Diagnosis: IUGR

This week we had another ultrasound to measure sweet girl... we are 26 weeks and 4 days and little miss is measuring 24 weeks 1 days on her brain and extremities with her abdomen measuring 23'ish weeks. All of this combined we have officially received the diagnosis of IUGR- Intrauterine Growth Restriction.

I'm totally bummed out although have expected this diagnosis for awhile now. In fact while we sat at an appointment in February I told Jas I had a feeling/fear that she would be IUGR. It's nice to finally have something to go on since she has been off on her measurements from the get go.

The not so nice side of it all is that I'm having to do some modifications to my schedule to make time to rest and nourish little one. So my work schedule has had to change a little and I'm not allowed to exercise, travel, or work consecutive days in a row. The goal being that I will have time to sit around, hydrate, and eat so this little girl has all of the nutrients she needs to function. Right now I'm allowed to work as long as I cut back on my time on my feet (totally unreasonable to ask of a nurse...)

We are going to have another ultrasound in 2 weeks to keep up with her measurement and from there on out I will be seen every two weeks with measurement ultrasounds, umbilical flow doppler studies, and non-stress tests until they show no improvement and at that time it will be time to get her out. At any point I could be put on bed rest so my main goal is to do as told, rest, relax, and eat up.

Sadly, I finally feel GREAT with a ton of energy and have so many things I want to get done. Lainey has other plans and I'm okay with that. I will do another updated post during the 27th week when I finally post some pictures.

mumble jumble

Tonight I'm laying here awake while Jas sleeps on the couch in the living room. Yes, it's that kind of night in our house... not by choice but simply for optimal comfort for all. Our AC broke today and it's getting pretty steamy in here. That along with an utterly (ha i laugh because I feel fat as a friggin cow right now..get it-udders?) uncomfortable pregnant girl is making for a pretty grouchy house. I've got a fan beside the bed that is SO loud I can barely sleep and I just cannot find a single position that will make me comfortable. However, despite the complete discomfort of being hot, fat, and pregnant I'm happy right now. Lainey is going to town kicking me right at this very moment and it makes everything totally worth it. Not going to lie I'm totally ready for her to be kicking outside of me so I can regain some sort of control over my body again. But at 24 weeks she's still needs to bake and for now I'm good with that! 

I've decided I'm not doing a weekly update this week. I'd rather just ramble on about the things going on than have some fancy format to follow. 

So they say I'm 24 weeks but I have an appointment in the coming weeks to do another ultrasound to check her measurements. They are thinking possibly she is small or maybe even my dates are off so we are continuing to get frequent ultrasounds to make sure she is steadily growing while inside of me. However, if my dates are wrong then I could really be like 22'ish weeks instead of 24 weeks. I just keep telling myself it is what it is and that I'm further along so that I don't have to think about adding additional HOT summer days to my already long pregnancy journey. 

My symptoms have been following right along with what the bump (thebump.com) has been telling me I should be experiencing. The newest most fantastic symptom I've been experiencing is leg cramps. Now we aren't talking just little uncomfortable, just bend over and stretch it out, leg cramps. I'm talking laying in bed and my entire calf is stuck in a-leaves-you-screaming-for-help-in-tears type of cramp.. these things are FIERCE! If I can even begin to put them into comparison of something I'd say 10x worse than a charlie horse. Now that you've got the picture they only last like 30 seconds but still it's bad. 

My bump is almost sticking out over my chest when looking down. Everyone says I look small but I feel EVERYTHING but small. I've got pictures to post so hopefully I can get those up this week. 

And last but not least Jas has worked really hard on Lainey's room and it is done being painted!! We are waiting on her crib and bedding to come in and we still need to get a chair, side table, and decor and it will be DONE! Painting was the biggest task so now it seems like we are steps away from having her space complete! 

Now that I've rambled on about nothingness I shall go find something to buy on etsy! So long :)

23 weeks

How far along: 23 weeks

Size: Pomegranate 

Sleep: Not too shabby!!

Movement: A Ton! Watch out, girl likes to move now!

