WOW! I can't believe how long it's been and how much has happened since I last updated the blog!
I know that you came to see the pictures, so we'll get those on here first. ;)
And last but not least, updates.
Jason is doing well. He's still working at Shaw and is now the only person in his once 2 person department. This is a good and bad thing. The bad is that he has to do the work of 2 people with only the time of one person. The good is that he's on a regular schedule, which is something of a rarity when you work at Shaw. He now works Mon-Fri, 9:30 to 6:00. This means that he doesn't have to deal with rush hour, and is home in the evenings and on weekends, which is my favorite part! He's discovered some games that he likes to play on his computer and between that, keeping up with Kenji, and helping me out (which he is a HUGE help!!!) he's got his hand full.
When people ask me how I'm doing, my answer these days is usually that I'm surviving. This pregnancy has been especially hard for me and I'm struggling to stay positive about the whole thing. The light at the end of the tunnel is going to be our little girl, who I pray is born healthy and happy. During the first trimester, I was really, really sick. So sick that I lost just over 30 pounds. My doctor put me on some medication and that helped a bit. Then one day all of a sudden, it was the 2nd trimester and I wasn't sick anymore!!! I quickly gained back the weight that I had lost and thankfully not too much more. My doctor was happy with the way things were going and we both felt like the hard stretch was over. Then, about a month ago, I started to notice that if I did too much, I would get really strong Braxton Hicks contractions. I didn't think too much of it, because I've heard that you often feel them much stronger in your second pregnancy than you did in your first and I felt them all throughout my pregnancy with Kenji. I decided it was best to ask my doctor about it though, just to see what she thought. She said that the contractions are my body's way of letting me know that I need to take it easier. She recommended reducing my activity and limiting what I lift to nothing heavier than 10 to 15 pounds. (Easier said than done when you have a 2 year old) My doctor also said that if I feel like I'm getting a lot of contractions then I should lay down and track how often they are coming. She said that if they don't stop after about 45 minutes, to go into the hospital so that they can monitor me there. That was on a Monday morning 5 weeks ago. The next night, I was working and had just dealt with a particularly stressful caller. After I got off the phone with this customer, I had a really strong contraction, so, not being able to lie down as I was working, I leaned back in my chair, wrote down the time and took my next call. Alarm bells started going off for me when I counted 8 contractions in an hour. I called into work and said that I was going to take the rest of the night off to see if we couldn't get the contractions to stop. Then I called the 24 hour nurses line to see what they thought. The nurse was very friendly and supportive and asked me a whole series of questions that I hadn't really thought of, like do you have any numbness or tingling? Yes, now that you mention it, I'm noticing the bottom of my feet are numb. How many bowel movements have you had in the last 24 hours (more details than anyone needs on the number so we'll leave it blank) and is that more than you would normally have in a 24 hour period? Yes. Do you have any swelling? Yes, my face, hands and feet, but that's normal in this pregnancy (I look like a puffed up marshmallow). Then she asked specific questions about the contractions and their length and intensity. After about 15, maybe 20 minutes of questions, she reviewed everything we had discussed and recommended that I go into the hospital that night to be monitored and have some stress testing done. I was scared and nervous and a whole lot of other emotions, but I tried to calmly call Jason (of course I dissolved into a baby as soon as I heard his voice), who was just getting off work to let him know what was going on. He was just about to day care to pick Kenji up and we talked for a minute and decided that he should get Kenji, come home and then we'd decide what we were doing from there. I lay down at that point and waited for Jason to come home. I called and talked to my Mom and my sister, Trisha while I waited and that helped out a lot! My contractions were still coming with regularity, but the intensity had died down. We waited at home for quite a while and then I felt like I was going to be ok, and that we didn't need to make a trip to the hospital. At 11:00, I got up off the couch where I had been planted since 8:30 and decided to go have a shower and go to bed. Well, that plan was foiled. As soon as I got into the shower, the contractions came back with a vengeance! So, we packed up and headed for the hospital. John (who is renting our basement from us) was able to listen for Kenji as he was already in bed and asleep, so we didn't have to get him up and bundled to go sit at the hospital. Our hospital visit was, in a word, interesting... but that's another post all together. Long story, short, we got there, they rushed us up to the maternity ward. Started monitoring and then everything stopped. I only had one contraction that they were able to see on their monitor. Around 2 in the morning, they said we were ok to go home. They talked to my doctor, who said that I needed to stop working and go see her the next week. What a relief to know that everything was ok. The scariest part for me was knowing that we were only 23 weeks along at that point and our baby girl wasn't considered "viable" until 25 weeks, which means that the chance of survival outside the womb is so small, that they will not take any actions to save the life of a baby before the viable date.
