Work has been insane and I've been working for at least an hour or two every night which doesn't leave much time for blogging ... or anything else for that matter. But I made it to the weekend and I hope things will calm down soon.
We have had a lot going on besides work too. We told Mike's family the big news at his dad's birthday. Mike made a copy of an ultrasound pic and put it in his card. His mom and sister gathered to look at the card since Mike said that it was so funny his dad needed to open it right away. His sister got it first and then his mom and finally his dad after staring quizzically at the picture for a while. Ha! They were all very excited.
My birthday was next and it was a nice relaxing day. We had burgers for lunch (my hemoglobin is a tad low so I've been upping my red meat consumption) and I splurged on a milkshake. It reminded me of eating at Steak n' Shake in high school. For dinner we walked to a restaurant near our house and I got their delicious fall salad with apples and spiced pecans. Mike got me lots of goodies ... sweets, flowers, pumpkins to carve, and a big pregnancy pillow. And of course I got to squeeze in a nap between lunch and dinner :)
Last week on Tuesday, I had my first OB appointment. It went fine. Hearing baby's heartbeat was definitely the highlight. We talked about the different screenings that are available and we decided to do the first trimester screening which consists of a blood test and an ultrasound. I had that scheduled for this week, but had to reschedule to Monday because of work.
Last Friday, we started looking at daycares. Supply is low and demand is high in Minneapolis, apparently, so there are often long waiting lists. And prices are high. I was prepared for this to an extent having talked to friends at work, but there was still some sticker shock because the places we looked at were even more expensive than what they paid. The first place, Kindercare, was ok ... it felt old and very institutional. They did not mention a curriculum per se and I would hope that even as an infant the child wouldn't just be sitting/laying around all day. The second place, Primrose, is still being built so we met with the director at a nearby Panera. She talked to us for an hour about the daycare's goals for their kids, the curriculum, the food, the emergency plans ... we were very impressed. My friend Iris sent her kids to a different franchise of these schools and spoke very highly of them, so that was a plus too. Today we went to one last place called Towerlight which is on the first level of a senior living facility. The kids regularly interact with the "grand friends" which sounded interesting to us. The facility was nicer than we expected, but again, the curriculum was not discussed in detail which concerns me. This was the least expensive of the three although there was only a $2K difference between the this place and Primrose, the most expensive. A lot of details I know ... mostly for me to remember how stressful picking a daycare is! We are leaning toward Primrose at this point, but Towerlight is a close second. I think we will decide by the end of the weekend.
Last Friday, after the daycare hunting, I took a nap and when I woke up, I was bleeding again. I could not believe it. It felt similar to last time with no cramping. But it was just as scary. We called the on-call doctor and he said that if we had seen the heartbeat, the odds of miscarriage are just 5%. He said we could go to the ER to check on the baby or wait until Monday and come to the office. Obviously, there was no way that I was waiting the whole weekend to find out. We decided to wait until Saturday morning which turned out to be a good move since there was no wait in the ER. The doctor was literally in the room before I even had the gown on! They took blood and sent me for an ultrasound. What a relief to see the heartbeat when the baby popped up on the screen! The ultrasound tech said that I have a subchorionic hemorrhage, basically a pocket of blood, near my cervix. Being near my cervix it will likely bleed out instead of being reabsorbed. The doctor (who was not an OB) said my chances were 50/50 at this point which I was totally shocked by. When I got home, I did my own research and found that an SCH does not increase the risk of miscarriage by much. I think the doctor must have meant that of women who bleed during the first trimester, 50% go on to have healthy babies (which I have heard before). Holy crap, though ... way to scare me. Regardless, I will be glad to see baby again in just a couple days.
