It's All About The People

We wanted to take a minute to say thank you to the great folks Ben works with at Harris. The team came together and threw us an amazing baby shower a couple weeks ago. It was complete with decorations, good food, favors, cake and a very generous gift. It was more touching than they know.

A lot of back and forth...

Camdyn has definitely been keeping us busy since our last Dr's appointment on Wednesday. Thursday night Gabrielle got really sick with some nausea which lead to her throwing up several times. We thought that had calmed down but in the morning on Friday she still found herself not doing well. We decided to call the Dr's office to see what they wanted us to do to help with this. The Dr was actually not in the office on Friday but we were able to talk to the nurse who wanted us to go to L&D at the hospital, especially since the contractions were close, now at a 3-5 minute interval. So we did. We got to the hospital and were put up to the monitor. Camdyn's strip was amazing, she was getting complimented again for having great numbers and looking extremely healthy. Gabrielle's monitor was definitely showing contractions every 3-5 minutes which is when they normally want you to go to L&D. So they do an exam and we are now 60% effaced. -2 station, but still only 1 cm dilated. The on-call Dr for our Dr happened to be in the wing and stopped by. He did an exam as well and decided that he would go ahead and discharge us. While the contractions are where we should be and normally would be admitted he suggested we try and wait through and see if the pain increases 2-3xs what was currently being felt. He also told us to not wait for our Wednesday Dr's appointment and try and get in on Monday because he really didn't feel like we would make it that long. So we went home and waited.

We went through the weekend and did start to notice that the pain was starting to increase. We decided to wait though to see if we could see our Dr on Monday and kind of hold off from going back to L&D.

When Monday came, we were finally able to get through the Dr's office, however he was in surgery all day so we spoke with the nurse again. Based on the fact that the contractions were still 3-5 minutes apart they wanted us to be at the hospital to get looked at and monitored. The hospital would be able to reach our Dr and could work with him that way based on vitals, etc. So again we did. Monitor was showing once again perfect contractions and a perfect baby. The contractions were even showing as more intense and closer together. They did another exam only to find that we were still at the same effacement and dilation. So they started to then go through the list of possible things that could be effecting this. They rand a UTI test which came back negative and then loaded Gabrielle up with some water. That started to help move the contractions out a bit but not a whole bunch. It brought us closer to about 5-6 minutes which was enough for them to decide to discharge us again. They mentioned induction but we are still not quite where we should be for the Dr to do this. His office won't even talk about it till we are at least 39 weeks (today we are 38w5d). Which isn't something we were originally wanting to do, but with the pain and uncomfort that this is causing we are willing to at least talk about it. Talk about discouraging. So we were told to come back if the contractions stay/get back to 3-5 minutes apart and double over in pain. We are to keep our next appointment with our Dr for tomorrow and see what he wants to do. The good news is last night we at least made a little progress when we saw that the Mucus Plug was lost (sorry if a little TMI for some). So we will take that.

So for now we are just waiting. Gabrielle is drinking a lot of water so that if the contractions stay close we at least know it isn't that. We will continue to monitor contractions throughout the day so we have all of our information for the Dr's appointment tomorrow morning. As of last night they were averaging about 6-7 minutes apart. So we will see. We will have another update tomorrow. The great news is that Camdyn is doing so well so far. That is definitely our main concern.

Well sorry for this long drawn out entry but we wanted to keep everyone posted. We know that there was a lot of things going on. We hope that this will find you all well. Fingers crossed we will hopefully have our little one with us very soon.

Love always,

Ben and Gabrielle

38 week appointment came a day early

Well we weren't supposed to have an update until tomorrow but due to some things that were going on we called the Dr and they asked us to come in this morning. About 3 days ago we noticed that the contractions were starting to change and seemed more "real." One the first day they were about 10-12 minutes apart. After coming home from work though and laying down, they seemed to calm down and spread out to longer time frames in between. Yesterday they picked up again in the morning and by the end of the day were anywhere from 4-7 minutes apart and getting really painful. We started to think that this was it. Again though after getting home and laying down they spread back out to 20 plus minutes in between. The added difference with yesterday was that there was what seemed to be more of a constant cramping and then lower back pain. This morning the contractions started again from 20 minutes apart and started getting around 10 minutes apart. Ben encouraged Gabrielle to call the Dr's office which they then asked us to come in as soon as we could so they could hook her up to the monitor and watch the contractions. So we left work and headed in.

They did our normal exam first and we learned that we are now 50% effaced and 1 cm dilated. So yay progress has been made in a little under a week, which is good. They then hooked her up to the monitor and sure enough the machine was showing contractions. They were coming in anywhere from 4-7 minutes apart. The Dr came in and told us while they are close they want to see them more consistent....currently they are one four minutes later, one 6 minutes later, etc. So we wait. They did decide to pull Gabrielle from work early so her last day at the office was today. This actually came at a really good time since she was getting very uncomfortable and this was something we were talking about possibly doing ourselves, the good thing is that with the doctors orders we don't have to dip into our time off early, we get additional :)

They went ahead and scheduled our appointment for next Wednesday but mentioned that is if we make it to that appointment. So if things continue to progress we may see them sooner. So here is to hoping.

