A Scary Time.. 7:27pm

Julie has been doing very well throughout labor. But, at about 6:30pm we were told that because Julie hadn't progressed in the last two hours, and her heart rate had been running high, a c-section would be needed. Scary! Immediately we began to pray her cervix would open up. 10 minutes latter, the Dr. said she'd gone from 5 to 7cm. Julie was also able to bring her heart rate down, even under these stressful circumstances, through unbelievable focus and determination. She is incredible!

2:20 Update

It's 2:30 and Julie is 80% effaced and 4 cm. dialated. She is not in any pain since she got the epidural about 1:00. Since she only got a couple of hours sleep last night we're going to try to let her rest before things really pick up. Both sets of grandparents are here in the waiting room and both of her sisters and Jessica's husband Brandon. Dan's brother and sister will be here soon. Pray Baby Ethan could be born safely and fairly soon. Thanks!

LABOR DAY!!

It is Friday just after noon. We are at UNC! We checked in last night around 8:30pm after one last stop to Bed Bath and Beyond for some final feel-good items for Julie. There was a lot of action here last night - but not in our room. Seems like a few other women went into labor unexpectedly last night causing Julie's induction procedure to take place at 1am! We were surprised to see that she was already having contractions! Pitocin was started at 5:00am. They had a hard time finding her vein and once they did, it hurt her pretty bad.

I took a shower and flooded the entire room! That was unexpected. At 12:30 they gave her the epidural. I didn't pass out! Julie did awesome. Everyone said so. I was so proud of her. She didn't start feeling the contractions until about 11am although they'd been coming strong every 1-3 minutes. Kristin, Julie's RN, just said to me again "She's doing awesome!"

We'll know in about an hour how much more progressed she is. I'll keep you all in the loop.
Thanks for your prayers!

Week 37 checkup

We went back to UNC again today for our 37 week checkup. All seems to be fine right now. The nurse who took my blood pressure gave me a little scare, suggesting that since my blood pressure was high, I might be at risk for pre-eclampsia. But when my doctor came in, she said that my blood pressure was the same it's been for the past month so she's not a bit concerned about it. Ethan's still measuring the right size for a baby his gestational age and we're still on target to be admitted the night of Thursday, August 9th to begin induction.

After the checkup, we met with one of the lactation consultants and she explained a lot of the administrative sides about the hospital pump availability as well as their staff availability to help if we have any questions. They are definitely encouraging me to pump since breastfeeding is questionable at this time since Ethan will be hooked up to too many wires, tubes, etc. before/after surgery. This is comforting to hear they still value trying to feed him with my milk instead of using formula or just IV fluids.

Continue to pray for Ethan's strength, health and growth in the next 2 1/2 weeks before he's due. Also please pray for the doctors and nurses who will be working with him once he's born. Our OB just told us today that she's going to be on vacation the week we're induced, and the lactation consultant we saw today is also going to be on vacation starting that weekend. But at least our heart surgeon will be back from vacation and hopefully refreshed and ready to perform his best when it's time for Ethan's surgery.

Week 36 check up

Well we went to UNC again yesterday (Tuesday). We allowed an hour for our commute, as usual, but traffic was worse than normal and it took us an hour and a half to get there. As a result, we missed our 8:00am ultrasound appointment because we arrived at 8:30am. Therefore, we had to wait around for over an hour to get squeezed in to the next available time slot. This also caused us to miss our 8:45am check up, which we didn't get to until close to 10am.


The ultrasound went well! The reason for this ultrasound was to measure the amount of amniotic fluid because it was on the low side of the normal range last week. Fortunately, things looked good, we're back to the mid-level of the normal range (normal runs between 6-20 and we were a 12). Because the results looked normal, they decided we don't need to have any more ultrasounds. We did get some great 4D pictures of Ethan yesterday during the ultrasound. We were surprised to get any at all because last week they told us that it was too late in the pregnancy to see anything because it's getting so crowded in there! But the ultrasound technician said it certainly wasn't too late to get pictures, it all depends on which way the baby's positioned. Below are some of the pictures from Ethan's most current "photo shoot"! It's amazing how much detail a 4D picture shows. We can really start to see what he's going to look like!

