Updates....

What a day it has been. So now more then ever I am going to use this blog as a way for me to keep everything straight more so than keeping everybody updated. 

Because of yesterday's low fundal measurement, we had an ultrasound this morning to check everything over. Emma scored 8 out of 8 points when it came to her movement and practice breathing (huge relief). All of her measurements averaged out to be just fine, we were told we are just expecting a small baby is all. My amniotic fluid levels are normal, so that is all great. They think the reason I am measuring small is due to the fact that she is down so low so early and because she is just smaller. They did, however, notice that there was an elevated pressure on the umbilical cord (I am still not quite sure exactly what this means) so they wanted to put me on the fetal monitor for 20 minutes to watch the baby. The midwife I saw today (wasn't my normal one) told me that the elevated pressure means that there is some "resistance" in the blood flow between me and Emma. This can be caused by many things so they want to do more tests before they say anything is wrong for sure. The fetal monitor picks up three things; any contractions I would have, any movement by baby, and baby's heart-rate. They use this monitoring for many reasons; and in this case it was because they wanted to watch to see if when she moved she also had a rise in her heart-rate. This all looked great - she was moving a lot and every time she did her heart-rate increased. This doesn't alleviate all concern, however, so they are referring me to a place called the Minnesota Perinatal Physicians and they will do another ultrasound amongst other things to make sure we don't have a bigger problem. I am to have one visit with them and if everything looks okay on their end, I will just have weekly ultrasounds and my normal weekly visits with my midwife just to make sure baby continues to grow okay. The best medicine for this type of issue is bed rest - and we are already doing that. I am told to not stress too much about this because Emma looks "outstanding in every other way" - and added stress on me is added stress on baby. 

After getting home from the appointment, with plans to climb back in to bed and take a nap, I get a phone call from my works "workman's comp insurance company" wanting to get a better idea of what happened. After a twenty minute phone conversation of describing everything that has happened since then I was told that my claim is being denied and they won't cover lost wages. As if I couldn't have had a better day. This is obviously being disputed and I have many medical personal backing me up with many documented visits to the clinic, an overnight stay in labor and delivery, and much more. I can't believe that after something like that would happen, something that was totally their fault and resulted in me being hospitalized and having to go through all of this, they would deny me anything. If me disputing it and doctors backing me up isn't enough, we have to get a lawyer to take care of it for us. Obviously, the money part of this is the least of my worries right now but it is frustrating to have people calling you every time you relax from hearing one piece of bad news to tell you more bad news. 

After catching my breath from all of this I laid in bed with my pup Lenny and snuggled and as I was laying there Emma got the hiccups. It's like any time I start feeling like I can't handle another second of this stuff, she reminds me why I'm going through it all. After a nice long nap I woke up to a text from an old friend trying to initiate a petty argument (oblivious, or just not caring about anything going on with me). It made me laugh, though - and here is why: for the first time in my life I can honestly say I now know and understand exactly what my dad was talking about when I was 13. People are going to hurt you over and over and over again as long as you let them. Friends are going to come and go and try to walk in and out of your life when its convenient for them. But FAMILY will be there at the end of the day no matter what. Family will help you through the hard times no matter what is asked of them. I use the term family loosely too; I have my family, I have Clint and his family, and I have a couple amazing best friends I would call more like sisters. It's so easy to walk away from these "friends" I speak of; but never could I imagine walking away from my family.