Preface: My intentions for this entire blog (not just this entry) is to document feelings, activities, milestones and general day to day activities we find ourselves involved with throughout life. I want it to serve as historical record of sorts for us and our children to reflect on for a long time to come. My intentions are also to have it printed and saved. Wouldn't it be neat to go back and hear about stories or thoughts your parents had when you were a baby or as you were growing up!? Maybe or maybe not.
Also, I had blogged about this before, but when I was pregnant with Kaitlyn there was a lady in my office who's daughter was also pregnant. That daughter passed away when her baby was around 2 months old. I keep in my mind how fortunate we are to share this time with the kids and I don't ever want to forget or take for granted any moment. Things like that just make you wonder -- who would take care of your kids like you do if something tragic like that should happen? Well, I hope to write about it so that's one less worry.
So with that being said - the following entry may bore you, but for Kaitlyn's sake, later in life, she may want or need to know the testing she underwent and why. And I may need to know in the near future when the bills start trickling in :)
May has been filled with appointment after appointment for either Kaitlyn or myself. The first appointment was mine on May 6th for an appointment with Dr. Gardner. Kaitlyn went with me and everyone in the office was happy to see her and commented on how cute she is. I discussed Kaitlyn's diagnosis of a "variant of Turner's Syndrome" with Dr. Gardner and she thought with that news I needed to go see a High Risk Pregnancy Dr. to just double check everything was ok with this current pregnancy and to have chromosome lab work done on me as well to rule out anything there. By the time they got me in for the Sonogram, Kaitlyn was asleep so she slept on my chest while I laid down to have the sono done. The nurse determined I was 10 weeks and due December 1st.
On the 7th I took Kaitlyn to Cook's Children's Hospital to have a sonogram of her organs - primarily her Kidneys. One symptom of Turner's Syndrome is a U-shaped Kidney. That doesn't always lead to medical problems, but can cause hypertension and urinary tract infections more frequently. The results of this testing came back that her Kidneys were fine, however while 'looking around' they found she has gall stones and subsequently we have to schedule an appointment with a gastrointestinal for those!
On May 19th I took Kaitlyn for an Echo cardiogram. Another symptom of classic Turner's Syndrome are heart defects and/or slight abnormalities. She did ok when we went for the sono of her kidney's, but she really wasn't at all interested in laying there letting the nice nurses look at her heart. She screamed the ENTIRE time. I wasn't sure if they could even get a good picture since they requested that she lay still and calm HA. And, come to find out, when we received the report, it read that everything looked fine, however the patient was "poor." They suggested that in a year or so we do another one just to be sure when she would cooperate more.
The 24th was Kaitlyn's appointment with the Endocrinologist. (If you can think back to biology, your endocrine system is a complex group of glands that include the thyroid, parathyroid, pancreas, ovaries, testes, adrenal, pituitary and hypothalamus. These glands are organs that make hormones that control growth, reproduction and metabolism.) Another major symptom of Turner's syndrome is Shortness and Infertility. The Endocrinologist said that there aren't anymore tests than can be ran at this time for Kaitlyn, but we needed to follow her growth and maybe later we may need to visit the idea of helping her grow to her full potential and test hormone levels to see what we can do to help there.
The 27th was my appointment with the Perinatologist - or for us common folk - High Risk Pregnancy Dr. They took some really good sonograms and the Dr came in and looked around on the sonogram himself and found nothing to be wrong. He said everything looks to be perfectly healthy with this pregnancy and there was no reason to come back at this time. He also predicted my due date to be November 25th. They did take my blood to do my karyotype (my DNA pattern) which I had to wait 2 weeks for. They didn't suspect there was any problem though; they seemed to think that what Kaitlyn has just happened and wasn't passed on from anyone. Indeed, when the results came back, I am not a carrier of this "abnormal X".
So, that brings us to JUNE already! June 2nd was Kaitlyn's appointment with the Gastroenterologist. She said Kaitlyn would probably grow out of them. To watch for jaundice and unexplainable fevers and crying. The Dr. said that no surgeon in their right mind would touch a case like this. She too wanted to follow up with some blood work just to rule out anything wrong with the liver do to this and a few other things. However, I drew the line!
All of these appointments for Kaitlyn turned out well - nothing to be alarmed about but most have requested she come back and have more sonograms or more blood drawn, etc. I have decided that when I take her to the dr for a cough or a fever, there's not much they can do, but when she's feeling fine and happy as can be they keep coming up with these tests that "might" show something. Or they just want to run them to make sure everything is functioning as it should. I think she's just fine and Kaitlyn and I both are tired of setting in waiting rooms and being poked and prodded to find out she's healthy. But we do thank God for that. The genetics dr said that when you have two XX's that the second X lies dormant so we may not see any complications anyway. We'll just pray she's right about that..so far so good! I really think the only thing left to question is her height and her fertility. We have spent some time and money at Cook's but we do realize it could be much worse and therefore that doesn't leave us much to complain about.
June 11th was my "regular" appointment with Dr. Gardner. Just a normal check up to check blood pressure, weight gain, heart rate, etc. I can't remember how much weight I've gained so far, but I am 16 weeks now and weigh a pound more than I was when I got pregnant with Kaitlyn so I figure that's pretty good...maybe not good that I started at this before hand .. but non the less. :)
The nurse had a hard time finding the heart beat. She looked and looked while Kaitlyn and I waited. She grabbed another nurse and she too couldn't find the heart beat. One of them told me that at this point, the baby was directly under my scar tissue from the 1st C-Section so it may be harder to hear. They went to get the sonogram machine and then we could see the little guy (or girl) swimming around. From the view the nurse saw, she's betting on a girl. Next month we'll get the "official" anatomy sonogram. All looks to be on track for now though! We also discussed the new due date and I suggested having the baby on the Friday before Thanksgiving so I could get home and cook HA Just kidding about that part..but she is onboard for the Friday before for delivery! PERFECT! Then I can make the most of my vacation time/maternity leave!
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