A lot of things had been going on with me in the past few days but Aimee and I are doing ok.

Last Wednesday at work, I had bad cramps in lower belly and felt more pressure in the pelvic area. At first, I thought maybe I was having kidney stone because of my past experiences, I had blood in my urine, which is the first sign of kidney stone. But after 5 hours, I was still having the pain so I thought maybe it wasn't kidney stone...I was afraid that I might go into preterm labor. I went to the hospital because the Dr's office was about to close. When the nurse hooked me up with the fetal monitor, she found the heartbeat right away. Whew! And after an hour of monitoring...her heartbeat was stable and no sign of preterm labor since my cervix was closed which was a good sign. Then the Dr ordered me to stay home and rest with feet up and wanted me to come in the office on Friday. So I rested for two days while Ray did the cooking and food shopping. Hehe!

On Friday, I went to see a midwife thinking that it was just a quick visit. But it turned out to be a long visit. I had sonogram that day instead of Tuesday and non stress test. It is a test to monitor baby's heartbeat and contraction. After about 30 minutes of NST, no sign of contraction and Aimee's heartbeat was stable. But the sonogram showed that Aimee was still small and the fluid was very low. They were very concerned and made an appt for me to see a perinatalogist later that day. They ordered me to be on complete bed rest for the rest of this pregnancy...so no more work for me.

Then later in the afternoon, Ray and I went to see a peri. Thank God for the pagers...it's much easier for me to contact Ray whenever I need him. :o) (I paged him that morning to inform him of what was going on and he was able to leave work early to accompany me). So I had biophysical profile on Aimee. It is a special kind of ultrasound with color. It was neat to see the blood flow through the cord to the baby. The peri said that everything looked normal. We saw her tiny bladder, kidneys, brain, 4-chambers heart, stomach and even she has hair! We can't really see but the tech said that she could see the hair floating in the fluid. The peri said that Aimee is small for gestational age but not too small and the fluid is, in fact, low but not too low. He couldn't see anything wrong with the placenta. So everything is fine.

Oh and I forgot to add...they sent my urine sample to the lab for culture...no sign of infection...they don't know what was the cause of cramping...probably due to stress from working in the lab. I feel better now that I have been resting for three days.

Sorry so long...that is all news of what is going on with us. So please continue praying for Aimee. The Dr said that bed rest should help the baby to grow. 

I just passed a kidney stone yesterday! It was a big one. No wonder I was in pain last Wednesday. The appt went pretty good. I gained 2 lbs and had my finger picked to draw blood for iron level. It was kind of low. I had NST and Aimee hiccupped during the test. I had to press the button every time I felt her move. The heartrate is supposed to go up whenever the baby move but Aimee's heartrate wouldn't go up much as they would like to see. So I have to go back there on Friday for another NST. Then I went to see the Dr and I showed him the stone. He was amazed. Heh!

NST went ok. Aimee would not move as much as we would like her to. I have to admit that NST is so boring. I had to lie on my left side with yucky gel attach to the devices on the bands that wrap around my belly - one to monitor her heartbeat and another one to monitor the contraction. So the test lasted about an hour, I think. If Aimee moves a lot, then the test will be done a lot quicker like in 10 to 15 minutes. So the nurse said that I need to eat something and drink lots of juice right before the test. Hopefully, it'll help when I go back there on Tuesday. I am scheduled for NST every Tuesday and Thursday until I deliver. Oh fun, fun, fun! LOL!

I had sonogram and NST. Everything looked good. The fluid volume remains the same and Aimee is growing - still two weeks behind but not further behind. Her est. weight is 3 lbs 4 oz. She is still not very active...she is probably a sleeper baby. I got a better look at her face and she was sleeping during the sonogram. The tech tried to wake her up by poking at her but she just rolled over and we couldn't see her face anymore. Darn! Guess she was mad! Hehe! About 8 more weeks to go...I can't believe it! Argh! I posted two u/s pictures of her on Aimee's Page...pls check them out. You can see her face real clearly. :o)

NST went pretty good. Aimee moved a lot during the test. I had to hold the device in place so the heartbeat wouldn't disappear every time she moved. :o) It's very reassuring to know that Aimee is doing okay in there.

What a happy day for us! The u/s showed that there is a big improvement with Aimee's growth. She is now a week behind the due date instead of two weeks. :o) She weighs about 4 lbs now. And what's more...she flipped to a head-down position. Woo! Woo! Hopefully, she will stay that way until delivery. I had the tech to check the cord...it is mostly around her legs...she didn't see it around her neck. Whew! The fluid level remains about the same as last week. Guess being on complete bed rest helped a lot.

My iron level is still low as usual. I gained 32 pounds totally. I hope I will lose all of them after this pregnancy as I did with Chase. NST was pretty good...nothing news about it.

NST went good. Aimee moved a lot during the test but went to sleep in the last five minutes of the test. So everything looked good.

Guess what I passed today...a kidney stone. Yup! Another one. I never had two in a month. Lucky, it wasn't so painful like I had with the previous one earlier this month. Anyway, NST went fine. Aimee wasn't moving much at first then after I was given a grape juice, she started to move around. Guess she liked the grape juice. At the sonogram, she flipped back to a breech position. Darn! Hope she will turn around when I am closer to term. I noticed that she likes to put fingers or thumb in her mouth to suck. She weighs about 4 lbs 7 oz. The Dr said that everything looked good. According to the tests, Aimee appears to be healthy.

Aimee wasn't very active during the NST so Dr decided to have ultrasound to check to make sure even through I already had u/s last Tuesday. He noticed that the fluid level had dropped all of sudden...last Tuesday, it was 10.8 and now it was 7.3 (big difference in just two days!). So I had to go to the hospital for a special u/s and was admitted for closely monitoring.

So far Aimee is doing good. A peri came to see me today and had another u/s...the fluid is still low but Aimee is hanging in there. She was sucking her thumb the whole time. Very Cute! Anyway, he is very concerned about the size of the baby...she is measured very small. His guess is that either there is something wrong with the placenta...it may be shutdown prematurely or there is may be something wrong with the baby that cannot be detected from the u/s. He would like to take the baby out today but since she is so small meaning more complications if she is born now so he decided to wait two more weeks then have schedule C-section about two weeks from today. I had two shots of steroid - one last night and another one today so that should help the baby's lung to mature enough in two weeks. I will have to stay here in the hospital until I deliver. If the fluid continues to drop or Aimee shows any sign of distress then C-section will follow anytime within two weeks. I am being hooked up with the fetal monitor 24 hours so I can relax and feel safe that everything will be all right.