Christmas, New Years, and the Countdown to B-day

Merry belated Christmas to everyone! I hope you all had a very happy and fun holiday! Things were hectic for me. I traveled back to eastern PA to visit my parents and other family for a week for Christmas. What an extremely long week that was! Between shopping, seeing family/friends, the baby shower, Christmas...I was pooped! But, it was a good trip all in all.
Madison got a ridiculous amount of clothes (among other awesome things) at the baby shower. Hopefully she will be able to wear all of them! Her nursery is coming along splendidly, I just wish we could do more with it. However, renting an apartment makes it difficult. But, I am going to do with it what I can and make the best of it.
New Years should be fairly quiet this year, as with most years for me. But, this year is special because I finally get to spend New Years with my amazing fiancee. We were dating last year for New Years, but we were still doing the long distance thing so we weren't able to celebrate together. I am very excited to be with him this year. And he has off of work! Yay!
And yes, it is getting closer and closer to what I am going to call B-day (I'm sure I am not the only person in the world to come up with that. I just think it sounds a lot more appropriate than D-day!). Only 5 more weeks until the big day arrives. With any luck, we will actually be able to schedule a date for the induction at the Dr's appointment this Thursday. Speaking of doctors appointments, they are now twice a week from here on out. And I thought I was going to the doctor's a lot before! Twice a week we are now going in for fetal monitoring, just to make sure that she is moving around like she should and that her heart rate increases when she moves. I'm sure we won't have any problems with this. There are days where I don't think she ever stops moving! We are also having sonograms at least once a week from here on out as well. Which is fine with me, I don't mind seeing her once a week and coming home with a picture (when she isn't being stubborn and we can see her face!). This works out well for the fiancee too, because then he gets to see her and hear her heartbeat, which he absolutely loves. I don't think he's really gotten to feel her move, just because of the pure fact that she is so stubborn. She is definitely her parents daughter, that's for sure!

Growing babies, School, and Christmas Right Around the Corner

Things haven't been too interesting around here lately. Not too much to blog about, which is why I haven't updated.
Madison is doing well, we got to see her again last week :) She was around 2lbs. 6oz. She's gettin' big! However, it turns out that as well as she is doing, I have gestational diabetes and low platlet counts. Both of which would account for why I have been so exhausted these past couple of months, as well as all my little "episodes" that I have been experiencing after breakfast. Just need to eat better is all!!
Classes are finally done for the semester, and I have never been so happy to be done with a semester in my life. I cannot wait to be done with this school. I've come to really dislike being at this school, and constantly finding myself wanting to transfer and wishing that I had never gone here to begin with. I really wish I could transfer, but with only one semester left (hopefully...if they don't manage to screw me over) for undergraduate, that would be a really stupid thing to do. Especially since this is a private college and I'm sure the majority of my credits wouldn't transfer over. I will definitely not be going here for graduate school though. This school has honestly just been a complete waste of my time, and I honestly feel that I could have done a million times better a different school. Phew, guess I needed to rant!!
It's also really hard to believe that Christmas is only 2 weeks away. Where did the time go?! I feel like it was just Thanksgiving!! Christmas being only 2 weeks away, also means that my one year anniversary with my fiance is only two weeks away as well (pretty easy anniversary to remember if you ask me!!). And what an amazing year it has been. I'm so happy to have him!
Like I said, not much to update with right now but I figured I should post something since I haven't posted anything in a little while!!

The "S" Word

Well, it is officially winter here in Buffalo. We had our first accumulating snowfall yesterday, and are expecting some more today at some point. I can't say that I am too thrilled about it, because although I love the snow, I aboslutely HATE the cold part. And yes, I am fully aware that you can't have one without the other. A girl can dream, can't she?
I don't really have much to post about other than that today. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, as I hope all of you did as well. Of course, we all ate entirely too much and spent the rest of our night in a food induced coma for the most part, not really doing much of anything. The fiancee and I drove home yesterday morning, a fairly uneventful ride except for the discovery of snow the farther north we went.
Upon our arrival into Buffalo, we found that the winds had made Lake Erie extremely choppy and that the waves were breaking nicely over the barriers (or are they wave breakers? I'm not sure...). We decided to take a little drive down to the waterfront to see if it was worth running home and grabbing cameras. We decided that it was, so we each grabbed a camera and I bundled up as much as I could (I'm a wimp and was already cold, not to mention the fact that there is literally almost  a 10 degree difference by the water). Unfortunately, we couldn't get very good pictures of the waves breaking over the barriers, we just weren't in a good spot. I managed to grab some decent pictures though, and would like to share.