Food cravings/aversions: Don't even put anything with hamburger meat in front of me but a plate of juicy fruit and we'll be alright. 

Pregnancy Symptoms: Tired.. Swollen after working 12 hr shifts...random sciatic pain.

What I miss:  Energy. Buying new clothes to wear.

What I look forward to: Jas wants to go to the beach this weekend and take some belly pictures so I'm hoping they turn out cute and we can finally document some of my growing belly. I'm not going to lie.. we are getting in home dog trainers and I'm STOCKED about this!

Milestones: She can hear my heartbeat and voice.. unfortunately that also means the dog barks too. Poor girl will be VERY fond of their voices.

Best Moments this week: I'm going to cheat and tell you about last week. We got to do more measurements of little girl and got to see her in 3D!! We could see her facial features and we were even able to determine she has my hubby's nose. I cannot wait to kiss her sweet face =) ALSO a huge praise her little heart looks perfect which is one of the things we were looking for! Now she just has to grow grow grow!

Best moments with Jason: We have picked out her nursery bed set and are starting to get furniture to refinish and start on her room! 

I'll leave you with a few pictures and sneak peeks...

Boy or Girl?

We found out on Monday February 13th that we are expecting a little GIRL...Just prior to finding out I asked Jason what he thought it was and he said he thought 65% it was a girl and I said I thought 98% boy. Apparently my maternal instincts were not very great. We have officially announced to most of our family so I figured a blog post wouldn't hurt. We made scratch of cards that said...

What is Baby Chinnis going to be?

Boy or Girl

Scratch to See!

My handy dandy pinterest helped me find a way to make scratch off lottery-like ticket material and we put two pink feet under the scratch off. I will definitely post a picture so everyone gets the idea. It was one of the only unique ways we could come up with in announcing the gender of little one. I happened to love it and I think everyone thought it was cute..

We had one girl and one boy name picked out. The boy name was after my dad James Mason-we were going to name him Jameson Braham. It's almost hard for me to even say we WERE going to name him Jameson because I really believed we were having a boy. Although, every single symptom I had pointed to a girl (old wives tales) I just didn't believe my hubby could produce a girl. So back to her name...

Lainey Lynn

I'm not sold on the middle name but it is my and my mom's middle name and I would love to use it for my little one...however, it does sound a little hick to me (Ex: Loretta Lynn) but we are pretty positive her name is Lainey Lynn!

Little one is a mover and a shaker and takes after her momma already. She is up ALL night long kicking and moving and sleeps all day (which is fine with me.. Jas not so much) 

Yay for finally knowing and not keeping anymore secrets! I'm off to shop for bows on etsy :)

There are a few things I may have left out on last time I posted. We had to go to a specialist to check out the baby's heart (which looks great, but we will know for sure in 2 weeks) and we also had our anatomy scan during week 20 which scared this momma to the max. Long story short we went to the 'mac daddy' hospital to get a level 2 ultrasound done, now, as a nurse I know they must tell you the worst of the worst but I just wasn't prepared fort hat because it wasn't going to happen to me ... right?! Anyways, they decided to do some measurements on little one and concluded that it looked healthy but small. They told me my dates could be wrong (which I would have been fine with but they were saying like 9 days wrong and I KNEW that wasn't even possible.. if ya know what I mean.) or that baby may be having a problem growing inside of me...also known as intrauterine growth restriction. So yeah.. took that news not so light heartedly as this is MY baby and not just a baby I'm helping bring into the world with IUGR (for short). Followed up with my OB who made me feel SO SO much better. She came in and said she wasn't worried about the measurements but we will redo them in her office along with the follow up echo of the baby's heart to make sure the growth hasn't gotten smaller. This made me feel so much better and more than anything ready to put up a fight for this little one. And for all of those that know my husband and I we are NOT big people.. coming in at a whopping 5'1 and 5'5-6 inches so this could be perfectly normal for us to have a little tiny baby. Carrying on to this week!

