37 1/2 Weeks...

37 1/2 weeks pregnant-- we're getting close!! I had a doctor visit yesterday to check the progress, and Baby D. seems to be doing well as ever. He's supposedly 7 lbs. now, and his head is down and engaged! That means it could be any day now, or it could still be a couple of weeks. Either way, it's exciting that he's making progress and getting ready to make his appearance! We have our hospital bag (mostly) packed and the baby clothes washed, now we're just waiting on the rest of the nursery furniture to arrive. Hope it comes soon...

Here are a few belly photos. These are from when I was 36 weeks, just before surgery. Nate figured he should take a few just in case anything happened during surgery and Baby D. decided to come early.

Last Friday, I went in to school for a short visit, because the class had planned a baby shower for me. It was really sweet. Several of the parents came, and they had balloons, cupcakes, and gifts. It was a bit emotional after my week at home trying to recover from surgery, and having to say goodbye to my kids, etc. I'm sure the pregnancy hormones didn't help, either! But, it was a really nice treat to get to see all of the kids and hear their interesting suggestions for what we should name the baby (DJ, Max, Sam, Yanik, Dylan, etc.).

My knee progress is slower than I anticipated, but I think I am definitely making good progress, especially considering how the pregnancy complicates things. In addition to avoiding pain medication, I can't take any anti-inflamatories, and my body is having to compensate for a

lot of extra weight and a different center of gravity. All that said, I am getting stronger each day, and my knee is getting a little more flexible each day. Physiotherapy is very painful, but I really want to work as hard as I can so I can get ready for this baby to come!

Knee Surgery

So Friday was the big knee surgery. I actually went in to work for a couple of hours, then went to the Matilda Hospital with Nate to get ready for the surgery late that morning. Surgery was at 1pm, and took about 2 hours and 15 minutes. The doctor had to take a graft from my hamstring to reconstruct my ACL, since apparently you can't sew an ACL back together. I'm not sure what exactly he did to my MCL, if anything, but I know he didn't have to do a graft there. Maybe he just sewed it back together. Obviously, the biggest concern was the ACL.

I came out of surgery with 4 new holes in my knee and a new incision. I'll go back a week from tomorrow to get the stitches taken out of all of my new battle wounds. Jessica and I were joking over who now has the most scars on their body. I definitely have the biggest quantity now, but Jessica thinks she might win if we added up the lengths of all of them...I don't know...

I'm sure you're all wondering how Baby Dennison did through all of this, since he was our biggest concern. We did fetal heart monitoring before surgery, after surgery, and the next day before I left the hospital. He didn't seem phased by any of it! His heart rate was perfectly normal. The only sign of my stress/pain was that I was having a whole lot of Braxton Hicks contractions. (These are essentially practice contractions, and are not real labor.) It's certainly normal to have B-H contractions at this point in the pregnancy, but I was having them every 10 or 15 minutes for a while, probably due to the strain on my body and the pain I was in. Our doctor, Grace, wasn't very concerned by this since his heart rate was perfectly fine. In fact, she even joked that maybe all of the B-H would make my labor a little shorter since my uterus has had so much advance practice! I can only hope!

I ended up staying the night at the hospital on Friday, then left around 6pm on Saturday. I was very happy that I ended up in a private room so Nate could stay with me. I was comforted to have him there to hold my hand and get me things I needed so I didn't have to call the nurses every single time. The first couple of days and nights were pretty rough, but I was determined to take as little medicine as I thought Baby D. and I could handle. I think I toughed it out pretty well, and am proud of myself on that front.

I am already getting a bit stir crazy at home, though. It's really hard to be relatively immobile when you're the type of person who enjoys staying busy. I want to exercise so badly right now. Or even just go for a walk! I'm trying to remind myself that I am actually doing something important (recovering from surgery and growing a baby), but I'm still feeling some cabin fever. It's actually easier in some ways when I'm in more pain (generally 5pm and later every day), because then I don't feel like doing anything but sitting or laying around with my leg up. It's surprising how much more painful it is when I try to stand up and all the blood and pressure rushes to my leg.

The surgeon, Dr. Li, said I would need to be on crutches for a couple of weeks, but the physiotherapist at Matilda said it would take longer thanks to the giant baby bump (my words, not hers) that I'm hauling around these days. I think I'll go with Dr. Li's estimate! I'm hoping to start physiotherapy in the next week, but until then I'm doing the stretches/exercises the PT at Matilda gave me.

