Natalie had the ultrasound on her kidney done. She still has Hydronephrosis of the right kidney and will need more testing and possibly some treatment. The doctors are starting her on an adult dose of antibiotics and will continue this for a minimum of 31 days. She may need to be on antibiotics for up to a year depending on what future testing shows. We go back to the doctor on 1/5/09 to talk about what to do next.
We will also talk to the doctor about reflux. Natalie definitely has it, although she's not nearly as colicky as Ally and Tommy were (at least not yet. lol) She is good when she's comfortable. She wants to be held all the time, which i'm sure is as a result of not feeling all that great. She clears her throat and coughs, hiccups, arches her back, etc., just like ally and tommy did. I'm sure she's just as reflux-y as they were, but she's just a more laid back personality. As long as we're holding/rocking her, she's happy, whereas ally needed constant jostling. I am sure you remember me talking about having to walk around the house from 10:30pm-4:30am every night. And both ally and tommy needed the white noise as a distraction. Natalie doesn't really care about white noise and as long as she's got a warm body near her, she's content. I'm sure we're handling it better also just because we've been here, done that.
We also think she has a milk allergy. She had diarrhea non-stop since my milk came in. It was like a faucet. We called the doctor b/c we were worried about dehydration and they asked about some other milk allergy symptoms they knew of and we answered yes to almost all of them. If you all remember, Ally had constipation as her milk allergy symptom (of which only 5% of kids with a milk allergy have) so we had nothing to compare it to. Natalie has diarrhea and a red bottom that no medication clears up (it's different than a regular diaper rash, it's actually a reaction to the milk). So, they advised us to try soy. Since starting the soy, she has had no diarrhea or soreness.
So, that's the latest news.
12/31/2008
12/27/2008
Introducing Natalie Corinne
Gift from my friend, Melissa, and her familyNatalie Corinne was born on Wednesday, December 17th at 6:35pm. She weighed in at 6 lbs 9 oz and 19 inches long. She is just precious and we thank God for such a wonderful blessing!!
We had a little scare at first. She came out with the cord wrapped around her neck and was in respiratory distress, requiring oxygen for about 30 minutes and monitoring/warming for an additional 30 minutes. Thank God that she is healthy and doing well now!!
The induction started at 6am, although i wasn't hooked to Pitocin until 8:30am or so. I was stuck at 4cm for 9 hours. At 5:20pm or so, I finally was 5.5cm. Thirty minutes later, i was 9.5 . At that time the doctor noticed that her heartrate kept dropping to 70 bpm, but would recover relatively quickly. Normal is between 120-160, so the doc decided to get everything ready to deliver even though i wasn't 100% complete. When i started pushing, the heartrate dropped to 60 bpm and was not recovering after the contractions were over like it was before. The doctor decided to use the vaccuum to get her out. It was kind of scary b/c Matt and I could see the panic in the doctor's eyes. Especially when she yelled, "get the house pediatrician and Dr. feit up here". Natalie didn't cry when she came out so Matt didn't get to cut the cord and I didn't get to see her for what seemed like forever. They rushed her to the warming bed and started her on oxygen immediately. She had no muscle tone, which means when they would raise her arms or legs, she wouldn't react. They would just flop down beside her. They didn't tell me much of what was going on, so i just listened as closely as i could. I did hear them say that her color was coming back, and Matt didn't think her color ever looked very blue, so i was glad to hear that it seemed like she was getting better pretty quickly. Then finally, i heard some whimpers. What a sweet sound!! They weren't big cries, so they still had to work on her, but at that point I was glad to hear anything.
They worked on her for about 30 minutes before deciding that she was healthy enough to remove the oxygen. They decided to leave her in the warming bed for an additional 30 minutes just to warm up and monitor her.
I was SO excited to hold her when they finally brought her to me. It felt like forever! I was so glad to hold her and tell her how much I loved her and how long we had waited for her. She was perfect!
