Yay for today!

Today was our 20 week ultrasound and as usual nothing went as planned ... but yet it went perfectly.

The original plan was to have this be a large family date and gender reveal, but due to babies frequent photo ops we have known gender for a while...our next plan was to still have a family date and let the kids experience an ultrasound and see little brother in action...and then Violet woke up at 3:00 with a fever...Baylee, our friend, came to our rescue and Joel and I took off alone.

This appointment was with Lorri - the ultrasound tech who was previously employed as a tech at a maternal fetal medicine office. We love her and she did not disappoint!

Baby brother shifted from 91% to 74%.  That seemed to be good news to her. (Normal is comforting!) He continued to look perfect and even gave us some smirks...not kidding.  He smiled out of the side of his mouth like his brother.  SWOON.  He was also as wiggly as ever!

Well as great as it is seeing your babe, he has been so wiggly so I knew he was fine...it was the wound/bleed area that I was anxious to see.  And the report is....it's still there, BUT instead of solid black(fluid/blood) it's starting to appear as if someone sprinkled salt over the area.  That means its starting to heal.  Its great news.  It means what we have been doing (making me do nothing) is working, and we will continue with the same plan.  If it continues healing as it has the past few weeks, we are VERY optimistic for my appointment with the specialist on Dec 18th.

My contractions seem to be non labor producing and my cervix is unchanged.  YAY.  Because the contraction feeling seems to stop with hydration and laying down, and my cervix is unchanged, they aren't a point of concern.  Just a pain!  The likely explanation for some of my pain is my irritable uterus being...irritable.  We watched the little man kick and punch the crud out of the wound area, and it HURT.  It was kind of calming to watch the cause and effects.  Calming but painful! Lastly, I am slowly tip toeing out of the "risk for pre-term labor" category.  Right now the irritable uterus is a larger factor than wound (although its just a matter of terminology because the wound is part of the cause of the traumatized uterus).

And thats about it!  I told Joel this appointment couldn't have gone better.  If healing hadn't started, I would have been pretty bummed.  Sitting or laying for the rest of my pregnancy was a pretty discouraging thought.  But thinking of doing it for 4 more weeks with a probable GREAT outcome, seems do-able...and I like goals that I think I can meet :)  On the flip side if it had appeared it was FULLY healed it would have been really hard remain cautions until my specialist appointment, and I would have felt super weird doing nothing when there didn't seem to be an issue.  It would have been an even bigger mind game! My mind is getting weary, and not on the market for any more games!

So tonight we rest, but feel lots of peace!  Thanks for all your prayers for little man.  I have been so encouraged by so many of you! We're continuing to pray I stay true to the plan for 4 more weeks!