He's Here!!

 
Well, he's here! Porter David Matern was born this morning, March 31st, 2010, at 8:45 AM weighing 7 lbs 11 oz and 20 inches long. That's a big boy for only being 37 weeks!! I'm recovering well from the c-section and Porter has just been sleeping all day. Such a peaceful baby! I'll be sure to write more about the whole event soon, but I just wanted to make a post really quick to show off my precious baby boy. We love him so much and we're so excited to have our little family of 4!!

Meeting mommy for the first time...

I think he looks so much like Lucy!

Our first "current" family picture

(Sorry, you can barely see Porter haha)

Big sister, Little brother

(Ignore that fact that Porter looks like he was beat up. He has some facial bruising from either the umbilical cord or just the way he was positioned. Poor baby.)

March 31st!!

We have a date!! If all goes well and he doesn't decide to come sooner, I will be having Porter on March 31st!! That's on;y 2 weeks away! I am so happy and yet nervous at the same time. They wil most likely do an amniocentisis to check his lung maturity, but we're keeping our fingers crossed that it will come out fine cause I honestly don't know if I can do this much longer! This past couple of weeks has been interesting. I was actually admitted last Tuesday night and was in the hospital till Thursday night. My headaches and the pain I'm in is only getting worse and my blood pressure was all over the place, so my doctor just had me admitted so we could figure out if we could get pain and things under control. I ended up having a CT Scan and an MRI done on my head/brain just to make sure there wasn't anything going on there that was causing the headaches. Luckily everything turned out fine. So I'm home now with a lovely concoction of pain medicine to try and get me through the next 2 weeks till I deliver. It stil is possible that I could go into labor on my own, I'm dilated to a 2+ and 50% effaced as of Monday. So we'll just have to see how it goes! It's just so comforting to know a date of when I will be having him. Holy cow I'm gonna have 2 kids!!!

Silly Girl

As crazy as things have been lately and as much as she drives me nuts sometimes, I have the most adorable little girl in the whole world!!!!!!!! Bedrest with an almost 2 year old has been challenging, to say the least. But this time I get to spend with Lucy is priceless and I can't believe how much she is literally growing right before my eyes. She is going to be such a good big sister to Porter. She is always playing with her baby dolls, "changing their bums", "snuggling" with them, and putting them to bed. She loves to help daddy do dishes, vacuum, sweep, and mop. She is CONSTANTLY singing and dancing. I'm not kidding. I really think she probably sings and makes up songs more than she talks haha. It's so cute! I just wanted to post a few pictures of Lucy from lately. I would post more, but it's so hard to take pictures of her anymore! She just wants to look at the camera and won't stand still. It's really frustrating, but oh well!

Lucy mid-dance... She loves this skirt and is always wanting to wear it just to dance. I love it!

 

A smile! Love her!

  

Not the best picture, but it's the most recent one I have haha. She was helping daddy get the garden ready this last weekend. She loves being outside. I will be so happy when the weather warms up enough and we can play outside all the time! 

 

I can't believe that she is going to be 2 in just a month and a half!!

Things are getting interesting...

Well, it looks like we're getting a lot closer to this little man being born than we thought. Friday at my Non-Stress test, my blood pressure was really high and going all over the place so I ended up going to Labor and Delivery to be monitored and just check things out. By the time I got there, things had calmed down a bit and my pressures were starting to look good. I was having some little contractions, but nothing to be concerned about, so that was good. Sunday night, I was having some pretty good contractions but I was able to get them under control. Yesterday was my weekly check-up and after talking to my doctor, we decided that we were gonna try to make it to 37 weeks ( I'm 33 weeks now) and she would be willing to take Porter then because my body is obviously very done being pregnant. Plus we don't want my body to become to immune to the medicine that I've been having to take to help control the pain I'm in so that when I do have him, we won't have to resort to something way strong to control the pain after surgery. then she checked my cervix and I was dilated to a 1+ but still pretty high. So that kind of changed things a bit. Since I am dilating and having contractions, even though they aren't too regular yet, my doctor had me get a steroid shot that wil help Porter's lungs develop in case I do go into labor early. She's not going to stop labor if it does happen in the next couple of weeks, so that means that sometime in the next 4 weeks we will have our little man in our arms. It's really exciting but scary at the same time. Exciting cause he will FINALLY be here, scary because the earlier he comes the bigger the chance is that he'll have to be in the NICU or stay longer in the hospital. But we're keeping our hopes up and just wanting the best for Porter and my health. I'm sorry these updates are so long, I'm using this blog as sort of a journal for this whole thing. So sorry if you're bored out of your mind, that is if anyone is actually reading. Haha. So until my next appointment or something happens, this is me signing off!

