39 weeks in, 39 weeks out

Elise has now been here as long as she was inside of me!

Then: Just shy of 39 weeks pregnant. Now: Just shy of 39 weeks old

She's gained 14 lbs since her birth day and I've lost 26 lbs.

I've gotten say, these last 9 months have been way, way better than the 9 before it. I love seeing my little girl grow up. Every single day with her a gift from God.

New Hair & Other Updates

Thanks everyone for the love on my hair post. I did end up getting it cut and dyed and I like it a A LOT better.

Straight from the salon, loving it!

I went with a warm brown and I'm loving the color. Now i just need it to grow a little bit and my pixie will look pretty good.

My sweet baby girl is now 8.5 months. How did this happen?! I'm loving this age so much, I wish I could just bottle her up! She's wearing 12 month clothes now and weighs around 21 lbs and she's tall (I'll find out the exact inches in a few weeks). Chemo didn't growth restrict her one bit! She's going to be tall like her mom and dad.

My little love

When I was pregnant with Elise I set out to complete all the photo album/digital scrapbooks I was behind on. I did 2010-2011 when I was pregnant with her and have now finished 2012-2013! I'm all caught up. Wahoo! In a strange way it gives me a little comfort that if for some reason I'm not around when Elise is older, she'll have these memories of her family from before she was born and when she was a baby.

Collage of some of the 2012 album

I'm feeling pretty good overall. My chest and upper back and left armpit still hurt. Not bad pain, just consistent nagging pain. I know this from the mastectomy, lymph node removal, and implants. It's just annoying. I'll be having my next reconstruction surgery in May (more on that later) so I'm hoping that helps reduce some of the chest pain.

If you have a moment please say a prayer for my continued health. I'm now 6 months cancer-free. I need to make it 2.5 more years before I'm really "out of the woods." I feel really optimistic about my prognosis and life, but I'd appreciate the prayers nevertheless.

Elise's First ER Trip

On Sunday Elise had her first trip to the ER. And while it was a scary and totally exhausting, all turned out to be fine.

I first noticed on Sunday morning that she was super fussy and by mid-day she was inconsolable. I took her temperature and it was 101. I called the nurse line for UCSD Pediatrics and they told me to head to the Children's Hospital ER.

Luckily they got us right in and took Elise's blood and urine. She did NOT like either of those one bit. Then we waited and started to worry that she could be really sick with something terrible. Of course the ER doctor asked me about the pregnancy (normal?) and I had to tell her I had chemo while pregnant. I hate repeating my sad, crazy story.

After they took her blood via the little IV in her hand. She looks so sad.

After a couple of hours, we got the results back and it turned out Elise had a urinary track infection. Poor baby! They gave her IV antibiotics and let us go once her fever was under 100.4. Now we just had to give her antibiotics for 10 days to make sure the infection is 100% gone.

Of course this all happened when both Jon and my parents were out of town, so I was alone, scared, and exhausted. Luckily, our dear family friends, Bill and Kay, came to the ER when I told them the news and Kay even stayed the night at my house with us after Elise was discharged to help out. So sweet.

So I survived Elise's first health scare. While we were in the hospital I just prayed and prayed that it would be nothing serious and easily treatable. And, thank God, it was.  We can only have one of us in the hospital at a time!

The antibiotics worked right away, and she's back to her usual happy self.

The only follow-up we have to do is a kidney and bladder ultrasound tomorrow to make sure there is nothing obviously wrong with her kidneys or bladder that caused the UTI, but very often UTIs just happen to little girls from bacteria. Nevertheless, please send up some prayers for us tomorrow that the ultrasound shows nothing bad. It's hard for me to trust a "routine" test since the last time I had one of those I found out I had cancer.

Last Chemo!

Last Wednesday I completed my last round of Taxol chemo which was the last of my eight chemo treatments!

Elise came with me and even wore a pink ribbon in support. 

We're done!

It feels so great to be done with chemo. There's obviously the nagging feeling of "what if I need more chemo after surgery? Or more chemo if the cancer comes back?" But I'm pushing those feelings away and celebrating that I'm done withe chemo and the odds that are I'll be done with it forever!

