No More False Calls

I'll keep this short and sweet, but we're in full blown labor!!! All the false calls are behind us, the water has broken and epidural is in. Mommy is doing great and Daddy hasn't passed out yet.

We'll update with all the key measurements and some pictures later on. Should only be a few more hours.

Love,
Ben, Gabrielle, and (almost) Camdyn

39 Week Appointment

As promised here we are again! Not without our baby drama as of late :) We once again found ourselves in labor and delivery last night. We swear we really aren't crazy parents to be. Every call or trip has been directed by Dr's orders. We just have a lot of things happening at once. So anyway, last nights adventures was due to thinking that Gabrielle's water broke. She noticed this at 6 pm last night and we did everything we were supposed to to see if it was worth going in for and all the tests passed so we knew we needed to get it checked just in case. Any potential fluid that seems similar to amniotic fluid is encouraged to not sit for hours and debate what it is but to cal your Dr and go in. So we did. 3 hours later and about 3 tests later, we learned it wasn't that. Not quite sure what it was but it allowed us to get sent home.

So we had our normal appointment today and our follow up from last night. The Dr was really glad that we went in to get checked and even checked things out himself to make sure. We are all clear. However, Gabrielle's Dr did another exam on her and her body is still not progressing much. Based on that, though we are technically eligible for induction (39 weeks tomorrow) he wants to wait another week. Doing one now with her body the way it is would most likely result in a C-section which we would all like to avoid if possible, so we will remain as is for another week. The current plan then is to now set up an induction with the hospital for next Thursday (10/28) at 4 PM. Our next appointment with him is next Wednesday when he will check Gabrielle again and make any final plans or arrangements. There is still always a chance that her body could start up and get Camdyn out sooner, but it is better now to get things down for a "reservation" with the hospital. So that is our current plan. Induction was something that we were actually very much against in the beginning but if her body struggles getting ready and our Dr is advising we will do such. We trust our Dr very much and feel very fortunate that we even have him. We really feel he would only do the best for Gabrielle and Camdyn. Gabrielle is dealing with a lot of discomfort right now with the non-stop contractions and back pain. We can say though that Camdyn is still doing really well and seemingly very healthy. We can't wait to get to hold her in our hands.

So that is the plan. We promise to keep everyone updated and let everyone know if anything changes. The support and love we have been getting from family and friends already has truly been a blessing and something we feel very grateful for. So thank you all!

When we were in L&D last night, our Dr ordered an ultrasound to check fluid and make sure Camdyn was head down. The tech gave us a couple pictures and we have posted them below. They are a little freaky looking but was a nice surprise to get to see her moving around. The tech also mentioned that she looked like she was going to be a big baby, so we will see, both of us were fairly big babies so I guess there is a chance :)

Also below is a new belly picture. This was actually taken today at 38w6d.

We hope this finds you all well. We are getting close!!!

Love always,
Ben and Gabrielle

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