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Stalked by the Stork...a diary of raising twelve kids

Having twelve children is an amazing blessing and one heck of a crazy ride. Join us through all the joys, smiles, tribulations and trials as we navigate this fabulous journey!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

38 week update...

I had my 38 week appointment with my midwife, Tammy, today. Things went great. Baby's heartbeat was 156, pretty much what it usually hovers around...I am 2 cm dilated but still pretty thick and my cervix is still in the north pole. Not much happening as far as contractions, so my opinion is that it will probably still be a while. Tammy offered to strip my membranes but I declined for a few reasons
1) the cervical check itself hurt quite a bit since my cervix is still so far back, so I can't imagine what the membrane stripping would have felt like (I had it done with Bree and it was quite painful...and I don't like pain).
2) Albert has a pretty busy couple of days tomorrow and Friday so had she done it, and it worked, sending me into labor, it would have been pretty inconvenient timing.
3) Unfortunately, we are having a few minor issues with Brandon's health again and since we aren't sure whats going on right now and what we'll need to do in the next few days, its better if baby stays put a while. As we speak, Brandon is having an X-ray of his Kidneys, Bladder and Ureter. Looking for kidney damage, or maybe just a stone I think. I'll update as soon as we know something. All his bloodwork is fine right now, except an elevation in kidney function.

Here is whats going on with Brandon. He has been complaining for some time of pain during urination. For a couple months this has come and gone, and honestly we weren't even sure whether or not he was serious or looking for an excuse to stay home from school (he does this often), and it seemed to always go away with drinking more water. A few nights ago, he complained again that it REALLY hurt, and indeed he had a fever of 101. I took him into see Dr. Young, our general pediatrician (yes, he gets to see her now!!!) and Brandon gave a urine sample. Dr. Young came in few minutes later and explained that his urine didn't look good, but not for infection reasons. She said in fact that it didn't look like he had an infection at all, though she was sending it off for a culture and prescribing an antibiotic that she wanted him to take just until the results of the culture came back indicating infection or not (with Brandon we do tend to treat him a little sooner than with other kids. We don't take as much of a wait and see approach with him in regards to meds because things tend to go downhill quickly for him and in his individual situation, its safer to take the antibiotic and discontinue it if its not needed, then to take the risk of not having it and then finding an infection a couple days later).
Anyhow, in his urine sample, there was a lot of spilled proteins and a decent amount of blood which indicated a problem in kidney function rather than an infection of some sort. As many of you know, Brandon spent quite a while taking Cyclosporine for his Aplastic Anemia and one of the big side effects of Cyclosporine is kidney damage. So after a call into Dr. Bob, our pediatrician ordered blood work. It came back great as far as his bone marrow functioning. All three lines of cells look good. But it also showed a slight elevation in BUN/Creatine function, which is an indication of how the kidney's are doing. So, now he is at Cardinal Glennon's hospital getting an X-ray. Dr. Bob mentioned to Dr. Young that it could just be a simple Kidney stone, which is common in kids who have taken Cyclosporine. We are hoping its nothing more serious than that. Not sure when we'll know. I know almost nothing about kidneys or kidney functions so its all new to me. We are just doing one step at a time. Depending on what the Xray shows, we'll go from there and maybe be referred to a kidney specialist, or maybe just wait longer and see what happens. I'll let you all know as soon as we have more info. I'm not sure how long results of that x-ray will take to get back to us. Again, I know very little about this...

SO the plan for the baby is this....I will go on the 16th to see Tammy. If baby is low enough then we'll meet her at the hospital on the morning of the 17th for her to break my water...then we wait for baby to arrive. If she is not low enough to safely break my water, then we wait. And we wait until baby is either low enough, or I go far enough overdue (hopefully not) that we need to rethink that plan....
So, I'll be keeping everyone updated on both the new baby and Brandon as soon as info is available!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Am so upset that Brandon's having problems! Praying so that it's nothing serious! There just can't be anything wrong with him!
And I vote for having your little one on the 16th...
Continuing to lift up prayers!
Zephaniah 3:17: The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.
Prayer Bears
My email address

Momcat said...

Everything always happens at the same time. Praying that Brandon is not suffering from kidney damage but just simply an infection. Praying that all is resolved by the time baby arrives.

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