19 week Baby Update, Hurricane Irene, Grandmom's, and Earthquakes, Oh My!

It's been a few weeks since I posted. Just didn't have much going on really.

I've always wanted to go to California, a friend tried to convince me that San Diego is a great place to live. I could totally deal with the 70 degree temps year round and LOVE it, but they get those pesky wildfires and earthquakes which make me hesitant, not to mention I can only imagine the cost of living out there. I always wondered what it was like to be around when an earthquake strikes. Well, I got a little taste of it the other day. I can't say I was scared since I had no clue at the time that it was an earthquake. The east coast rarely gets them, but this one originated in Virginia (we're in MD), and was felt all the way up into Canada. We had just gone upstairs to take a nap, and had set Jack up at the foot of our bed with his DVD player. The bed started shaking and Archie and I looked at each other and then looked for Chance, our greyhound who had a seizure in the spring, but he wasn't in bed with us, so that couldn't be it. We thought it was our sleep number mattress malfunctioning because we kept hearing "clicking". Archie got out of bed and opened our bedroom door because Chance was crying in the hall. This, the dog who isn't disturbed by ANYTHING. We just kept looking at each other wondering what in the heck was going on. Then my mom called me from work to ask if we'd felt that. Oh! She said there was fire equipment outside of the hospital evacuating other buildings, and that they thought it was an earthquake. I got off the phone with her and found that I couldn't make any calls as cell service was disrupted, but I could get on facebook, and when I did, I saw that everyone else had seemed to feel the earth shake as well. We didn't have any pictures fall off the walls, or anything fall over, it wasn't that big of a deal, just interesting when you've never experienced anything like it. I'll bet our friends in California thought all the hyped up east coast people were pretty funny/ridiculous, but that would be like them getting hit with a tornado. Just not something you experience often.

Then, yesterday we got a little taste of Hurricane Irene. There was alot of damage from fallen trees in our area, and some power outages, but our family and home was unscathed. I had trouble sleeping last night with all of the wind and rain, but I'm happy to say our roof held up, and our sump pump did it's job so we didn't flood out our basement. We were supposed to go to Ocean City overnight last night and head home today, but that was obviously nixed. We got a phone call on Friday from our hotel telling us that they were evacuating everyone. So, no part of a vacation whatsoever this summer, but it is what it is.

Yesterday morning I got a forwarded email from my father, from his cousin who is the power of attorney for my grandmother in CT (he's in MD too). It seems that while we found out a month or so ago that her kidney function is declining (she has a history of kidney disease), and she is continuing to have problems with her blood pressure. Well, in this email, it turns out that on Wednesday when my grandmom went for her hair appointment, during the transfer from her wheelchair she got lightheaded and they helped her to the floor for her safety. Her legs which have been swollen even before her kidney function got worse, are worse yet, and her left leg is red and irritated. They started her on antibiotics. She's refusing to eat, even ice cream (normally a treat for her), and refusing to drink (including her cranberry juice-a favorite). His cousin is going back to check on her, and if she thinks it needs to be done, will ask the doc to reassess and possibly admit her to the hospital. The woman is in her 90's, and I know she won't live forever, but I wish it didn't have to be like this. Isn't a quick and painless death (like in your sleep) better than being sick for a long time, feeling miserable and finally succumbing to the illnesses? I'm just having a hard time even thinking about it.

On Thursday we had our big ultrasound to look at the baby's anatomy and gender. The baby has a 4 chamber heart which I am so happy about, and all of the vessels appear to be where they should be. The brain looked good, as well as the kidneys. Baby appeared to have all of it's fingers and toes, eyes, a nose, and cute little lips. We are having another boy! Jack said, "Oh, I really thought it was going to be a girl!" I explained that I think we all did, but now he'd have someone to play trains and cars with, and he has so much to teach his little brother about all of those things! He seemed ok with it after that.


The only thing that has me concerned about this ultrasound is that the baby wouldn't straighten out so they could make sure his spine wasn't curved. He was balled up and not very cooperative, and while they didn't see any major anomalies like spina bifida or anything like that, I'm worried. I'm worried that he didn't stretch out because he couldn't stretch out physically, maybe his spine won't allow him to do it. Which could lead to problems with his developing lungs. I'm sure everything is fine, but I may ask my OB if we could just take another look for my piece of mind, just of his spine. We'll see what she says. It's not like they could do anything about it in utero anyway, but I'd like to know what we're dealing with either way. The baby measured 19 weeks and 3 days, and my ultrasound was at 18 weeks and 4 days. I'm a little worried he'll be huge. I think Jack at 6 pounds 12 ounces did enough damage, I'd hate to think of what a bigger baby would do to me! I did ask my OB (knowing that my glucose test isn't until late October) if I needed to be worried about anything like gestational diabetes, and she said I'm not spilling glucose or ketones in my urine, so at this point she thinks we're ok for that. She said there can be up to a 10% error on the estimated size of the baby by ultrasound. Then she told me that her first baby was 6 pounds, her second was 8, and that by far, the 8 pound baby was so much easier on her body. That was reassuring. The ultrasound tech had said that they would probably do another ultrasound around 35-36 weeks to check the size of the baby prior to delivery, and that this is pretty standard now. That was news to me. The ultrasound I had with Jack at 19 weeks, was my last, they never checked for size and that was only 4 and a half years ago. I'll take it though.

I'm sure I'm worried over nothing, and I'm just not going to have two really easy, cooperative, flexible babies (my luck just isn't like that, and I got really lucky the first time with the whole easy baby bit), but I can't help but think about my little guy's ultrasound and that darn spine. We'll see what my OB says.