A poem for our girl

We were blessed beyond all measure
That cool November night.
The test was finally positive.
Mom couldn’t believe her sight.

Dad was gone a-hunting
Gone for many days.
So Mom was left with a secret
Her thoughts going many ways.

God had finally done it!
A baby was on the way.
The countdown had begun
Only nine months away.

The time went by so fast
And now you’re almost here
We cannot wait to meet you
Our precious daughter dear.

A sneak peek

On May 18, I was blessed to get a sneak peek at what my daughter looks like.

I was having my routine BPP (biophysical profile which is essentially an ultrasound) and the tech said, "Let's flip the switch and take a few pictures of her in 3-D!" I definitely wasn't going to argue with her.

Next thing I knew, there she was on the screen and without any prompting from the tech, I could totally see my daughter's eyes, nose, mouth, chin, hand, chubby cheeks. She was right there. In plain sight. Right in front of me.

What a beautiful creation from God.

A blessing.

A true miracle.

Frustrated and confused but still pluggin' along

So, I met with Dr. Rice, my doctor at St. Joe's, last Thursday.

She was telling me how she'd had this conversation with Dr. Ney, the specialist from St. Cloud that I saw on May 10, and how Dr. Ney was telling her how we'd discussed our birth plan and that I would come down to Abbott in the Twin Cities and position myself locally at 38 weeks and stay down there until I give birth...also that Dr. Ney had intentions of doing an amnio on me at 38 weeks to check the baby's lung maturity.

I sat dumbfounded. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

First of all, Dr. Ney never discussed any of this with me, and secondly, I already said that I have no intentions of "moving" to the cities to "live" for two weeks while the doctors figure out when I'm supposed to be giving birth. I said I couldn't afford that and I wasn't going to do it. I was so frustrated. I could barely speak. I just began shaking my head.

Dr. Rice kind of looked at me puzzled and said, "Did she not discuss any of this with you?"

I said, "This is the first I'm hearing any of this!"

Dr. Rice said she was disappointed because it was her understanding that Dr. Ney had discussed all of this with me.

So as of now, all of this is completely up in the air with the exception of the fact that I'm NOT going to the cities early. If I'm there, it's going to be because I'm having this baby!

After our discussion, Dr. Rice said that I was to have an NST (non-stress test) and BPP (biophysical profile). I left the hospital, came back to work for a half an hour or so, and went back to the hospital to have these two tests done.

The NST was to monitor baby's heart rate as she moves around, etc. They strapped a monitor on my belly to track her heart rate with a printout. She was moving around quite a bit, (as she does often) so they had to move the monitor thing twice. She finally stayed in one spot long enough for the nurses to get a good reading.

After nearly an hour, Dr. Rice came in and said that everything looked GREAT! I was relieved of course.

Then it was on to radiology for the BPP. It was basically an ultrasound but they looked at eight specific things including my amniotic fluid level, her diaphragm use (breathing) and her range of motion. I saw her profile again with her cute little nose and chin. I saw her ear, her hand with her fingers moving about as well as her foot being clear up by her head. She had the hiccups twice which the ultrasound tech said was obvious diaphragm usage. She is also head up again. She was facing outward and the tech said that when she made another pass through with the doppler, if she was still facing out, she'd flick the 3-D button on and take some pictures. I was so excited but tried to contain myself. Well, of course, why would my daughter cooperate? Ha-ha! The next pass through, she'd turned around and was facing inward so no 3-D pics this time around.

The tech was going to show my results to the radiologist and then to Dr. Rice and then Dr. Rice was going to call me so I went back out to the waiting room to sit.

After about 10 minutes or so, a nurse came and got me and directed me to a phone where Dr. Rice was holding. Dr. Rice said that baby could score an 8 out of 8 on the BPP and that was her score! Perfect! Again, I was very relieved...

BUT, and there's always one of those, I have to continue these tests weekly until she's born. The next one is tomorrow already.

I just hope my girl keeps impressing the docs because she's definitely impressing her mother.

Our girl is growing!

We had another U/S yesterday in St. Cloud.

I'm excited to report we're STILL having a girl...no joke. She showed her little girl parts very proudly!

And, I'm even more excited to report that she weighs in at a whopping 3 pounds, 13 ounces...woohoo for her!

We saw her face a little better....her chubby cheeks, her cute little nose...we even saw her mouth open and close! Too cool for words!

Doctor was completely unimpressed with me and the baby (meaning she couldn't find a darn thing wrong and that's a good thing for sure!)

We continued to be blessed! We go back to St. Cloud in five weeks — June 10.

Wonder what she'll look like then?