Amniocentesis

With Josh and I being worried about Jake being so big with still so long to go and with all of the problems with my legs we wanted to him to be born as soon as it was safe for him to come. In order to see if his body would be ready to come early the doctor wanted to perform an amniocentesis to check if his lungs were developed enough for him to survive on his own after he was born. We went in for the test all packed and ready to go. The doctor said that sometimes doing an "amnio" can put you into labor so we needed to be prepared just in case. The procedure wasn't bad at all. My tummy was so big that I couldn't even see the "big" needle that they used. I wished that I would've asked to see if after-wards so that I knew what it looked like, but oh well. I was a bit nervous that the needle would hit Jake and poke him or something - especially since he moved around so much, but everything worked out just fine. The whole thing was monitored on the ultrasound machine, so I was able to see everything that the doctor did. The actual procedure didn't really take too long. The prepping and then the waiting was what took the longest. Since some women go into labor after an "amnio" they keep you there and monitor you for a while. They said they would keep us there for an hour just to be sure. Everything was going fine and they definitely were keeping me more than an hour. Josh needed to get back to work and had to call and cancel a couple of meetings because everything was taking much longer than we expected at the hospital. We weren't sure what was going on.

It just so happened that it was good that they kept me longer because I started to have contractions after a while. They were monitoring them the whole time. The contractions grew really strong! The nurses came and checked me a few times and I was progressing. They began to think I was possibly in labor and the contractions got pretty intense. They were the type that I would've come into the hospital for if I had been at home. Things were looking good for having the baby, but then the results came back and they said that Jake's lungs were borderline. They could potentially be developed enough, but they weren't quite sure. They decided to have the results tested again for more accurate results (a different test). This all took quite a while and they said they would call us with the results. They actually never had to because I was still at the hospital after all of this time. The results came back and said that his lungs were still too immature for us to perform the scheduled c-section the next day; we would have to come back for another "amnio" and re-check.
Josh and I were bummed, but it was looking like I may have him anyway because of all of the contractions.

Eventually the nurses said I could take some pain medicine because the contractions were so uncomfortable. I asked if that would harm Jake at all or stop the contractions and they said no. I took the medicine and the contractions stopped! They decided to keep me over night anyway to monitor me and see if the contractions would pick back up. They didn't and Josh and I stayed the night at the hospital. We went home the next day and I called my doctor. He said that we could try for another "amnio" on Friday of that week...just a few days later! Josh and I were shocked, but very happy. The doctor said that Jake's lungs could maybe be ready by then. We tried to schedule an appointment, but the hospital was booked. We would have to wait until the next week.

So Josh and I went home on Tuesday the 2nd and arrived sometime in the afternoon. I was exhausted!! However, I had a big night ahead of me...my baby shower was that night at our house!! I was a bit nervous about it to begin with because I didn't feel well, but after all my body had been through the day before I was even more worried. I didn't want to cancel however, because I didn't want those throwing the shower to have to worry about that. Also, how do you get in touch with that many people on such short notice?! I came home and slept and got up to get ready for the shower. It was a very rare thing for me to do my hair, get dressed in "normal clothes" (I was always in pajamas) and actually put make-up on. All of that alone exhausted me, but I was excited to be able to see many friends from the ward who I hadn't seen in so long. My friends Maria and Anna were so sweet to throw this shower for me and I was told that more of my friends helped too! Maria made the cutest cake ever and Anna made such adorable invitations! I'm not sure how many people were there, but Kayla said it was like 25-30 people. It was so sweet of everyone to come and it was great seeing everyone.

We played the game where everyone guesses how big my belly is with toilet paper and a nursery rhyme game and had some cake and punch and opened presents and all visited. I was beyond exhausted after-wards and everyone could tell how worn out I was. I just sat/laid in our recliner the whole time and tried to keep people away from my legs!! I was so grateful to have such sweet friends who wanted to help our family celebrate our baby boy with us! My birthday would be in 2 days, so everyone sang happy birthday to me and I had to blow out some candles. Little did I know that I would go into labor on my birthday 2 days later! Good thing we didn't cancel the baby shower...it was so nice to have so many things for Jake's arrival. Thank you to everyone for everything!!