Baby Boy #3

Here's an update on our sweet baby boy with a little back story to go with it... (his name is still not finalized, so he's just Baby #3 for now!)  Sorry, no pictures this time- the ultrasound pics were hard to interpret this time, so not worth posting!

I am on my 5th OB/GYN doctor since my pregnancy with Deegan.  The 1st was just kind of weird and uncomfortable to be around so I moved on to the one I saw most of my pregnancy with Deegan (#2). He was okay, but we moved to Logan so I found another doctor in Logan (#3).  After seeing him most of my pregnancy with Griffin, I decided to deliver at a hospital he couldn't deliver at, so again I switched to #4.   Number 4 was still an hour away, and this time I decided to deliver at the Logan hospital, so I found yet another doctor for this pregnancy (#5- Dr. Kirkman). I LOVE this doctor! I am the type that likes my doctors to be a little overly cautious vs. under cautious, and he is just that!  When I was pregnant with Deegan I was diagnosed with IUGR (intrauterine growth restriction) which can be caused by a million different things, but my Dr. said my uterus just wasn't growing enough to allow the baby to grow.  I had a little fluid loss and Deegan's proportions were not consistent starting at about 32 weeks pregnant.  They measure the head size, the abdomen size and the femur length when determining IUGR, and his head always measured a week or 2 ahead of schedule while his abdomen was behind a week and his femurs 2 weeks behind.  I had to have lots of monitoring until he was delivered and it was EXPENSIVE! Luckilly he came out fine, just a little hypoglycemic for a few days.  With my pregnancy with Griffin, I wondered if maybe my dates were just wrong with Deeg because all I knew at the time about the IUGR was that he was kind of small, so I told dr. #3 that I had been diagnosed before with IUGR but thought it was mostly just wrong dates (I really didn't want to pay another $8000 to have baby #2 if I could help it!)  He went with that unquestioningly and I assumed he knew better than me and would say something if there was a concern.  I was never monitored with Griffin, but looking back, I'm fairly certain he was IUGR as well since his proportions were about the same as Deegan's and he was even smaller than Deegan was. If so, that would be a big contributing factor to why he needed the helmet since he was kind of "squished" on the inside!  The first time I saw Dr. Kirkman with this pregnancy I explained all of this to him and he said that normally if you have 2 in a row that are IUGR and the second is smaller than the first, it's likely that #3 will also have the same problem and be even smaller.  He has been very cautious about seeing how things are, and at my 20 week ultrasound, the baby was growing just fine (as were my other 2 at that point).  He decided that at 31 weeks we'd do another ultrasound to check on him since that's about when IUGR presented itself and started becoming more of an issue. 

I started feeling Braxton Hicks contractions around 20 weeks, but only 2-3 per day most days until 29 weeks (I never felt them at all with the other 2 boys, so I was a little concerned). When I was 29 weeks I started having them a lot more frequently- 10-20/day, but never in any pattern or consistent enough to be too concerned.  At 30 weeks my doctor checked to make sure I wasn't dilating, and I was not dilated at all, but was 50% effaced (which he said, explains why I feel like the baby has dropped a ton, because he has!).

Today I had my 31 week ultrasound to check his growth and fluid levels. I went in feeling pretty nervous, but came out confident!  He is measuring exactly on for my due date (3 lbs 2 oz so far), and "he has lots of fluid" according to the US tech. Hooray! So as for now, we have a perfectly healthy little boy that may even be bigger than his brothers! As excited as I am to get this pregnancy over with, I'm more excited that he gets to cook for a while longer!