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05/20/2002 Archived Entry: "Miracle-Grow Baby"
So today's sonogram (which was a last-minute-scheduling-nightmare*) shows that the baby's still growing exponentially. In the past two weeks, she's gained another pound -- she now weighs 3 lbs 4 oz. According to today's measurements, she could show up as early as August 4. Two weeks ago, they told us August 7. My official "estimated due date" is August 15. (The countdown at the top of the main page is based on August 7.)
When you walk into the hospital, there's a sign-in station, where they issue you a bright orange sticker that has your name, your destination in the hospital, and today's date. I got my sticker, then the lady asked Geoff his destination, and said, "You're the patient?" to him. We both pointed at my belly and said SHE'S the patient ... and I suggested maybe she needed a sticker too. Without missing a beat, the security lady said, "What's her name?" And wrote "Vivianna" on a sticker & put it on my belly! :D That made the whole day worthwhile.
(Note: The baby's name isn't set in stone ... just written on an orange sticker. We reserve the right to fall in love with a completely different name at any given moment. Or even to change the spelling of this one — I actually prefer "Viviana", with one "n".)
She bounced all around during the sonogram. At the beginning of it, her head was down ... by the end of it, she'd turned 180°.
With all of her growing, the fluid & cysts have kept pace. So she's relatively no worse than she was, which is a good thing; it's just not what we were hoping for.
In addition to marveling at her acrobatics, we got to watch her face for a while. Natalie was trying for a profile shot, but the baby kept facing us directly. We watched her yawn, we saw her little eyes open and close, we decided she really does have Geoff's nose. :) I'm putting the picture up that they gave us — it's much easier to make out while she's moving around on the monitor, though.
Dr. Bulas was concerned about the amount of amniotic fluid I'm carrying. She wanted to make sure I'm not doing too much; she was relieved when I told her I haven't had any contractions, and more relieved when I told her that I'm mostly home during the day. She told me I should be keeping my feet up.
*Rhonda called on Friday morning to let us know that there's a team meeting this Thursday, where all the specialists will get together and discuss their caseload. She wanted them to have the most recent images to work from, so that they can figure out what to do with me -- we scheduled a Tuesday sonogram. Then Dr. Bulas called at about 5pm on Friday, to tell me she was putting us in for Monday instead. Then I spent 2 frantic hours this morning trying to get Dr. Match's office to put in a referral for today ... then it all worked out in the end. Doesn't it always?