26 Weeks and 29 Years

On July 10th I turned 29 years old and also reached 26 weeks. It was a good day! My family and friends were so great and made sure I felt extra loved on my birthday. I got lots of cards, gifts, calls, texts, and visits. I told Alex the only thing I wanted for my birthday was good food, some balloons, and a cookie cake. With a little help, he made all my wishes come true! We had a delicious meal compliments of some of our sweet neighbors; I got some very festive balloons--one was a huge one that played a fun birthday song which has been quite entertaining; and I had a delicious cookie cake with a special message on it. I'm fine with this birthday being a little boring because next year I'm going to celebrate BIG!

 26 weeks

I told Alex that my theme this year was "29 and holding". Well, he decided to make a play on that idea plus the situation with my cervix/cerclage. Pretty clever if you ask me!

Celebrations

Since I've been in the hospital, we have had several special occasions to celebrate. First was Father's Day. Alex picked up a pizza on Sunday evening and we had family night in my room. Thankfully, Alex had already received his new golf shoes, so I didn't have to worry about a gift. I am convinced that he would win Father of the Year this year for everything he is doing while I am in the hospital. He has been taking excellent care of me and Perry--tending to our small, but numerous, everyday needs--making daily trips to the hospital, doing all the grocery shopping, preparing meals and bringing food up to me, juggling all the household chores, and working full time on top of it all. It's definitely not always easy, but he has been such a wonderful father and husband. One thing about me being in the hospital is that Alex has become Perry's primary caregiver. "Dada" is Perry's favorite person and the one he goes to for everything. It's really sweet to see the bond they are developing. Here is Perry with his Dada on Father's Day.

Next, we celebrated Alex's 27th birthday. It was a very low-key celebration. He actually had to leave town on his birthday, so we celebrated the night before with dinner and a piece of hospital lemon meringue pie. Perry and I sang "Happy Birthday" to him and we had a sweet evening as a family.
A couple weeks later we had another birthday to celebrate, but I'm going to cover that in the next post.

22 weeks and an incompetent cervix

I'm so far behind on my blogging...this post will explain why.
Here's a belly shot at 22 weeks.

22 weeks turned out to be more eventful than we hoped for. It was the week I had been dreading/anxiously awaiting. When I was pregnant with Perry, life suddenly changed at 22weeks5days. I will never forget the panic and fear of that day. I had gone in for a routine doctors appointment and we incidentally found out that my cervix was nearly completely effaced and close to dilating...it was the classic presentation of an incompetent/insufficient cervix. Going into this pregnancy, we knew this problem would happen again, but we had hoped that having a cerclage placed early enough would keep my cervix from getting to such a terrible point again. Well, it turns out my cervix is one of the most incompetent ones out there! At 22w2 days, the ultrasound showed my previously perfect 4.5cm long cervix was starting to funnel (basically disappear). Dr. W sent me to the perinatologist for a second opinion and they both agreed I was safe to go home on strict bed rest. Two days later I returned to the specialist and my cervix had worsened (measured 1.2 cm), so he admitted me to the hospital (June 16th). It was a very tough day, to say the least. We had really expected for me to stay at home this pregnancy, so we were extremely disappointed. How was this going to work? My biggest concern for the first week and a half was getting full-time childcare lined up. We had already starting working on getting help, but me being in the hospital was going to require even more! With the help of our wonderful family who stepped in immediately to fill the void, we managed to get everything worked out. We now have a nanny at the house 3 days/week, Perry goes to my aunts house one day, and has mother's day out one morning with family helping the afternoon. My mom is now taking off work at 3:00 everyday to take over after nap time. Perry's life has changed A LOT, but he has adjusted remarkable well to everything. That has been one of our biggest answers to prayer. I've been in the hospital for a month now and thankfully, my condition has remained stable. Cervix is practically non existent at about 0.9cm, but I'll take it. More to come in the following posts...