And Today's Dr. Appointment

Not really much to say about today's appointment since it was just a typical pregnancy appointment. Gained 1 pound. Talked with him a little about delivering at University Hospital. He mentioned that with a vbac, he will only induce if there is a medical reason to, which he isn't really planning on there being a reason to since I haven't had a medical reason to with the others.

I go back to see him on the 8th, which is the same day I have a non-stress test. I mentioned to the receptionist that I have the non-stress test at 11:15 and have no idea how long that will take, so she wrote me down for noon to see him and said if it takes longer than that, they will just work me in when I can get there. Said they do go to lunch at 1, so if it's getting close to 1 to have someone call them and let them know so that they will wait for me. I thought that was awfully nice so that I can basically get two doctor appointments done at once and don't have to do extra driving.

After that, I will start going every week. Man, time is going by fast.

Today's ultrasound appointment

Dylan's face

Today's ultrasound appointment went well. Baby is growing just as he should and measures right on where he should. The doctor said that one reason they do the ultrasound rather than just check growth is to check for signs of heart failure, which there weren't any. Dylan's vsd part of truncus is sometimes hard to see. Kind of funny to see them looking at his heart and notice that there are times that you wouldn't even be able to tell that there is a hole there. I won't have another ultrasound, which is actually kind of nice. I do have another fetal echo coming up next month, but kind of nice to not have to worry about another ultrasound appointment.

Nope, instead I get to go and start doing the non-stress tests. The doctor today ordered them. I get to have one a week for the next two weeks and then go twice a week after that. Which probably means that the week I have the fetal echo, I will have 4 separate doctor appointments. Going to make the two appointments for this week seem nice. My first non-stress test will be on Tuesday, the 1st. I have never actually had one, so this is something else new for me this time around. Ah, well.

I figure the only one Russ will really need to be to will be the fetal echo. Which is nicer for him so he doesn't have to miss so much work when he doesn't have the vacation or sick time to use for it. He's saving his vacation time for after the baby is born.

10th Anniversary

Friday was Russ and my 10th wedding anniversary. We figured since it would be the last chance we'd have for a while, that we would go overnight for it. Our parents were very nice and each took two of our kids while we went.

Russ bought a gift certificate for the Anniversary Inn from Costco and we went to the one up in Logan. We stayed in "King Arthur's Castle." Nice room. Just funny that we couldn't get the door unlocked at first. Russ went back to the front desk and had someone come help. The girl had a hard time, too, so it was nice knowing it wasn't just us.

We went to the Bluebird diner on Main street for dinner. It was pretty good. Russ got the country fried steak. I would have, but tend to like homemade better. Probably should have gotten the same as Russ. I tried a little bite of his. It was almost better than homemade. The initial reaction was that it tasted like a typical restaurant cooked one. But then the flavors kicked in. Russ asked the waiter what seasonings they put on it and he went and asked. Said it was simply garlic salt, regular salt and pepper.

I just thought it would have been funny if Russ had cut his hair while we were out since he had longer hair when we got married and cut it during our honeymoon. I don't think he thought it would be as funny as I did though, since he didn't do it.

Our quick little vacation would have been nicer if I didn't get sick that night. Took a while, but I managed to get a stomach bug the kids had a while before. I was pretty much sick all night and all day Saturday. Was happy that I felt better, but tired, on Sunday.

I know the kids had a lot of fun with their grandparents. They keep asking when they will get to do it again.

Truncus info

I was looking at some of the links that are on the website that I included at the end of my last post. I found the information on one of the websites to be helpful. Decided I would put the link here so you can go directly to it if you want to read up more about truncus. Hope you find it as helpful as I did. I can't seem to ge it to be an active link, so you'll have to copy and paste. Sorry.
www.pted.org/?id=truncusarteriosus1

Today's Fetal Echo (pretty long, just to warn you)

I'm sure you are probably wondering how it went with the fetal echo today. First off, it was much longer than I expected. They told me to plan for at least an hour. My appointment was at 10. I didn't leave Primary's until a little after 12:30. There is sort of a reason it went longer than I planned. One I find somewhat humorous in a way, but I'll get to that later.

