or trying to do a thousand other things.  While it was nice to have a little adult time, we both decided that for us, our lives would be too quiet and boring without those crazy little critters that add a good dose of chaos to every situation.  We were ready to go scoop them up.  When we arrived home, I noticed that the shrubs we had on the front porch were now nicely planted in our flower bed.  I walked into our house and said, "Mom, did you plant our bushes??".  I then quickly noticed that some other home improvement projects that were lingering had been wrapped up for us, too.  After I left to head to Dayton, Dad came over and helped Mom surprise us by doing some of the things in our house that we hadn't gotten to yet.  Awesome, awesome, awesome!!  What a great surprise.

This was a great way to roll into our weekend, for sure.  On Friday, we met up with the Beech family (who is FINALLY back in Ohio after years in Maryland).  We went to dinner with them, then watched movies with the kiddos at our place.  On Saturday, I took our boys to a Fishing Derby at Furrow's house (with church folks) while B was working.  Sweet Kaleb fell in the pond, so we decided to color fishy pictures, instead.  The boys were more interested in the frogs and cows than the fish.  They did enjoy throwing the bait into the water and watching the fish snatch it up.  Saturday night we went out with Skinners to celebrate a birthday and hung out with them a bit afterwards.  This was a kid-free night... which was a very rare thing for us and Skinners (who have 5 little ones) alike, and we had a blast.

Kaleb - after falling in the shallow water

Love going fishing with these little boys!

Sunday started with church service, then an family canoe outing with my siblings and parents.  If you have not been canoeing, I highly suggest it.  First, it's quiet and relaxing and with a little current, not much work at all.  Second, if you can go with goofy adults like we have in our family, it's a ridiculous amount of fun.  I'll post pictures soon :).  After canoeing, we went back to Platfoot's house (where all the kiddos were hanging out), and had pizza with the family.  We were home in time to crawl into bed and get a little shut-eye before heading into another busy week.

This week we just have 2 appointments for Ellie and 1 family chiropractic appointment (which is much needed right now).  Until next time... thank you for following along :).