The Light At The End Of The Tunnel!

For those of you who haven't already heard, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and in the words of "An American Tail" "We have a pwan." If I do not go into labor by myself they will enduce on the 1st, which is great news, because that is the day that my dad comes home from Africa. We really want him to be there. My grandma is coming into town on Monday which will also be exciting. So, for now we are biding our time and hoping that everything stays just the way that it is for now. I do have an appointment on Monday just to be sure that my fluid levels haven't dropped anymore and that the baby is still active, as long as those two things look good we should be able to wait until the 1st. However, I must admit I kind of hope she wont be born until the second, so that we don't have an April fools baby, but we will see. It would be kind of fitting for this one to be born on April fools day (since she doesn't seem to do anything normal). Anyway, that is the plan and no...she still doesn't have a name. I think I have resigned myself to the fact that we will know it when we see her.

I Have A Warm

Ella was nice enough to share the cold she brought home from Cali with me. However, yesterday when I told her I didn't feel good because I had a cold she informed me that I did not have a cold, I have a warm. :-) She let me know that you can't go to church with a cold, but you can go to church with a warm.

What a Difference a Year Makes

A year ago we took Ella up the pass to the snow and she screamed and cried the whole time. Now, everytime it snows she wants to go out and play in it.

She brought a little bit inside with her :-)

The Happiest Place on Earth

Ella got to go to Disneyland with her Grammie and Papa during their trip to California. She had a great time. She loved the playhouse Disney show and Minnie Mouse was her favorite. This Snow White was the same Snow White that we saw last year at the princess breakfast. She was great! She was the only one who got a smile out of Ella. Ella wasn't insterested in any of the other princess.

While waiting in line for the princess fantasy faire Ella made friends with a few other girls in line, it was cute to see her interacting with other little girls. She was looking at the girls autograph book and thought it was pretty cool. She didn't want to go see the princesses, she wanted to play with the girls instead.

Lunch Time!!

Ella Exploring Her Big Girl Bed

Ella Splashing

Ella wanted to go out and help Grammie while she was weeding. She decided that weeds were too dirty, so she splashed in the puddles instead.

Another Update

I went to the doctor AGAIN today! Everything looks great. The baby is in the 30th percentile and my fluid is around 14 which is wonderful news. Dr. Tagavilla believes it is possible that I will have this baby anytime now and in fact would like to enduce a week early if possible (while everything still looks good) since I am so unpredictable :-) So, that is the news as it stands right now. Sorry I don't have more details. Now we just sit and wait.

A NAME UPDATE:
The names that are still in the running are

Emma
Addison
Annalee

Do you have a vote?

More Appointments, More Ultrasounds, More News

Today I had another in-depth ultra-sound at maternal fetal medicine. The babies size looked good and my fluid levels were in a normal range. I didn't think to ask what those numbers were, but the important thing is that they are normal. As far as the dandy-walker in concerned, they are now calling it a dandy-walker variant. That means it is a less severe version of a dandy-walker malformation. We still don't know what that means developmentally and we wont get much more news about it until after she is born. Today, when they tried to take a look at her brain it was very difficult due to the fact that she is very low and that her skull is starting to calcify making it nearly impossible to get a good image on ultrasound. However, what they were able to look at is the two ventricles that run along either side of her brain. Sometimes the dandy-walker can cause a blockage which inhibits the spinal fluid from draining out of the brain. This is there immediate concern as it can cause issues with a normal delivery. However, the baby's ventricles were well within the normal range and there did not seem to be any sign of blockage. They scheduled another ultrasound for two weeks from today to make sure that the ventricles are still of normal size.

After the baby is born they want to schedule an MRI, because it is the only way to get an accurate picture of what is going on with the baby's brain. My cousin (who works on oncology at a large children's hospital in Texas) spoke to a pediatric neuro doctor who advised that we want to set the baby up with a special developmental pediatrician through Seattle Children's Hospital before she is born that way we can do her MRI's and any other tests through a hospital that is more equipped to deal with the special circumstances. The doctor in Texas said that he has some recommendations of people to speak to at Children's, so our next step is to get in touch with the doctor's there and get everything set up for the baby's delivery. We are hopeful that the variant will turn out to be nothing, but we are not going to take any chances. The doctor in Texas says that there is a much better chance for a positive outcome if tests and any subsequent therapy are begun immediately.

I have an ultrasound at my regular doctor's office tomorrow to check my fluid levels. (Don't ask me why they can't just get the results from the one that I had today, I don't know) and then I have a regular doctor's appointment on Friday. I believe I will have to have a referral from Dr. Tagavilla in order to get setup at Children's Hospital, so hopefully we will be able to get that all taken care of on Friday. Meanwhile, we are ready for the madness to be over and for our beautiful little girl to be here. I have been joking that by the time this is all over I could be an ultrasound tech, because I am so used to looking at them (who knows maybe I have found a new calling hehe).

I know everyone has been anxious to learn about the name of our new little girl and I can tell you that it has been narrowed down to 3 and the candidates are: Addison, Emma and Lola. Sam and I are leaning toward one in particular, but we haven't decided for sure yet. We are still taking votes (mainly because it's fun). Also, once we make a final decision we are thinking we may be mean and make everyone wait until she is officially born to find out. However, we all know that I am terrible at keeping my mouth shut, so this may not happen. Anyway, I know this was long and if you made it through the whole thing congratulations! I will post more when there is more news. Hopefully later today or tomorrow I will have some new pictures of Ella's trip to CA to post.

Great News!

Well, I went to see Dr. Tagavilla today and he informed me that since my amnio came back normal the baby does not have dandy-walker malformation. This is great news! That means most likely there will be no developmental issues once she is born. They believe that this small cyst is the kind of thing that has probably been around for a while, but the ultra-sound technology just wasn't good enough to pick up on before. Her pediatrician will continue to moniter it after she is born, just to be sure, but they don't expect it to be a problem. So, what this means is I will continue to see the doctor once a week until I deliver and they will continue to moniter the babies size and my fluid levels. I have another in depth ultra-sound on Monday just to verify that everything is fine and that the cyst has not grown and that there are no other problems. We are very thankful that everything seems to be normal and we can expect an uncomplicated delivery. I will post again with new details after my ultra-sound on Monday. By Monday I also hope to have photos of Ella's trip to CA and some photos we took of her in her big girl bed before they left.

Test Results

Sorry that it has taken me so long to post an update, but up until today there hasn't been anything to update. However, today we finally got the results of my amnio. Everything came back great, there were no chromosomal abnormalities. Basically what that means is that there is no sign of downs-syndrome and other developmental abnormalities. However, there is still concern about the dandy walker malformation. So, basically we know what it isn't but not what it is. I have an appointment with Dr. Tagavilla tomorrow and hopefully he will be able to give me some more information. If he has anything else I will make sure to post it. On the other updates my fluid levels are still low, but they are at an acceptable range. Hopefully I will have more news tomorrow. Thank you all for your continued prayers.