Update

I need to update about my latest appointment/ultrasound, which was yesterday.

Most everything that we looked at cervix-wise was good, but there was a little bit of concern because my cervix was soft. I had been having a little pain over the weekend and although the doctor does not like that, we are doing everything we can possibly do to give us the best outcome. I am to remain on complete bed rest and to stay as flat as possible. Today I am feeling some fear because the pain is mild, but there, and is just a constant reminder that we are nowhere near past the risk of losing this baby. All we can do is take it a week at a time and hope and pray for the best.

We also went over the results of my antibody titer. It has gone up from 4 to 16, which I was really concerned about. The doctor discussed her plan of treatment with me and actually gave me a copy of the page out of the text book of the plan she intends on following. According to it, we will not do an amniocentesis until my titer reaches 32. The amnio will determine what the baby's blood type is and if he is positive or negative for the antigen. If he is negative, then we should have nothing to worry about because my titer will not affect him. If he is positive, then we will continue to monitor him with amniocentesis and/or ultrasound to see if he is becoming anemic. If he eventually gets a certain degree of anemia, then he will need an intrauterine blood transfusion. That is a lot of information to take in, yet it really seems to be on the back burner at this point. Our main concern at this point is that my cervix is able to keep my baby in until he can survive on his own outside the womb.

On a bit of a side note, I also got my fetal echocardiogram scheduled for Thursday of next week. For those who don't know, my youngest, Evan, was born with a heart defect called a VSD (ventral septal defect). He ended up narrowly avoiding surgery and after getting past some medication issues in the beginning, all has been looking great since! Today, you would never even know he ever had/has a heart problem! We see his heart doctor once a year for a checkup and that is it - he's not on medication or anything. So because we now have a child who was born with a congenital heart defect, we want to take a closer look at this baby in utero and check out his heart. With Evan, his heart defect was not discovered until he was 6 days old. So as a precaution we are taking a closer look than the regular 20 wk ultraound would provide. We expect everything to be fine, but it will be nice to have that reassurance.