12/14/2008
Tommy's 4th birthday party
Tommy is getting ready to turn 4 years old! Time flies!!! We celebrated his birthday with his friends on December 6th. I know it's early, but we just felt that it would be a better time to celebrate it since i was due so close to this birthday. We didn't want his special day to fall through the cracks in the event I went into labor
He had a great time with all his friends.Fast forward to this weekend -
Today, the kids were in a Sunday School Musical. It was SO cute. The kids did a great job. ally and Tommy did all of their motions they were supposed to do with the songs. Ally kept turning around, and we didn't know why, but it turned out that two teenagers were playing Mary and Joseph and they were holding a real baby. She was SO intrigued by this. She asked me later, "mom, was that baby the REAL baby Jesus?" I thought that was so cute. I explained that Jesus came for us a long long time ago and that baby was just pretending to be Jesus for the musical just like she and tommy were pretending to be angels. I think both kids are very interested in babies right now with the impending birth of their little sister, but if she really thought that Jesus was right behind her, she must have been really excited! :) Grandma and Grandpa K came to the musical. They really enjoyed it and ally and Tommy loved seing their grandparents sitting with us in the audience. They waved to us several times from the stage. :)
After the play was over, we met my Grandma and Grandpa B at Red Robin for dinner to celebrate Tommy's birthday. I am being induced on Wednesday, and knew we wouldn't be able to bring the baby out in public so soon after our release for his real birthday, so we decided to celebrate by letting him choose where to eat out tonight. Tommy wanted Red Robin b/c they have choc milk, which is funny b/c he can have that at home. But that's what he wanted so we went there. My dad had just returned from business in Mexico and started feeling really sick, so he went to the car to rest while the rest of us finished dinner. I hope it wasn't food poisoning, but I also don't want it to be contagious. I just hope he feels better soon!
We came back home and give him one present from us and his present from Aunt jenny and Uncle Rick, which he LOVED!!! It's a shake n go Bat plane. It's so fun. He absolutely loves it. Matt and i gave him a kids' erector set. He really liked it, but it was a little tough for him so he and Matt did that together.
Then we had cake. He and ally love that part! :)
Well, that's all for now! Happy Birthday my little sweet boy! I am so proud of you. you are getting so big and learning so much!
We will still celebrate his REAL birthday when he'll get the rest of his presents, but we wanted to make sure he got his night out to celebrate before Natalie's arrival. So i'll post more pictures of his birthday after the 20th.
12/03/2008
Natalie's Kidney
Natalie's kidney condition (RPD = Renal Pelvis Dilation) has been upgraded from Fetal Pyelectasis to Severe Fetal Hydronephrosis.
The definition of pyelectasis means that the kidney pelvis (an area that the renal tube connects to) is enlarged/stretched too large (over .4cm). At 32 weeks, natalie's was .8cm , which was enlarged, but they were hoping it would resolve itself.
Anything over .8cm, is no longer Pyelectasis and is then considered Hydronephrosis. Today, it was 1.2cm, so it's categorized as Severe Hydronephrosis. This is considered quite an increase in 4 weeks. (this is my understanding of it, i could be wrong. I will be sure to ask more questions to clarify when the doctor calls me back).
The most common causes of RPD, are obstruction of the ureter where it enters the renal pelvis (an area leading to the inside of the kidney), a kink in the ureter, and another condition where the ureter allows urine to flow backwards from the bladder (can't remember the name of it). There are some less common causes as well, but we didn't go into those.
The chances of a baby with RPD greater than .8cm having to have surgery is high. It could mean that she'll need a stint to reduce the size of the renal pelvis, repair of the renal tube entering the kidney if there is a kink/obstruction in it, or complete replacement of the ureter's location by moving it to another area of the kidney. If left untreated, the urine can back up into the kidney and cause damage to the kidney. Infection is also very likely with this condition, so she'll probably be on antibiotics from birth.
Of course, there's always a chance that the ultrasound after birth will show that it's not as severe as they thought. We're crossing our fingers, yet preparing ourselves at the same time.
My OB is going to call my pediatrician to notify her of the condition and discuss a plan. She's concerned b/c this is something that can cause kidney tissue damage, and the fact that the size is increasing is not good b/c it means that the kidney is not draining and continuing to get worse. She is considering inducing earlier than the 19th, depending on what the pediatrician says. With it being upgraded to severe, they want to get at the baby's body to perform an ultrasound on her b/c it's more accurate to image the baby herself as opposed to through me. If they wait too long, it can cause more complications, leading to permanent kidney damage. This can also help them get a jump on the condition before it becomes more severe and leads to these risks. Another reason they may induce early is so that, if needed, they can do a small procedure right away to drain the kidney (b/c waste and blood can be backing up into the kidney).