It turns out that Dylan does not have Tetralogy of Fallot. Now that I actually remember the word "tetralogy" without thinking about it too hard. Tetralogy of Fallot is a quite common defect. The one he has is apparently more on the rare side, but still common enough to have a name. He has what is known as Truncus Arteriosus (typically just referred to as Truncus). In a normal heart, you have two main arteries that carry blood to other places. One takes blood to the lungs to get oxygen, the other takes blood to the rest of the body. With Truncus, there is only one artery that branches to the lungs and the rest of the body. The vsd (which is basically the most clear thing he has) is almost always present with Truncus. There are several types of truncus. The cardiologist, Dr. Su, said that some believe there are 4 types, others don't really think that there really is a 4th type. Although he said from what he could see (he can't say 100% that it actually is truncus), most likely his would fit into the 4th type category, even though this doctor is one who leans more toward the thinking that there isn't a 4th type.

Russ was about 15 minutes late to the appointment. In fact, they were already doing the echo when he got there. About a half hour later, the two who were doing the echo started to comment to each other about it. Kind of funny when you hear them saying things like, "Gee, I don't know....doesn't make sense to me." Let's just say that Dylan apparently doesn't like to cooperate very well for these things. At times even putting his hand on his chest so it made it harder for them to see. He was in a position that they couldn't see as well as they'd like, which is one reason Dr. Su said he won't say for absolute certain that it is truncus. One decided to go out and talk to Dr. Su about it while the other took more scans, hoping to get better pictures. A few minutes later Dr. Su came in with the first guy and they took more scans. Here again I chuckled as even Dr. Su was saying, "I don't know..." and things like that, and then saying that he shouldn't have complained about the views they were getting when Dylan's hand went on his chest again. He told us that it wasn't the tetralogy like we thought, but from one view it looked like one thing and another it looked like something else so they were looking longer to determine what they thought it was. Russ and I figured they were thinking truncus when that was the thing they said the most.

So around 11:45 they finished the scans and gave me a couple of minutes to walk around and such. It was probably about noon when Dr. Su came in along with a nurse named Kelly to discuss the results. While I was stretching my legs, Russ had waited in the room they had us go to for the talking part and had grabbed some papers they had on truncus and a normal heart and a couple of other things. That turned out to be a good thing since Dr. Su would have grabbed the normal heart flyer and truncus flyer anyway. He explained how the normal heart works and what happens with truncus. Said that if you want to look at the bright side, the one blood vessel opens and closes just as it should. In a lot of cases, they don't.

He did say that I should plan on going to University Hospital to deliver and that he will need surgery within a week or two after birth. They will do an echo on him after he is born so they can know even more. I go back on the 16th for another fetal echo. They probably won't be able to see any more than they did today, and may not be able to see as much because it gets harder to see as the baby gets older, but they want to try. And next time when we go, they will have us tour the PICU. They also pretty much said that for at least the first two weeks I will basically just be pumping instead of nursing. When he is in the PICU, the kids will be allowed to go in for short visits since it is a better time of year. Winter time they wouldn't allow them. Although parents and grandparents are basically allowed in there 24 hours a day.

I'm trying to think if I've forgotten anything. Can't quite think of anything right now. Got distracted from my post by a lady I visit teach. She stopped by to see how things went today. I thought it was very nice of her. Even though the dog was being her usual annoying self and trying to get her to pet her the whole time. Guess I will post more later if I think of anything else.

Oh! Just remembered something. If you go to www.pedcardiology.utah.edu, they have a link there in the bottom corner for fetal stuff and said there are links there with lots of information. Some even have 3D pictures.

More Scouts

Tonight for scouts I decided to have the boys come to my house instead of the usual meet at the church. I also had it an hour later and last a bit longer. Two of the boys will be leaving Webelos soon and need their Outdoorsman activity badge to earn their Arrow of Light award. The Outdoorsman badge has things like building a fire and cooking an outdoor meal. I had remembered that my neighbor had the boys go to her house last year before I was in Webelos and did basically the same thing I did tonight.

Thanks to Dave and Michelle for letting me borrow their standing fire pit thing, I was able to have the boys build a fire and then set up a tent (also a requirement) and then roast hot dogs and then s'mores. Following a little trick with s'mores I learned from Michelle, I put some of the chocolate on a plate near the fire to get it a bit melty. Of course, it was warm enough today that it didn't really need it. The chocolate got melty without being near the fire, but it actually tasted better with the chocolate near the fire. Of course, I wasn't thinking at first and failed to put the chocolate on the graham crackers and then on the plate. Let's just say that picking up very soft chocolate and putting it on a graham cracker isn't the easiest thing in the world to do.

Jimmy, Emma, and Molly seemed excited about roasting hot dogs as well. I ended up roasting Emma's and Molly's for them and Jimmy roasted one for Lys. I don't think Russ ever did cook himself a hot dog. I happened to get him a copy of the book Twilight and he seemed more interested in reading that than roasting a hot dog. He did grin sheepishly when I brought him a s'more though.

