Update on Katie

My doctor is out of town this week, which means I had to meet with a different doctor yesterday. I was a little uneasy about seeing a different doctor, especially since this pregnancy hasn't been an ideal pregnancy. However, it turned out fine. He is really smart and a very kind person. Even though he was just seeing me one time and it was just a check-up he seemed genuinely concerned about our pregnancy. He gave us suggestions to help with the morning sickness, and hopefully within a couple of days we will see some improvements.

I had to go back to the doctor today. My uterus is still measuring small and the doctor wanted to have some more tests along with a sonogram to check on the baby. The way that these doctors appointments go is that I meet with the sonographer first and then I meet with my doctor. I had my sonogram done and was a little concerned, because I could see Katie's measurements and I knew that they were smaller than they should be. After the sonogram I had to sit in the waiting room for over half an hour waiting to meet with the doctor. The whole time I was sitting there worried about Katie. Finally I met with the doctor. He said that the baby was measuring at 32 weeks and 6 days instead of 35 weeks and 2 days. This means that she was measuring 17 days smaller than she should be. In the past she was measuring 8 days smaller, so this is a significant difference. The doctor said that even though she was 2 1/2 weeks smaller than she should be, he felt comfortable not making any decisions right now. Since he is not our normal doctor, it would make sense that he wants to wait and have our doctor make any major decisions, and it is comforting that he feels confident that it is safe to wait a week to do anything.

In previous meetings with our doctor, she thought that due to the size of my uterus eventually Katie's growth would decline and it would be safer to induce labor than to have her stay inside me and have her growth restricted. When I met with Dr. Tovar today, he had the same reaction, but wanted to wait a week until Dr. Collins came back to make the decision. This means that Katie isn't in any immediate danger, but that being induced next week is more of a reality than we had originally anticipated. This doesn't mean that we will for sure be induced next week, it just means that we know that her growth is declining.

This is not the ideal situation, but we are thankful that it is not as bad as it could be. Right now we could use all of the prayers that we can get, and are trying to think positively. If Katie has a lot of growth progress this week, maybe we can keep her inside a little longer. Although we would prefer to hold of on delivery for a while, in the end we just want her to be healthy. We trust that God will be with us through all of this and that in the end all will be okay.

Marybeth