Fence for the Backyard

Dan spent the past 2 Saturdays building a fence for our backyard. Last Saturday, July 7th, he and his friend Aaron dug all the holes and concreted in the posts. This past Saturday, Dan was able to recruite several more friends from church to help- Todd, Jeremiah, Brian, Aaron, and also both our dads. They were able to get all the crossbeams and pickets hung. Then Sunday, Dan's brother Chris came over to help build and install the gates. We'll hopefully have some pictures to post soon.

Also last Saturday, my sister Jessica threw a really fun and intimate baby shower with some of my closest friends. Thank you Jess for your hospitality and creativity with the great food and fun games. Everyone especially seemed to enjoy the "Nursery Rhyme Charades"! Also thanks for not playing the "toilet paper to measure the mom's belly" game. :-) Dan and I got so many great gifts at this shower - many much needed items like diapers, wipes, toys, dolls, and bath items. Ethan is one blessed little boy! Now if we can just keep our dog from adopting all Ethan's toys as her own, we'll be set!

Tomorrow we go back to UNC Hospital for our weekly checkup and monitoring of the amniotic fluid. Please pray that the fluid levels have not dropped too low so that Ethan doesn't have to be delivered too early. We want him to be born as full term as possible so his lungs will be well developed. We'll let you know how the appointment goes and what the doctor plans to do if the fluid levels are low.

Week 35 - UNC check-up

Today we visited UNC for an ultrasound, our 35 week check-up, and another tour of Labor & Delivery (L&D), Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) with our care coordinator. Dan and I took the tour back in March when Ethan was first diagnosed with his heart defect and we learned we'd have to deliver at UNC, but my mom was with us so it was good for her to get to know the area with us.

Everything looked normal on the ultrasound - Ethan's not showing any other defects or problems besides his heart at this time. He's already 6lb. 1oz. and in the 53rd percentile, and we still have a month to go! From here on out, we'll be traveling to UNC once a week for check-ups. The amniotic fluid is borderline on the low side so at next week's check-up, I'll also have another ultrasound to monitor the fluid level again. If it looks alright, then I won't have any more ultrasounds; but if it's looking low, they will probably monitor me weekly with an ultrasound while I'm there for my weekly check-up.

After the ultrasound, we went for our check-up, where I learned I tested positive at the last visit for Group B Strep (which they say is common in about 30% of all pregnancies), so I'll be given an antibiotic in my IV when I go into labor. And speaking of labor, Dr. Boggess has me scheduled to arrive at UNC on Thursday night, August 9th and I'll stay overnight and get induced on Friday, August 10th (if I haven't already gone into labor before then!). So one month from today, we may quite possibly be meeting our sweet little boy as he enters the world!

Once we finished with the weekly check-up, we met up with our care coordinator, Lisa. She guided us through our tour of L&D, NICU and PICU. We learned that in the NICU and PICU, parents and grandparents have 24 hr. access to Ethan, but only 2 people are allowed in his room at one time. We also learned that we are allowed to sit in on the weekly team conferences that take place every Monday afternoon. The team consists of all medical team people that will be dealing with Ethan's case, including our care coordinator. The team discusses all the current patients, so for confidentiality sake, we will only be sitting in on the part of the meeting relating directly to Ethan's status. Doctors also make daily rounds in the NICU and PICU so we can get updates at that time as well. Also, the NICU has an 800 number to call and speak to Ethan's nurse on duty at any time of day or night to get an update if we're not able to be with him! I feel like we're definitely in the right place for our son's treatment.

Thanks for the continued prayers for our son and for us. We can definitely feel the love and encouragement and support of all our friends and family!