So that is the current update as to where we are. We will continue to keep you all posted. More to come soon.

Hope all is well!

Love always,

Ben and Gabrielle

Nursery completed...just add Camdyn!

The recliner came in yesterday as scheduled and has been placed in the nursery. We are now able to say that Camdyn's room is 100% complete...only thing we are missing is her! We just can't wait. 18 days and counting till her due date. So as promised on Thursday's entry here are some final pictures of the nursery.

We are pretty happy with how everything turned out. We can't wait to have her complete the room.

Also as promised, Gabrielle took more belly pictures yesterday, which was at 37 weeks, 2 days along.

So that is the news here. Trying to enjoy the rest of our Sunday before heading back to work in the morning (a 5 day work week this week none-the-less). There will be another update most likely on Thursday, though if anything happens sooner we will definitely post it.

Hope all is well with everything.

Love always,
Ben and Gabrielle

37 weeks- Hello Full Term!

Well we made it! Camdyn is now officially considered a full term baby, though we are still 3 weeks from her due date. This is definitely a great milestone and brings us a lot of excitement knowing that we are only getting closer.

We had another doctor's appointment today. Nothing really too new to report. We are still ripening/effacing however there has been no dilation. Dr. A made a slight joke that he unfortunately wouldn't be surprised to see us still pregnant next week. However, he does think that there will be more progress to see by our next appointment which is next Thursday. Though the tricky part of pregnancy is that all the numbers and figures really don't always mean much, we could still end up in labor and delivery tomorrow or we could easily find ourselves at October 28th. So still nobody really knows, but we are willing to believe that he has a slight better knowledge than we do :)

We heard from the furniture company earlier this week and our recliner is in. They weren't able to deliver it to us tomorrow so they will be bringing it on Saturday. We can't wait...not only is it the final piece of the nursery but it may be something good for Gabrielle to try and use now to help her get comfortable. Once we have it set up in the room we will take some pictures of the final nursery and get them posted on here (in addition to getting a new belly picture up).

So that is about the new news we have. We are just moving along day by day. Everything else is going pretty well, definitely no complaints.

We hope that this finds you all well. We hope you have a good weekend. More updates to come soon! :)

Love always,

Ben and Gabrielle

36 week appointment- check!

Well we have done it! We made it to the final month of the pregnancy! Almost feels like yesterday when we found out we were expecting. And to think now within 4 weeks we should be able to meet our little girl. We are truly beyond words and have nothing but excitement for her arrival.

Today was our 36 week appointment. From here on we are going to be going to the doctor every week. Camdyn is measuring great and we are at a point now where the Dr told us that if she is ready to come he won't stop her, so it really is up to her at this point :) Gabrielle's blood pressure was a little elevated but the Dr isn't too concerned at this point. Her protein checked out well and her numbers weren't at the levels that would draw concern for potential preeclampsia. It is something that they will continue to monitor regardless. Her swelling seems to be normal and hasn't really reached her face much, mainly her feet and then fingers some. The really good news from the appointment though was that Gabrielle's body is progressing! We have a thinning and ripening cervix which is a great start (sorry if that was too much for some :) ). So we are in process but do have some time left, no rushing yet. The pain and pressure that Gabrielle has been feeling is still very much around, and it is something that she is going to have to try and deal with the best she can till Camdyn arrives. It is basically from the position of Camdyn which doesn't leave much room for making better. Her best bet is to try and stay as comfortable as possible when she can.

The nursery is about 98% done, just waiting on the recliner to arrive...should be just about any day now. We will take some final pictures of everything put together once it arrives. And with arrival, we have now figured out how to email from our phones to the blog and it looks like also able to text to here. So what we figure we will do is send out a mass text to those interested letting you know to keep updated with the blog and that way Ben can post things as we get more information for Camdyn's delivery. It will probably be the easiest and quickest way to keep everyone as posted as we can.

In other news, we have continued to see great improvement with Rory! We aren't quite sure what that was all about but we are definitely glad that she is making improvements and back to herself - even if that is slightly crazy on the norm ;-)

It looks like we were spared from a possible tropical storm, thankfully. We have been getting a lot of rain here though!! Fortunately it hasn't been anything like Fay was a couple of years ago...that rain was just ridiculous. Hopefully we can finish the rest of Hurricane season as fortunate.

Well we hope that this finds everyone well and safe. We love you all!!

Love always,

Ben and Gabrielle

Daddy test

Just testing the mobile blog posting capability.

Sent from my iPhone