I have to say, that despite the few days of aches from Taxol I felt amazingly well while on chemo. I had imagined it would be awful, but I did remarkably well with minimal side effects. I attribute that to my great medical team, good nutrition, and most importantly everyone's prayers.

So now I'm done with chemo! On to surgery and then radiation. It's basically half-time in this cancer-butt-kicking game.

75% done with Chemo!

Today I had my second of four Taxol chemos. This means I'm 75% done with chemo overall! I plan on being completely cured and never having to do chemo again, but obviously I appreciate your prayers for the same.

Here is my Dad, who was chemo buddy today, with Elise before we left. Note my Dad's awesome Race for the Cure shirt. Elise stayed home but wore pink in support of me. :)

I love my support team

The Taxol infusion took a long time but was easy. They give me steroids to take the night before so I didn't sleep much last night which was probably the worst part. After the last Taxol I was really achy in the back and legs for a few days, so I'm anticipating that side effect again. But other than that, my Taxol side effect were not too bad.

Speaking of side effects, check out my hair growth. I have stubble! I was off chemo for 6 weeks to deliver Elise, so my hair started to grow back. But now that I've been back on Taxol for 2 weeks I expect it to start falling out again this weekend. Womp womp. On a positive note, now I know what I'll look like in 13 weeks.

Navy recruit?

I have some more medical updates about next steps in treatment, but I'll save those for a later post and leave you with some adorable pictures of Elise (the real reason you come to this blog!).

Passed out in the carseat

Goofball

In her bunny chair that she loves

Just hanging out with Dad

Elise's Birth Story

I wanted to write Elise’s birth story up so that: 1) We’d have it and I wouldn’t forget all the details 2) I could share it with any “birth story” junkies out there. So, sorry this is a bit long.

I’ve always rolled my eyes a little bit when I hear people say that “God was in details”, but for Elise’s birth He really was. I just keep thinking about how great everything went and I know it God’s blessing around us and Elise. Thank you if you were one of the hundreds of people praying for us. We know that God hears our prayers.

OK, here’s the story…

A few days before Elise was born I had a ton of conversations with my OB and Oncologist about the pros and cons of inducing. Basically my oncologist was worried about me off chemo for too long.  Finally we came to the conclusion that at almost 39 weeks Elise was big enough and her lungs were mature enough to be induced.  My OB warned me that the induction could take a while, especially for a first-time mom, but that was a risk I was willing to take. So we chose Thursday, May 30th as our induction date. 

The morning of the induction we called the hospital to make sure they were ready for us (they were), we took a final picture of me pregnant, grabbed out bags, and headed to Panera for a last meal (since you can’t eat during an induction). 

38w5d - final preggo picture

We arrived at the hospital 9:00 AM and checked into our large corner birthing room. We met our sweet Nurse, Eva (who is also a believer). Then they took my blood and hooked me up the fetal monitors and IV. They sent my blood to the lab to make sure I was well enough to be induced. The OB on duty checked my cervix and it was high and closed. No cm dilated.  Bummer. The good news was that Elise’s head was way down in my pelvis. So after the blood work cleared at 11:00 AM the OB started me on drug to dilate my cervix called misoprostol. She said she’d come back to check me at 3:00 PM. She warned us that it could be a long induction since my cervix was so closed. 

Elise, you are getting evicted.

So then we waited. Played games on the iPads, read magazines, etc. I started to feel some minor contractions but nothing bad. We texted my parents to give them the update and they decided they’d come to the hospital at around 4:00 PM to see me and take Jonathan to dinner.

The OB came back at 3:30 PM and checked  my cervix. 2 cm dilated. Progress! She decided I could entering real labor here based on contractions and decided to not give me more Misoprostol or start Pitocin. That maybe my body would just do it on my own. My parents arrived a little while later as I was starting to have more contractions really low. We still figured real labor was hours away, so my Dad and Jon left for dinner around 4:30 PM and my Mom stayed to keep me company.

At around 5:00 PM my contractions started to get really close together and by 5:30 I was begging for pain relief. But I wasn’t sure how dilated I was so I didn’t want to get the epidural too soon.  They checked and I was 4 cm. I felt good about getting the epidural then. By 6:00 PM my epidural was placed I started to feel better. Then I started to feel worse, way worse. Terrible low stabbing pains (contractions), one after the other. I kept saying “this shouldn’t be how I feel on an epidural, should it?”

