Our Baby Has Arrived!

We are very excited to announce the birth of our daughter Audrey Peridot Leitao.

Please see her new website for pictures & updates:

http://audreyperidot.blogspot.com

Sandy & Michael

Less than 60 hours to go!!

I can't believe how soon we're going to meet our little girl!

I wanted to make sure to get some photos of me pregnant before it's all over. For those of you haven't seen me in awhile, this is me today at 31 weeks 1 day.

MARCH 11, 2009

We now know our baby's birthday!

Barring any emergency c-sections bumping us from our spot, we should be having our little girl around 8:00 a.m. EST on March 11.

She will be 31.5 weeks. On average, babies are able to go home when they reach 36 weeks gestational age, give or take 10 days. It seems likely though that unless she has any unexpected complications she will be home sooner that that because she has been forced to mature more quickly than an average baby.

Wish us luck!

Big News!

Our baby is getting ready to make an appearance!

On Thursday morning I was informed that my doctors had presented our case to the "Fetal Board" - a group of specialists that meets once a month to review complicated cases. Apparently the neonatologists were of the opinion that the baby is at risk of developing blood clotting issues as long as she stays connected to Bridget, and that it would be too late by the time we saw any change on the fetal monitor. The neonatologists didn't recommend going past 32 weeks, and really didn't see much of a difference between 31 and 32 weeks, so they were comfortable with her being delivered anytime!

This of course was a big shock to us! After reviewing all of the information we've decided to deliver her next week, we're still trying to choose which day will be her birthday, most likely Wednesday or Thursday. We have also decided that it will be safest for her to have a c-section - not what I was hoping for, but I'm okay with it.

We are also going to have a second round of steroids in the next couple of days to give the baby another boost to mature. I've been told lots of times that she behaves on the monitor like a much more mature baby, and that with the stress she's gone through as well as the steroids, she's likely to do quite well. The general consensus is that 32 weekers do really well overall. The baby won't have reached 32 weeks, but she'll be very close.

Unfortunately she will have to spend some time in the NICU, but we're hoping it will be a relatively short stay. My best guess is 3 weeks, but it could be less, and it could be more.

We're excited to meet her and find out what she looks like. We'll keep you posted!

Ceci n'est pas un Tuna Sandwich!

This is definitely not what I ordered!

Although some of you may believe that I have a secret love for american cheese and deli meat, you would be wrong. (Although it does have its place - in grilled cheese or on hamburgers, and nowhere else!)

Tonight's meal is definitely up there with the worst meals I've received since being at the hospital. I would say that the food has been one of the hardest things about living the hospital.

I ordered a tuna sandwich with cheddar cheese, and instead was sent HALF a turkey sandwich with two slices of american cheese on the side. Very bizarre. To make it worse, I ordered my dinner at 5:45, noticed the error at 6:45 (after the phones are turned off for ordering), and despite many phone calls from my nurse to various supervisors, never did receive my dinner. Thank goodness I have a small stockpile of food that I brought with me, so I ended up heating a can of soup at 8:45.

This meal ranks up there with the veggie burger that came with bacon on it. And the standard vegetarian meal of mashed potatoes, corn, and grean beans.

Just thought I would share a little of my hospital experience with you.

On a baby note, she is really active tonight, you can see her moving from the outside!

Big Baby!

We had another ultrasound today. They did a growth scan and a BPP, and decided to take a look at her brain to make sure everything is still looking good.

She is growing really well, and for the first time is above average for her gestational age :) Her estimated weight is 3 lbs 7 oz, which puts her in the 56th percentile. She is really curled up in there, she is still head down, with her little butt sticking into my right side and her feet up near my ribs on my left.

She also is practice breathing like a champion, moving well, and her fluid level looks like it is lightly up again - so she scored an 8/8 on her BPP. Her brain still looks normal, which is great.

We also are starting to - sort of, kind of - come up with a plan to bring this adventure to a conclusion. My doctor mentioned last week that he thought it would be reasonable to do an amniocentesis between 34 and 36 weeks to check for maturity, but that the group would have to discuss it. One of my other doctors this morning mentioned possibly around the 34 week mark. This is pretty exciting as I am already at 30 weeks! So maybe just 4 more weeks to go! Tomorrow I will have been here for 6 weeks, so if we have 4 or 5 more to go that seems manageable - although still a long time.

Although 34 weeks sounds early, we still have a lot of unknown risks going on, and after that point, if the amnio shows that her lungs are mature, any risks due to prematurity are minor and not long-lasting. And if she keeps growing well she should be small, but not too tiny, probably in the 5 pound range.

Thanks for checking in!

Ultrasound Results

The ultrasound went well today!

We had another BPP and had a look at the amniotic fluid level.

The amniotic fluid is still low, but looking better. It was up to 7.1 from 5.6 last week, so that was a relief.

The baby did great with her practice breathing, she was doing it pretty much the whole time! She is also active and doing well on her heartrate monitoring.

Here's a picture of her face (in profile):

We've tried a few times to get 3D pictures of the babies' faces, but you need a certain amount of empty space for it too work and they have always been too close together, and with the low fluid it's even worse. So no 3D pics for us.

But, we did see something interesting on the ultrasound today:

It looks like our girl is going to have lots of hair! I didn't even know you could see that on an ultrasound :)

So everything is looking pretty good. I was having contractions last night, nothing major, but they were frequent and lasted for 5 or 6 hours, so I'm back on the meds to stop contractions. Other than that we're doing fine.