The Knee

So, I guess I have a lot to update everyone on, and I'm sorry, but this blog posting doesn't have any pictures to go with it. Last Sunday, I slipped and fell and majorly twisted my right knee. Luckily I didn't land on my belly, but I couldn't walk. We went to the emergency room, and the doctor put me on crutches and wanted me to wait two days to see what happened with the swelling.

I came back to the hospital on Tuesday to see the orthopedic doctor, and my knee was still very swollen. The doctor wanted to take out some of the fluid to help with my comfort level, and also to see whether it was clear fluid or blood. It turned out that the doctor took out about 40cc of blood from around my knee (trust me, there's even more left), which told him that I tore a ligament. The doctor scheduled an MRI for Wednesday to find out what I tore.

Wednesday night, we got a call from the doctor that I had completely torn both my ACL and MCL. (When I do things, I do them all the way.) I'm going to blame this on the fact that when you're pregnant, your body releases a hormone that relaxes a lot of your body to accommodate all of the growing you do. So I'm guessing the ligaments in my knee were probably already more lax than normal, because I have certainly never had any knee problems before.

So anyway, on Thursday morning, we went in to meet with the orthopedic doctor about surgery to reconstruct my knee. We then spent a lot of time on the phone with two different anesthetists, my OB doctor, and the orthopedic surgeon's nurse trying to weigh out our options and get reassurance that all of this would be safe for the baby. As someone who has majorly avoided caffeine, fake sugars, even Tylenol during her pregnancy, the thought of submitting the baby to general anesthesia and a 2 hour surgery is quite concerning.

According to all the people we talked to, however, at this point in the pregnancy the anesthesia should not harm the baby at all. The only risk is that the stress on my body of having surgery and/or being in a lot of pain could induce labor, but this is a very low risk. (The stress of my fall probably could have induced labor, as well.) The surgery is scheduled for Friday, and at that point I will be 36 weeks pregnant-- essentially full term. My OB doctor said she would be okay with him being born at that point if it happened. Of course, we definitely do not want the baby to come then, because I need to try to recover from surgery for a few weeks first. We're hoping the baby comes at least a couple of weeks after surgery so I could be off my crutches by then.

In the meantime, while I'm waiting for surgery, I'm trying to work as much as possible, crutches and all. My maternity leave substitute is co-teaching with me, because I can't handle it by myself right now-- can't exactly get around. There is a lot to do since Friday will be my last day.

Nate and I just ask for lots of prayers for a safe and successful surgery, and that the baby will in no way be harmed or stressed in the process.

Church Baby Shower

Last Saturday, our Care Group from church (that's what they call their Bible study groups) threw us a baby shower. It was really special-- it's funny how God can have that affect on things. Here are a few of the photos.

Check out this cake! Yummy!

Group shot

One of the games was that everyone had to guess the size of my belly with ribbon, then I tried all of the ribbons on. Everyone's ribbons were too big...not sure if that's a compliment or an insult.

Another game was that people made things for the baby out of playdough. We were pretty impressed by people's creativity!

And, of course, there were adorable gifts.

Another really cute thing they did was pair up and make up songs or nursery rhymes about the baby. Here's a video of one of them. Click on it to play.

6 Weeks to Go!

34 Weeks down, 6 to go! I really can't decide if that's too much time or not enough. My body is screaming, "6 more weeks???" but I still have a lot to do to get ready...mainly the nursery and shopping for supplies like diapers and such.

Earlier this week, I threw on some comfy workout clothes after school, and then Nate and I decided to run to the grocery. I have to admit, the clothes I was wearing were tighter than I would normally wear in public. The bump got a lot of stares, which made me quite uncomfortable. To be fair, I guess it is pretty massive at this point. So Nate insisted on whipping out the camera when we got home to document the massiveness.

And he thought it would be funny if I held his basketball in the photo to match the basketball under my shirt. (Notice how I look so thrilled to be taking the photo.)

Do you know a TA at school today actually asked- very casually- how much weight I've gained so far? Lucky for me, I stopped weighing myself a few weeks ago, which I told her. There are just no boundaries when you're pregnant. Also, a lot of people these days look straight at my belly, then look up at my face. (Like I don't notice.) But hey, maybe that's a good thing since my face is really swollen by now. Probably better they just keep looking at the swollen belly instead!

I'll leave you with a conversation I had today with a grade 1 student who was in my class last year.

Me: "Hi Christopher!"

Christopher, looking at my belly with shock: "Mrs. Dennison! The baby's not out yet?!"

Me: "No, still in here."

Christopher, referring to my belly: "It's so big! Why don't you just go to the doctor and get him to take the baby out?"

Me: "Good idea, but it's not quite time yet."

Too cute.