I am writing this while on a night float shift during a surprisingly calm night. I should be sleeping since we have an OB visit in the am and we may be heading to the hospital for a delivery, but there are weird sounds in the call room preventing me from sleep and I can't turn off my hearing aids for fear I will miss a page (yes I have come to appreciate my ability to turn off my aids for blessed silence. :) ). So you read the title correctly, our baby is almost here! Despite the fact that her due date is not until April 8th, our doctor has been telling us that she could come any day now...for the past month. Talk about anxiety provoking! You see, little Hennessey was diagnosed with possible intrauterine growth restriction and was not growing properly. Her abdomen was about three weeks behind her head measurements, meaning her little body was ensuring her brain got most of the nutrients while her abdomen lagged behind. Why she was not getting enough nutrients for the whole body we are not sure. Her Amniotic fluid index was perfectly normal, her non stress tests showed perfect fetal heart tones, the umbilical artery ultrasound showed good flow, and Mak does not do drugs. So Makenna was put on bed rest, quit her job, and basically put life on hold to help funnel more blood and nutrients to help promote growth for this little one. There are no solid proven studies that bed rest actually works, but since there were no other underlying reasons that were easily correctable, this was our best option. We also had to report to the OB office twice a week for non stress tests and Amniotic fluid index measurements. It was tough for Makenna to stay down because she is always on the go. It was hard for her to stop working. It was hard not to make dinner, do the laundry or be unable to go to the store for a quick errand. But, like she has handled everything else with the pregnancy, she put aside her wants and made the sacrifice with grace and dignity and really did a great job obeying the bed rest. Her visiting teacher Sister Bechtal was so gracious and arranged meals for us to be brought by members for us while I was busy studying for my step 3 board exam and working. These deeds will not soon be forgotten and it made us so grateful to be apart of a church that looks after and takes care of each other, especially since we have no close family in the area. We hope to pay it forward some day.
Speaking of my step 3 board exam, this was another megathon test. I was privelaged to take another 400 question, 9 hour exam on March 20th. When I scheduled it in October 2011, I thought scheduling it three weeks before the due date would work out perfectly and I could get it done before the baby arrived. Well...fast forward to a a few weeks ago...remember how the doc said the baby could come at any time?? So our OB visit the Thursday before the test, Mak was found to be 3cm dilated and 80% effaced. Yikes! She was right on the edge of being in active labor! We were instructed to go directly to labor and delivery if she started to have constant contractions for greater than one hour that lasted 30-60seconds for 4-6mins apart. Talk about a nerve racking weekend! So I studied as hard as I could and constantly checked on Makenna to make sure she was fine. I was convinced that she would either go into labor the night before my board exam or during the exam when I would be unavailable/unreachable all day. The night before the exam Makenna convinced me to take her with me for a quick trip to Walmart to get a few last minute things I needed for lunch the next day. I have NEVER been so nervous at walmart, NEVER. I was convinced that the longer we stayed at walmart, the more likely her water would break and we would be heading to the hospital. As each minute ticked by, my heart beat pounded a little harder, my breath became more heavy. The odds were against us, I was sure. And of course Makenna was quite oblivious to my plight, she enjoying her first night out of the house for quite some time and doing her very best to linger. Who knew Walmart would be so exciting for a cabin feverish prego woman! Well, luckily for us her water did not break and we had an uneventful night. :) Even more lucky and blessed really, was that Makenna did not go into labor during my exam! Sister Mooney from the ward was even "on-call" to take Mak to the hospital in case she did go into labor. I was able to finish the exam without much problem...though I won't know my score for 6-8 weeks, ugh.
So here we are on March 26th, six days after the boards and still no baby. I am really ok with that because it means Hennessey is continuing to grow! On our most recent OB visit, the ultrasound predicted she weighed approx 6lbs...and we were unsure at one point if she would get to 5 lbs. Awesome! Her biweekly monitoring continues to look reassuring. And the doctor thinks that perhaps she no longer is growth restricted but just is a little small because she has small parents. (I was only 6lbs 4ounces at birth). Yahoo! So despite not many studies showing the benefit of bed rest, I am believer that it works. I am also grateful to my Heavenly Father for the babe's continued good health, and also Makenna's. I'm grateful that I was able to get through another dreaded board exam. I am also grateful for my parents and grandparents for what they went through rasing me and have a better understanding of the emotional roller coaster of being a parent...and I'm not even officially a Dad yet! I'm sure I'll be a basket case the first time a boy asks Hennessey out and if he brings her home late...I don't want to think about it! :) The bottom line though is I CAN'T WAIT TO BE A DAD! She is ALMOST HERE!
PS: please ignore any spelling or grammatical errors as this post was written at 4:30 AM and I have not slept all night!
