More health concerns

Yesterday Sam went skiing again with some friends from work. We don't have any snow in our area, but apparently there's still plenty where they go in the Black Forrest. He's been enjoying the skiing this year. I would too if I were able to go. Being pregnant makes that a little impossible at this time. So....I stayed home. Just didn't sound like that much fun to sit and watch them ski all day.

I started washing the baby's clothes and did some things around the house. I keep wishing I had ordered the nursery furniture about 4 months ago, so I could be putting everything in its place now. Instead, there are boxes sitting in the nursery....just waiting until I have a place to store everything. It won't be quite as organized as I would have liked when she's born, but we'll manage until the furniture gets here.

I'm supposed to be on bed rest according to my doctor. Sometimes it seems like I've had one issue after another with this pregnancy. I was feeling great (still do actually), but at my appointment on Wednesday the doctor had some concerns and told me to stay off my feet. That was a little frustrating because I've been enjoying being back to the gym in the mornings. Regardless, I listened to my doctor and skipped the gym Thursday and Friday and tried to take it easy. Friday I went back to the doctor for another fetal monitoring and both doctors there wanted to do an ultrasound because they were concerned that I may have placenta previa. I did not know what that was, but apparently it's when the placenta is blocking the cervix. Normally it moves upward to give way for the baby to come out, but with previa it doesn't.

After spending quite a bit of time studying the ultrasound on Friday they do not think I have the previa, but cannot be sure. During the ultrasound they saw something else that concerned them. They thought one side of the baby's face looked swollen. Obviously, that didn't sound good to me. They said the swelling could be caused by some infection. Within the last 6 weeks I've been on 2 runs of antibiotics though, so I really hope that's not the case. I don't like taking antibiotics so frequently. I have an appointment with a specialist tomorrow to verify if I do have previa and to check the baby's face better. I'm trying not to be concerned much until we know for sure what's going on. During the ultrasound the baby was not cooperating so they weren't able to see her face in 3D, which would have answered the question of whether her face is indeed swollen or not.

I'm praying that the baby is fine and that I don't have placenta previa. If I do and it doesn't correct itself in the next few weeks I would have to be scheduled for a C-section, probably around week 37 (4 weeks from now). I'm not planning on that though until we have confirmation of what's going on. We serve a big God who can take care of all these issues.

Thankfully, I still don't have any kidney pain, so for that I'm thankful. It's one less thing to worry about right now.

When Sam got home yesterday we drove to Toom to check on curtains for the nursery. We've already checked Hornbach, Obi and a new Bauhaus. I've mentioned before how we've had a hard time figuring out the curtains over here. I haven't been very impressed with most of the patterns I've seen. What we ended up doing at Toom is find a material that we liked and gave them the measurements for the windows. They will make the curtains for the track system, which we have, and we can pick them up in about 3 weeks. After all of my frustration with the curtains this seemed so simple. We'll probably end up doing the same for all the other windows. It gives us more options because we can find any material that we like and have curtains made from that. It didn't seem much more expensive than ordering them off the rack and I won't have to worry about hemming them.

I've been having pretty strong Braxton Hicks contractions for quite a few weeks now, but lately it seemed they've been a lot stronger and more frequent. Yesterday evening at Toom they were so strong that I was having trouble walking. That was a little unnerving. It made me realize I better take what the doctors said seriously and try to take it easy. We don't want the baby arriving before she's due. It's hard to sit around and not be able to do much though. Today Sam is vacuuming the house because I can't carry the vacuum up and down all of our stairs. I feel pretty good, but don't want to take any risks. I'll be glad to get to the doctor tomorrow and find out for sure what's going on. Something that's reassuring to me is that in another 2 weeks they wouldn't even stop the baby from coming. She's pretty well developed at this point, so if there were any problems I know she would be able to make it outside the womb.

Well, here is my weekly photo update. This was as we were heading out the door to Toom last night.