Thanksgiving

I know I haven't posted in awhile. Like I've said before, I'm bad at this.
But, anyways.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!
I know I have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season, as do many others out there. We are spending this holiday out in Western PA with the fiancee's family, all of whom have been so great to us with everything since this summer and I know we are both very thankful for everything that they have done for us. I am thankful for the fact that they have all welcomed me into the family like they have, along with the very anticipated Baby Madison. We won't have the chance to travel over to the other side of Pennsylvania to see my family this year, as his work schedule doesn't allow it this year. I will be traveling out there for about a week before Christmas and he will follow to visit when his schedule allows it. I know we are both very thankful for my family as well, as they have also helped us out tremendously over the past few months with everything they possibly could.
I am most definitely thankful for my fiancee and how great he has been to me, even though I'm sure I am utterly undeserving most of the time (especially the past few months...thank you hormones for making me pretty unbearable at times I'm sure) and I'm pretty sure that I don't thank him enough for everything that he does for me. He takes wonderful care of me all of the time and is always there for me, no matter what is going on between us, or, how tired he is from work. I am so grateful and blessed to have found him when I did almost a year ago (Happy Anniversary honey) and I am looking forward to see what the many years ahead of us bring.
Last, but definitely NOT least, we are all thankful for Baby Madison. She is very highly anticpated around these parts lately, with only 10 more weeks to go until she is here! We will definitely have our work cut out for us, and that there is going to be a tough road for the first couple of months with everything going on. However, I know that with the unconditional love and support of both of our families, and each other, that the months will go by fast, although most likely not always easy, and by the time we know it she will be turning 1 and we will be wondering where the time went.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with all of those you love. If you are traveling, be safe as I know the weather in most parts is definitely not something to be thankful for this year.

Dr. Who?

I figured I should update, it's been a couple of days (see? I told you I was bad at this!). Went to the doctor's on Tuesday, for the entire day I might add, to see how Baby Madison was doing. We got the ultrasound done, and it looks like she is hanging in there. Her head is a little on the small side the doctor said, but she said it was also normal for babies with gastroschisis as they tend to be a little on the small side. She said it might also be because she is breeched and her head just might be squished from the way she is in utero. Her amnionitc fluid is also a little on the low side, but is right in that category of being between normal and abnormal, so they aren't too concerned with it right now. They said it looks like she is doing fine considering. She's around 1lb 9oz now.

We also met with the pediatric surgeon yesterday (all in all, I saw a ultrasound technician, 4 doctors, 1 nurse, and 2 residents) who explained what was going to happen after she was born. Basically, after she is born they evalute to see how much of the bowel is actually outside of the abdomen and see if they aren't able to push it all back in at once. What happens with the bowel being outside of the body like it is with her, is that it is pinched off due to the small size of the hole in the abdomen and the part of the bowel that is outside of the body becomes englarged and they may not all fit back inside the abdomen at one time. This is also due to the fact that the abdomen itself isn't big enough to hold everything because it doesn't stretch out as much as it usually does if the bowel were to develop within the body. Okay, back to what I was saying. If they are able to push the bowel back in all at one time, they will do so and she will go into surgery right away. However, if they aren't able to do that then they will see how everything is and depending on that, she will either once again go into surgery right away to put a cone over the bowel or they will wait to do it the next morning and just keep the outside bowel moist until then. With the cone, they surgically attach it to her muscle and everyday push the intestine back in a little at a time. This takes anywhere from 7-14 days to be able to fit all the bowel back into the abdomen. Then, when they are finally able to fit everything back in, they will take her back into surgery to put it back in, and fix the hole that was formed and try to recreate a belly button. She then needs to learn how to feed again, as the bowel has to adjust to being back inside the body again and passing food and nutrients through everything. All in all, she will be in the NICU for about 6-8 weeks, depending on how long it takes for them to be able to put the bowel back in and how long it takes for her to be able to feed normally.

I would add some pictures of babies with gastroschisis, but I looked them up the other day and they are quite gross to be honest, so I will spare you the image details. Instead, here's an ultrasound picture of Baby Madison.

Everyone's poop stinks.

So, there is this kid who is in my Natural Disasters class (which is a 3 hour class twice a week might I add) who thinks that his poop doesn't stink, for lack of a better phrase. This is one of my top 3 pet peeves (my other two being 1. People who don't say thank you when you hold a door open and B. People who intentionally create drama for themselves and everyone around them). And I have to listen to this kid make snide remarks for 3 hours. Twice a week. Now, all of his remarks have to do with the same person in our class. There is this girl who isn't exactly the brightest girl in the world, so she tends to ask a lot of questions during class, a lot of irrelevant questions. However, every single time she opens her mouth to speak, this kid absolutely HAS to make a remark about how stupid she is and how she should just shut up. Really? Because I do believe that you sitting there making remarks like that about her every time she speaks is about a thousand times more annoying, and immature to boot, than her asking a question. Listen kid, it doesn't make you seem any smarter (because to be honest, he asks some pretty stupid and irrelevant questions himself and always asks questions that he already knows the answers to. FAIL.) and it honestly just makes you seem like an inconsiderate moron. Oh, and not to mention the fact that he doesn't even pay attention in the class. He texts the entire time. So, my question is, why does it matter if she is going to ask questions, no matter how stupid or irrelevant they may be, if you aren't even paying attention to the lecture?

Let's give this a shot!

Well, I've decided that I should give blogging another shot. I have no idea how this is going to turn out, or if I am even going to keep up with it (my track record with these things is atrocious, as is my spelling sometimes). However, I've decided that at 25 weeks pregnant with a baby with gastroschisis that it may be a good idea to keep a blog seeing as 1.) I spend way too much time on the computer idling on Facebook and Tweetdeck and 2.) I also have a horrible track record at keeping a handwritten journal. I've started reading a few other blogs on here, mainly about children with disabilities (Love That Max mainly) and decided that while my child is not going to have disabilities that are anywhere near simliar, she IS going to have a...medical problem I suppose I could say. While reading these blogs, it hit me that they are a source of therapy. Everyone needs therapy at some point in their lives in my belief. I've decided that this blog is going to be mine.