I thought that generally, the activity went well and I think the boys had fun, which is what I try to make sure happens with scouts. Doesn't always happen though. But now that the den meeting for this week is over, I guess I get to focus on and worry about the fetal echo in the morning. Not really nervous about it yet....

Happy Father's Day!

I just wanted to wish all of the fathers out there a happy father's day. Thanks for all that you do.

Webelos Day Camp

Yesterday I had Webelos Day Camp. Really the only reason I was looking forward to it was because that meant there was a week I didn't have to plan for scouts. Other than that, I kept picturing how tired I would be by the end of the day. Really didn't think about the sunburn I would be getting. The last day camp I went to was pretty much in the middle of a forest and had a lot of shade. And rain. This one had very little shade and bright sun. Russ commented that my face seemed to be getting redder as time passed. But it has seemed to mostly fade. Still slightly red.

Anyway, I planned on 5 out of 11 of my Webelos going. We were to meet at the church at 7 a.m. Just before 7:15, there were three boys there. I knew that at least one of the two who weren't there would be there because his dad was going along. They got there pretty soon after that. The other leader ended up calling the 5th boy, who ended up not going. That meant that we had enough room in my car that we didn't need anyone else to drive.

We went to Camp Fife, which is near Tremonton. None of us going had ever been there before, but luckily, I had a map with directions. I did wonder as I drove the 2 miles on a dirt road why I bothered to clean the windows of my car the night before. And I'm starting to think I'm going into a little bit more detail here than I really need to go to basically say, "Eh, camp was okay. Somewhat confusing at first and disorganized, but okay." (The parent who went has gone every year with his son and said it was the worst camp he'd been to.)

We started out the day on the zip line. Even if they had let the leaders do it, I wouldn't have. For some strange reason, I just don't see a zip line as being the best thing to do when 7 months pregnant. Nor the climbing wall we did after. I did do one boondoggle thing. We then did things to pass off the Geologist and Forester activity badges and then headed over to the archery and bb gun ranges. This is where I shook my head the most. The teenagers over archery and bb guns tended to forget to tell them to keep the things pointed down range. And at bb guns, the main one in charge refused to start even 1 minute early. Sat and stared at his cellphone until it showed the time he was supposed to start. Even though right after that we would be going to lunch, so it wouldn't be a big deal to end slightly early. Which we did anyway. And instead of letting the boys have more chances with the bb guns, they sat and fired at the cans. Kind of gave the impression of, "Time's not up yet, but you can't go and so you get to sit here and watch us shoot instead of letting you have a little more time." Everyone left anyway.

After lunch (and the boys going to the "Trading Post"), we did things to pass off the Naturalist activity badge and earn the Conservation belt loop. Then we had the closing ceremony. I actually expected a bit more from the opening and closing ceremonies. The day camp I went to before had a short program for both. This one they had one leader go get an evaluation form and then lowered the flag and said thanks for coming. Ah, well. Meant we got out a little sooner than I thought we would. Of course, the boys wanted to go back to the Trading Post again before we left. I got home at 4:00. Let's just say that I slept better last night than I have slept in a long time. Now if I can figure out how to get a neighbor kid to stop calling at 7 a.m......

Today's Doctor Visit

I was pretty much right when I didn't expect much out of today's appointment. For the most part, it was just like any other doctor visit at this stage in pregnancy. Blood pressure is great, size is great. Oh, and I had 0 weight gain from my last appointment, which I always like. He did comment that he has some patients who would love to trade me. I thought, but didn't say, that I think that given the choice, they would pick weight gain over a baby with a heart defect. But it made me chuckle.

Dr. Steele did ask me to tell him what I knew about the problem. Apparently the doctor from the last ultrasound had written on his note to Dr. Steele that he thought it was one of two problems. Either the Tetralogy or (and again, I can't remember exactly what he said) something like an overriding pulmonary. I told him that the doctor really only mentioned the Tetralogy, so I'm thinking he was leaning more toward that. (Of course, when I enter overriding pulmonary valve in the search at webmd.com, it pulls up Tetralogy of Fallot information. So I'm not concerned that the doctor wrote two things down. Figure I'll know more at the fetal echo anyway.) I told him when I get the fetal echo. He asked if I'm okay to deliver anywhere or if it has to be at the U (asking by saying I may not know the answer yet). I told him that the other doctor told me that we should know the answer to that one after the echo. He was glad about the timing of my echo because he does want me to come back in two weeks and that means that by my next appointment with him, we should know exactly where the baby will be delivered.