On the other hand, they don't want to induce too early b/c they still want to let her finish growing, especially regarding lung development. It's kind of a tough call. It may just be a few days earlier than planned.
On another note, she is no longer breech (yay!) and i will not have to have a c-section unless there are complications for some reason.
I am 2cm dilated and her heartrate was 159bpm today.
Here are images to help describe everything.
DIAGRAM OF NORMAL KIDNEY DEVELOPMENT
DIAGRAM OF ONE KIDNEY WITH HYDRONEPHROSIS (they never said anything about a hydroureter (the ureter looking like that in the picture). It could be that they can't see it on ultrasound yet since it's so tiny, or that portion of the collecting system could be normal and there could be a different cause.)
ULTRASOUND IMAGE OF KIDNEY WITH HYDRONEPHROSIS (This is NOT our u/s. It's just one that looked similar to what we saw. They didn't give me a picture of it, but it looked like this.)
The definition of pyelectasis means that the kidney pelvis (an area that the renal tube connects to) is enlarged/stretched too large (over .4cm). At 32 weeks, natalie's was .8cm , which was enlarged, but they were hoping it would resolve itself.
Anything over .8cm, is no longer Pyelectasis and is then considered Hydronephrosis. Today, it was 1.2cm, so it's categorized as Severe Hydronephrosis. This is considered quite an increase in 4 weeks. (this is my understanding of it, i could be wrong. I will be sure to ask more questions to clarify when the doctor calls me back).
The most common causes of RPD, are obstruction of the ureter where it enters the renal pelvis (an area leading to the inside of the kidney), a kink in the ureter, and another condition where the ureter allows urine to flow backwards from the bladder (can't remember the name of it). There are some less common causes as well, but we didn't go into those.
The chances of a baby with RPD greater than .8cm having to have surgery is high. It could mean that she'll need a stint to reduce the size of the renal pelvis, repair of the renal tube entering the kidney if there is a kink/obstruction in it, or complete replacement of the ureter's location by moving it to another area of the kidney. If left untreated, the urine can back up into the kidney and cause damage to the kidney. Infection is also very likely with this condition, so she'll probably be on antibiotics from birth.
Of course, there's always a chance that the ultrasound after birth will show that it's not as severe as they thought. We're crossing our fingers, yet preparing ourselves at the same time.
My OB is going to call my pediatrician to notify her of the condition and discuss a plan. She's concerned b/c this is something that can cause kidney tissue damage, and the fact that the size is increasing is not good b/c it means that the kidney is not draining and continuing to get worse. She is considering inducing earlier than the 19th, depending on what the pediatrician says. With it being upgraded to severe, they want to get at the baby's body to perform an ultrasound on her b/c it's more accurate to image the baby herself as opposed to through me. If they wait too long, it can cause more complications, leading to permanent kidney damage. This can also help them get a jump on the condition before it becomes more severe and leads to these risks. Another reason they may induce early is so that, if needed, they can do a small procedure right away to drain the kidney (b/c waste and blood can be backing up into the kidney).
On the other hand, they don't want to induce too early b/c they still want to let her finish growing, especially regarding lung development. It's kind of a tough call. It may just be a few days earlier than planned.
On another note, she is no longer breech (yay!) and i will not have to have a c-section unless there are complications for some reason.
I am 2cm dilated and her heartrate was 159bpm today.
Here are images to help describe everything.
DIAGRAM OF NORMAL KIDNEY DEVELOPMENT
DIAGRAM OF ONE KIDNEY WITH HYDRONEPHROSIS (they never said anything about a hydroureter (the ureter looking like that in the picture). It could be that they can't see it on ultrasound yet since it's so tiny, or that portion of the collecting system could be normal and there could be a different cause.)ULTRASOUND IMAGE OF KIDNEY WITH HYDRONEPHROSIS (This is NOT our u/s. It's just one that looked similar to what we saw. They didn't give me a picture of it, but it looked like this.)
ULTRASOUND OF A NORMAL KIDNEY
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