How far along: 21 weeks

Size: Banana

Sleep: I've been sleeping pretty good other than having a hard time transitioning from night shift. My sciatic nerve has been giving me a tone of issues but I somehow manage to reposition and wait it out until morning.

Movement: A TON! Jason got to feel the baby kick from the outside during the 20th week but he is getting to feel a ton of movement during the 21st week!! 

Food cravings/aversions: Don't even put anything with hamburger meat in front of me but a plate of juicy fruit and we'll be alright. 

Pregnancy Symptoms: Sciatic nerve pain and movement! One round of severe nausea this week but no sickness =)

What I miss:  Energy. 

What I look forward to: Doing a post on our gender reveal! Which I hope to post a little later along with some belly shots. No promises of course. 

Milestones: The baby is sucking down amniotic fluid this week which helps produce it's first stools! Interesting right?

Best Moments this week: Finally knowing what we are having and preparing for it! 

Best moments with Jason: Seeing his face when he felt the baby thump his hand a million times in a row. 

I'm so looking forward to posting our reveal and ideas for Baby Chinnis! If you read, paha I laugh out loud as I type that because I know my reading population is nothing like that of kellyskorner but hey we'll go with it, then you'll have to endure my endless hours of pinterest idea gathering and baby talk :) Thanks for following!

19 weeks

How far along: 19 weeks

Size: Mango

Sleep: Other than not being able to get comfortable and not falling asleep until 4 or 5 am then it's fine.

Movement: Tons of movement! Especially when I lay down at night or bend over. Sometimes I feel like little nugget is saying Gimme some room woman! 

Food cravings/aversions: Only thing I can think about eating is soup and fruit. 

Pregnancy Symptoms: Only one episode of morning sickness this week! Kuddo's to baby :) I'm still extremely tired and don't have energy to get up and go.

What I miss: Feeling like myself. 

What I look forward to: Still eagerly awaiting our anatomy scan where we can find out the sex of our baby! We've got a pretty cute idea for gender reveal so I'm hoping to get it all squared away before next weeks appointment!

Milestones: Baby is developing vernix on it's body.. yay for cheesy goo! It is also working on it's 5 senses :)

Best Moments this week: My hubby letting me get tons of sleep.. I feel like a new woman!

Best moments with Jason: We have gotten to spend a lot of time together recently and it's been nice just focusing on each other and getting out of the house.

I'm definitely going to start taking some belly pictures soon. I'm normally so good at doing things I say I'll do but lately I've been incredibly slack! My belly is arriving slowly, day by day, it seems to get bigger. However, I haven't put on much weight so there really isn't much to see. Anyways, get ready to see some not so hot pictures of me in my PJs because that's all I lounge in all day! 

18 weeks

How far along: 18 weeks

Baby size: Sweet Potato

Sleep: Sleeps good but naps are better!

Movement: Tons of movement! Mostly thumps and jabs but this is an active little one.

Food cravings/aversions: Back on a fruit kick this week. Still hate the thought of hamburger meat.

Pregnancy Symptoms: I'm feeling really good! I did sleep for 15 hours one day but that was just a much needed rest!

What I miss: Patience. This week I feel like I just want to pull my hair out. I'm super stressed about getting things ordered and done before the baby gets here. Yes, I know we have time but we have NOTHING so far!

What I'm looking forward to:   Finding out the sex of out baby! 12 days and counting!

Milestones: Much more movement and not so much sickness!

Best moment this week:  Did an ultrasound and could see the baby moving around like crazy AGAIN! It was kicking me so hard and it's crazy how active little one is. We also think we might know what it is but aren't for sure so our lips are sealed. 

Moments with Jason: He has been so sweet this week. He keeps telling me how gorgeous I am and he has loved feeling my belly grow. He keeps reassuring me everything is going to be fine and keeps helping me look back on where we came from and how far we've come. He is my rock and I love him more now than every before.

My belly is growing very rapidly this week and I'm really doing terribly at taking pictures so maybe tomorrow I'll snap one and post it before I'm in the 19th week! Next post will be 20 weeks and hopefully I can share the sex of the baby!