And that's about all there was to that appointment. Like I said, not much from this appointment. Should know more next week.

Upcoming doctor appointments

I was just thinking and thought that some of you might be wondering about my schedule of doctor visits I have coming up. I say visits because I have 3 separate appointments scheduled for the remainder of this month. Wouldn't be surprised if I get one more in there, too.

Anyway, this coming Thursday afternoon I have a regular checkup with my ob/gyn. This is where I wouldn't be surprised if I get one more appointment in. I figure he will probably want me to come back in two weeks, which would make it for the last week of the month. I really don't expect much with this appointment.

Then next week on Wednesday (the 18th) morning, I go up to Primary's and get a fetal echo cardiogram. This appointment should tell us the most out of all of the appointments regarding Dylan's heart defect. The doctor at the hospital who talked to us with the last ultrasound said they will tell us a lot of things and give us a lot of information and we will most likely need a translator afterward.

A week later, I go back to the hospital to get yet another ultrasound. With the heart defect, it can sometimes make it so that the babies are small and don't grow as well as they should. So the ultrasound is basically to check his growth and make sure he's still growing like he should. He was about average at the last appointment. I do know that if the babies are smaller when they are born, they tend to have a surgery pretty soon that helps them to be able to grow big enough to get the complete repair surgery. But so far he's growing just fine.

Those are the appointments I have so far. If you count taking Lys to the doctor last week, I get to go to the doctor every week this month. Fun, fun. Guess it just starts a little sooner than I planned.

Emma's Kindergarten Program

I know this is a bit late, but thought I would mention the kindergarten program the school had two weeks ago. I would have put it on sooner, but I kept forgetting to upload my pictures to the computer for it. The program went well, I thought. Molly and Lyssa were more interested in it ending because then they could go to the cookie table and get some cookies. After every song they'd ask me if it was time for the cookies yet. Emma had been excited about the program for a while and beamed and waved at me when I got there. It did seem like the program went a little longer than it had when Jimmy had his kindergarten program, but it was probably about the same since I think they did the same songs. This is a picture of Emma sitting with her class just before the program started. The teacher was trying to get the kids to say that they love kindergarten. Emma just looks bored.
As you can probably see from this picture, Emma sang but didn't really do any of the actions to the songs. I think she did do actions for the last song. Sort of. Next is a video of one of the songs Emma sang with her class. The video was taken with my regular camera, so it's not the best quality, but it works. The bump at the start and the occasional camera wiggle was because Lys decided to climb on my lap and would move and bump me.

Lyssa's birthday and other things

Alyssa had her birthday on Tuesday. For lunch Mom (or Grandma Nold as Lys sometimes says) came up and we took the kids to McDonald's for lunch so they could play. (I know...McDonald's...woo woo.) Then we went to Toys R Us so she could get Lys a present. That was entertaining in itself. Jimmy pouted because she wouldn't buy him a game for the Wii. Molly cried because she wouldn't buy her a bike. Emma wanted a stuffed animal dog and was sad that she couldn't get it, but didn't pout and cry like Jimmy and Molly did. Lys ended up with a Fur Real baby monkey that she loves. On Saturday she will be going with Keith and Mryna to eat somewhere for her birthday. Anyway, here are a couple of pictures from Tuesday night when we had cake for her. In taking the pictures, I discovered that she is getting to the age of the cheesy grin when you tell her to smile. As you can probably tell.


Yesterday Lys had her 3 year checkup with the doctor. She can be really shy. Wouldn't say one word to the doctor. She'd giggle and smile at him, but wouldn't talk. Started to talk to me and stopped when she remembered he was still in the room. She chattered in the car the whole time I was driving after though. She is 36 1/2", which is pretty close to the average...just below it. And she is 30 pounds, which is right on the average. Don't need to take her back for another checkup like that until she's 5 and getting ready to start Kindergarten. Crazy.

I did mention to the pediatrician about Dylan and being diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot. He seemed happy that I will be getting a fetal echo cardiogram on the 18th, but did say that years ago it might have been a problem, but really isn't much of a problem anymore. Might have to have a surgery, but they can pretty much fix it and have no problems. Even problems that a few years ago would have basically been a fatal problem aren't anymore.

June Birthdays

Happy birthday this month (got a bit of a list for this month) to Josie, Doug, Alyssa, Steve, Challene, Daniel, Michael, Madison, and Garrett! Hope everyone has a great birthday!