The Luckiest

I just wanted to post this. I absolutely love this song!! My little brother made our wedding video and had this song on it. It often makes me cry and I can't help but think of the love of my life, John, every time I hear it. I love you John.

To bed I go...

Well, it's official. I am now on bedrest. I have been staying down and keeping it easy for some time, but I'm officially on bedrest now. I went in Friday to have my fluid levels checked adn they were higher than the last time I went in. Also my blood pressure is on the rise, so I will now be monitored at least once a week for both of them. The bigger concern of the 2 is my blood pressure and the very good chance that I have developed preeclampsia. I developed high blood pressure when I was pregnant with Lucy, but it wasn't until I was 38 weeks and that was the reason I was induced. But only being 32 weeks, it causes a little more concern. So, what does this mean? It's pretty much a one day at a time thing at this point. We're just keeping our fingers crossed that we can make it to at least the end of March. I will be 36-37 weeks then, so it will lower the risk of Porter having to be in the hospital longer than normal. Anyways, I don't want this to be a "Woe is me" or "pity me" post, I just want to keep people updated on whats going on. Plus, I'm stuck on the couch with not much else to do haha. Both John and I feel like things are going to be ok no matter what happens. We're just doing what we can at this point to keep both me and Porter healthy.

In the mean time... isn't this girl adorable? I sure love her...

and him...

 

They keep me sane right now.

Small baby update....

So at my last appointment, I was measuring 4 weeks ahead of where I was date wise (I was 30 weeks measuring at 34), so my doctor wanted to do an ultrasound just to check everything out and make sure I wasn't really further along than we thought. I didn't think much of it cause we did this same thing with Lucy around this time. So Friday, we were able to go have another ultrasound and see our little man. Everything is fine with Porter, in fact he was playing peek-a-boo with us. And he is still definitely all BOY! He is measuring a little big, about a week and a half ahead, but we have big babies so that wasn't a big surprise. The surprise was that I have an excess amount of amniotic fluid. I guess the "normal" range is anywhere between 8-24 centimeters of fluid and I had somewhere between 21-22. This is why I am measuring so big. Having the extra fluid does a lot of things and can mean a lot of things. I have already been cramping REALLY bad and having contractions, and with the extra fluid, my uterus thinks I'm farther along than I really am making my body think that I should be having a baby when I shouldn't yet. Along with pre-term labor, I'm also at more of a risk for my blood pressure to go crazy again (my blood pressure went through the roof at the end with Lucy which is why I ended up being induced), and a few other things, but these are the ones we're most concerned about. So what does this mean? It means that from now until whenever I have this little man, on top of my regular doctor appointments, I will be going in at least once a week to check my fluid amounts and to watch and monitor the contractions I'm having. Needless to say, St. Mark's hospital is basically my second home for the next, hopefully at least, 5 weeks. I technically have 9 weeks till I'm due, but depending on how things are going physically for me and baby, our goal is to make it to 36 weeks and go from there.

It's been an interesting rollarcoaster of emotions for me as all of this has unfolded. I want so much for Porter to stay inside of me and keep growing and developing and to make it to 38-39 weeks, when I would normally have my c-section, but at the same time I am very much at peace with the fact I know that he is going to be coming earlier than that. Hopefully no more than 3-4 weeks early, but I know I'm not making it to my due date. It's gonna be tough and I'm sure there are going to be days where I will just want to beg my doctor to have this baby, but I know that I will have the strength to get through it. I have an amazing husband who will drop anything to take care of me and Lucy. I have amazing family and friends that help so much with Lucy and are there to just listen to me cry when I need it.

Anyways, just wanted to update ya'll really quick. It ended up being a lot longer than I wa splanning on it being, but oh well. This little man inside of me makes it all worth it.  Oh and if any of you have ever had to be on bedrest, I need some suggestions on what to do to keep myself and Lucy from going crazy, seeing as it's looking very possible that I'll be headed that direction. I just need some ideas of things I can do to keep Lucy busy and entertained when I can't do much. Thanks!!!