Visit to UNC

Today mom and I went for my regular visit with the OB clinic at UNC. We met with Dr. Kim Boggess and really liked her! She was very helpful and was able to answer a lot of general OB questions I'd been collecting since starting birthing classes earlier this month. Unfortunately, I failed my 1 hr. glucose test at last month's checkup so I've got to have a follow up 3 hr. glucose test on Friday. I will be able to have that done at Rex since it's a little closer than UNC, but I'm still not looking forward to it. It involves drinking a sugary orange carbonated beverage once an hour for three hours and at the end of each hour, having my blood drawn. This test is used to confirm whether or not I have gestational diabetes.

On a brighter note, it's such a relief to be treated like a "normal" pregnant person and to just be able to focus on the "normal" questions a first-time mom has with trying to understand the process of labor and delivery, without the equation of Ethan's heart problem. Dr. Boggess assured me that since nothing can be done to treat Ethan until after he's born, that I'd progress with labor and delivery like any other mother out there, no special treatment because of his heart problem. This means I can have pain meds :-) and a regular delivery without need for a C-Section (unless some other complication arises...unrelated to our son's heart defect).

After meeting with my OB, my care coordinator took us over to meet one of the cardio-thoracic (CT) heart surgeons - Dr. Robert Stewart. He and the other CT surgeon, Dr. Michael Mill will be tag-teaming Ethan's heart surgery. Both doctors are very skilled at what they do and they operate on at least a dozen HLHS babies a year! Our pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Cotton has done a great job at our previous 2 appointments at explaining the 3 heart surgeries, and today Dr. Stewart re-explained the procedures once again and answered a lot of our questions about what to expect post-op and also for years to come after all 3 surgeries are completed. Mom and I left UNC feeling a lot more confident about our hospital choice and about the whole situation overall. We are definitely thankful to be blessed to live in a day and age with so much technology and medical expertise to be able to help our sweet son live. It's hard to believe that treatment has only been around since 1980 for this congenital heart defect and we are very thankful that God has allowed our son to be in such good medical hands.

Now that we're well into our third trimester, it's time to start having more frequent checkups. We return on July 10th, where we'll talk about possibly induction for labor because Ethan's surgery needs to be timed to be 3-5 days after he's born and they want to make sure that he's born in time to have the surgery during a work week and not have to extend it a few days by having to wait through the weekend. That week, we'll also have one last ultrasound to check Ethan's growth once more before he arrives! Not long now until we get to meet Ethan at last!

3rd trimester begins

We're about 8 1/2 weeks and counting until our son arrives! That means I'm now at 31 1/2 weeks gestation and we went to see my UNC OB, Dr. Strauss at his Rex Hospital office today. We had an ultrasound and found out that Ethan is not currently in a breech position (head up) like he was last month, so that's good news! Our son still has the diagnosis of Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome so we will continue as planned with the series of three surgeries after he's born to help correct the problem.

Ethan is currently in the 45th percentile for babies his age and he weighs 3lb. 14oz. This is also good news because babies with his heart defect are usually a lot smaller than average. During today's ultrasound, we got to see some 3D pictures of Ethan but he was being shy by hiding his face with his knee and arm so we never got a clear shot of his whole face. Hopefully he'll be a bit more cooperative next month when we have our final ultrasound!

Our sweet little boy is safe as long as he's still in the womb so the doctors at UNC are treating me like any other "normal" pregnancy and delivery. Now that we're in our third trimester, the doctors visits will be more frequent but that's normal so the doctors will only check my blood pressure and weight and not focus on Ethan's heart. We are scheduled to go to WakeMed on Friday morning for an echocardiogram of the baby's heart with Dr. Cotton, our pediatric cardiologist. Dr. Cotton will be able to examine Ethan's heart better since he's older now and his whole body has grown since his diagnosis nearly 13 weeks ago.

Thanks for your prayers for us and our sweet son. We will keep you updated about Ethan's heart after Friday's appointment.