So, here I am. It's been 5 weeks since that awful night and we are 28 weeks today!!! I've stopped working, which means that Kenji doesn't need to go to daycare anymore. I'm really taking things slower these days, which is evident by the state of our house, but we can live with a mess for a while if it means that it increases the chances of having a full term baby instead of a premie. I saw my doctor last week and she still feels that I shouldn't work at all until after my maternity leave. She also reduced my activity even more. I can't stand for very long anymore and can't lift anything heavier than 5 pounds (how exactly does one do this? I still haven't figured it out) I still get the contractions lots, but have learned to lay down right away and they usually go away. If they don't, a warm bath usually does the trick. My doctor says that our goal is to make it to 36 weeks, which is March 10th and then she would feel comfortable delivering any time after that. That's only 8 weeks from now! She said that IF I make it past that, depending on how things are going and how our baby is doing, she will probably induce me at around 38 or 39 weeks. Yesterday I got the results from my most recent blood work. My glucose levels were normal so that means no gestational diabetes, but my hemoglobin levels were really low, so now I'm on an iron supplement which sadly has the side effect of making me feel REALLY sick to my stomach. Hopefully it will only last a few days while my body adjusts to the new levels of iron. I want to say a huge thank you to all of our family and friends who have been praying for us over the last few weeks!
One last update on me and then we'll get to the person that I know everyone really wants to hear about. Back in May, I started breaking out into hives, every single night, for no reason at all. I've never had a problem with allergies, but I know that they can develop as you get older. After a few weeks, and making several changes to my diet and environment, I went in to see my family doctor. He felt that it was a skin allergy of some sort and referred me to a dermatologist. That was June... I finally got to see the dermatologist at the end of November. The dermatologist looked at my skin, make a checker board pattern on my arm with the sharp end of a stick and said that I don't have a skin allergy. I have what's called Dermographism (I've attached a link if you want more info on this) or Dermotagraphism. There is no known cause or cure. I've done lots of research online and have discovered what can trigger an outbreak, every website I've looked at has a list of possible triggers, like sweat, stress, friction, heat, cold and "energetic kissing" LOL (that's my favorite and is listed that way on all of the websites). So, I try to avoid most things that cause break outs and control it that way (everything except of course kissing... can't take all the fun out of my life LOL).
Ok, enough about me. We have decided on a name for our baby girl. She will be Kairi Alice Aimoto. Kairi means "Ocean Village" in Japanese, and some translations add the word "peaceful" to that. We debated a bit about the name, mostly because my cousin Gary named his little girl Kyri, and we didn't know if it would be cool to have the same name (Gary, I hope you and Mauri don't mind our daughters sharing a name). In the end we decided that we really love the name. The proper Japanese pronunciation is more like Kylee, but we'll pronounce it the American way which is Kyree. Alice was my great grandma that passed away when my grandma little. I've always felt a connection to her, like maybe we were best friends up in heaven or something like that. I've told all my sisters that they can't name their daughter's Alice because that was the name I had already "claimed" for my daughter. Of course, I wouldn't have stopped them if they had chosen the name for one of their daughters, but I really appreciate that they left it for me! Our Kairi is already very active and she hasn't even been born yet! She moves all over the place and kicks, it seems like, all the time. We can't wait (but will wait) for her to get her. I just can't wait to meet this new spirit that's coming to join our family!
Kenji is... well... Kenji. He's growing like a weed! He talks all the time and we are starting to understand a good portion of what he is saying, although sometimes he has to repeat himself to be understood. I'm so glad that we have taught him sign language because he can show me what he is trying to say. I don't know if he fully grasps that we are having a baby, but he talks about taking care of his "sisser" and changing her "bum" and putting her "nigh-nigh." He gives my belly kisses and snuggles and Kairi will usually kick in response. Kenji got the movie Cars for his birthday and ever since if he could watch it over and over again every single day, he would. He loves Lightning McQueen, but his favorite is Mater (he says "memor" and at first I though he was saying Nemo, as in the fish). He learned how to jump and get both feet off the floor at the same time and is so proud of that trick. He dances all the time too and it cracks us all up watching him.
So, all in all, we are doing well. We are going to be moving to a bigger place at the end of February (so if anyone's available to help us out, please let us know because I won't be able to help at all) and we are excited about that. Otherwise, we are just enjoying watching Kenji grow and learn new things all the time and watching my belly get bigger and bigger all the time. I'm not going to promise more updates over the next little while because it's really hard for me to sit at my computer to type anymore, but I'll try to at least update some pictures and stuff more often if I can.
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