In pain but still smiling

Unfortunately right around 6:30 PM there was shift change a new anesthesiologist came in. He felt like maybe the epidural was placed wrong and wanted to re-do it. Thank goodness my Mom said “no” to that idea and had him load it up with more meds, because there probably would not have been enough time to remove and place a new epidural before I had to push. They also checked my cervix and I was already 7cm dilated (whoa!),  which was why I was in desperate need of more drugs. The anesthesiologist also gave me another pain drug in the IV (more on that later) to work quickly since I was in such pain (major cuss words and almost crying at this point).

Finally after more drugs in the epidural I was feeling great. My cervix got checked again and I was 8 cm and entering transition. My Mom started desperately calling my Dad and Jon telling them “get back here! She’s gonna start pushing soon!!” They’d been having a three-course Thai dinner.

Jon got back to the hospital at 7:00 PM and it was basically time to start pushing. Because the anesthesiologist gave me that drug in my IV they were worried Elise would come out lethargic from it since it takes two hours to wear off. So the whole pediatrics team was called to the room to make sure she’d be ok.  Since my hospital UCSD is teaching hospital, an intern, a resident, and Dr. were put in place in deliver Elise. My parents went out the waiting room and it was just Jon and I with all the Drs and nurses. 

I was finally fully numb from the waist-down thanks to the glorious, now-working epidural when I started to push a little bit after 7:00 PM. My amniotic fluid had still not broken and Drs were all worried about it bursting on them, so they had full plastics masks on. Hilarious. (side note: I guess a baby being born in their amniotic sack is rare very good luck in many cultures). I pushed for about 40 minutes while they monitored Elise’s heart rate. It dropped pretty low a few times but not enough to warrant concern. I couldn’t feel anything, so I kept asking the Drs “am I doing this right?” They assured me I was. They could see Elise’s full head of hair. Which was wonderful to hear because we felt assured that my placenta did it’s job and shielded her from all of the chemo drugs.

Finally on a contraction my water broke and did not make the giant mess that was predicted, and on the next push Elise was out! Elise cried immediately and it was the best sound I’ve heard in my life. They placed on her on my chest while Jon cut the cord.

Pure joy

Then they had the pediatrics team take her and do a quick exam to make sure she was fine from that drug I got. She was 100% fine and active. She scored a 9 and a 9 on her APGARs. Amazing score for any baby, let alone one who went through chemo, was induced, and got a little too much pain drugs. She weighed 7 lbs, 14 oz and was 20.5 inches long. Perfect size.

Perfect

The doctors then placed her back on chest for skin-to-skin love and for me to feed to her a bottle of breast milk from the San Jose Milk Bank. My parents also came back into the room to meet Elise.

The Grandparents

The doctors all could not believe how quickly I dilated and how short of a time I pushed for. Basically the entire process from getting the first misoprostol drug for dilation to Elise being born was just under 9 hours. Heck, Jon almost missed the pushing because I dilated so much in just a few hours.

Family of 3

I said how God was in the details and here is what I mean…  I prayed so hard and had many others praying for short delivery, healthy baby, and no c-section. I got all of those about as perfectly as possible. The fact my Mom just arrived to be there with me during the worst pain and to be coach was ideal. How the epidural debacle ended just fine. I loved how Elise stayed in her fluid the whole time – it made feel like “protection” was around her for the entire process. I only had a very minor tear from delivery, so I could resume chemo quickly. But most importantly Elise was healthy and was able to go home with us 36 hours after being born.

Heading home

Elise is here!

Our daughter, Elise Victoria, arrived on May 30 just before 8:00 PM.

She scored a 9 on her APGAR and is a healthy, normal, perfect baby. I cannot stop thanking God that she's here and healthy.

She weighed 7 lbs 14 oz, and was 20.5 inches long.

Just moments after birth

Elise means consecrated to God and Victoria means victory. 

Many more pictures and a birth story will be coming to this blog soon. But basically I had the most ideal induction ever. God was in every detail. Another huge answer to prayer.

 

 

Heading home. You can see her full head of HAIR. Way more hair than me right now. :)