Short n' Sweet

I went to see Dr. K at the Swedish Medical Center in Denver yesterday, which yielded these results:

• Having the LONGEST ultrasound I've ever had (explained below)- Craig and I were so cozy in the warm room and low lights that we about fell asleep before we were done (the tech wasn't very talkative after the preliminaries were over).
  
• My cervix is back to about 3 cm at it's shortest (yay!), the fluid in my endocervical canal is normal (I think, at least that is the impression I got), when pressure is put on my abdomen, the cervix doesn't open up at all from the inside, and I'm not dialating at all (all good things).
  
• The mystery cysts on my umbilical chord/placenta are mysterious indeed. That is what took so long during the ultrasound, they looked at those things from every which angle and hmmed and huh-ed their way through it. Is it related to the clot? Who knows. Are they a threat to the baby? Not really, the cord is in good shape, baby is getting all the blood flow it needs, and aside from there being a blood vessel wrapped around one of them, they seem to just exist. They are benign, there's no blood going through them at all, they are just fluid filled. I was instructed to have Dr. B back home write them a report on what they are when I deliver. All these uninvited guests sharing space with the baby! Really, quite rude.
  
• Dr. K said things look good as to be expected, and even suggested a little wiggle room in my bed rest. Admittedly, I haven't been lying down 24-7, but I'm hardly ever on my feet all day- she said that normal activities, watered down quite a bit, are probably fine, still no heavy lifting at all, and resting when I can. Just to test the water, I asked if it would be okay, to say, take a walk around the block now and again- she said "Yeah, that's probably fine, especially if it's good for your mental health". However, she said a few times in our conversation together "But if whatever you're doing makes you start to spot, then stop doing it." "So..." I replied finally, "Do I still need to call the doctor if I start spotting?" "Oh yes, definitely, spotting is very serious". Not that I necessarily want to be contained in the walls of my home all day every day, but I know that spotting is serious, and I thought the point was to sort of prevent that from happening, period, not to try to test and see how far I can go before it happens and then stop.
  
• Cerclage (the stitch in the cervix we were coming to inquire about in the first place)? Absolutely not. Craig and I sort of both knew this going into it, but Dr. B seemed to want to play it safe. I'm too far along, there is risk of infection, not to mention breaking my water, I have no history of pre-term birth before, and if I were to go into labor early, the stitch would complicate things for obvious reasons. From what I had read of it, cerclages are only performed for women who have a repeat history of an incompetant cervix or preterm delivery, and usually aren't performed after 24 weeks anyway (I'm at 25 weeks). It was sort of relieving to hear that, though, just because I had heard of cerclages being performed in those extreme circumstances and the fact that Dr. B wanted me to look at getting one done made me nervous that this pregnancy was in real threat of delivery and soon. Apparently that's not the case, so that is good news.
• My contractions are most likely because, as I've heard so often, the clot is irritating my uterus. Point of the story: I know what it's like to be in labor and I'll know if I'm going into labor. Otherwise I'm going to count them, yes, call if I need to, yes, but not go back to the hospital about it unless it's the real deal. I've decided that. No one can stop me. :-)
  

What Craig and I took from the experience: when I heard the word "wiggle room" I immediately started thinking about all the things I could start doing now and Craig was immediately reminding me that this doctor has seen me once and aside from my oral account of my pregnancy history, doesn't know as much about me as Dr. B does. The point of the matter is this, and I heard this explicately from both Dr. B and Dr. K: there is NO data that says that bed rest in this circumstance works or doesn't work, but doctors usually perscribe it out of caution. With the blood clot still in my uterus, there could even be a threat of it lodging somewhere else in my body if I was lying down all day every day for too long, like my lungs, and that would be really bad. But it's not the kind of thing where you can take X amount of pregnant women in high risk pregnancies and say "This half do bed rest" and "This half don't do bed rest" and then moniter the results because it's too risky for the mothers and the babies to ever do a study on it. So am I going to do everything I can to keep this baby cooking for as long as possible? Of course. That is my priority. So until I hear from Dr. B that I don't need to, I'm going to still take it easy. But does that mean I'm going to stare out the window longingly at Chloe and Linus while they play outside and I sit on my rear and crochet or stare into space? No way. I'm going to sit outside in the sun and let the gifted dandelions from my kids pile on my lap and let them come to me and give them hugs and kisses when they fall down, because my whole family still needs me, even in small ways. And I am confident that I can do small things right now. :-)
In other news, I will be home for Linus's birthday on Saturday! I was secretly terrified that something was going to happen this week, whether at the hospital or in Denver or at any point in any day that would send me to a hospitalized bed rest and I would miss it. So unless my water breaks, pretty much, I'll be here for it. And today will be spent finalizing his slideshow (I'll post it here when I can, but the world premiere is Sat. night, so I can't be pirating it online just yet...).
Also, here are a few pictures of my creations the last few days:The blue and white hats are premie sized, using a half double crochet (SUPER easy to make), and the striped one is more of a small newborn sized, but I started a striped one premie sized last night before we finished watching Newsies. :-) I'm using up all this yarn and the rest of the large tub of yarn I have under my bed to just pump out a ton of these- I think I'm going to see if the Young Women in our ward want to come for an activity and make a bunch that we can donate to the hospital.


These ones were my experiements, and I'm fairly sure I didn't do them right anyway because I think the back half has to be a bit longer than the front, and these are more of like 3-6 month sized hats anyway. The best one that came out was the blue one, the other two you can see noticable flaws if you examine it closely.
HEY! I actually posted something crafty! Wow...that feels good...
Um, and incase you didn't catch on, this post isn't really that short and sweet...