Just the girls

Last week Meg was home visiting Birmingham and flew into New Orleans just for the day. Becky, Beth and I took the day off to join Meg and have a "girl's day". We spent the morning and early afternoon sitting at my kitchen table, eating a variety of not so healthy foods, and catching up on everything. We followed the not so healthy food up with a run to Lulu's for snowballs, and then a trip down to the french quarter. We walked around in the quarter for a bit, stopped for beignets and coffee and Cafe du Monde, and before we knew it, it was time for Meg to head back to the airport for her flight back to Birmingham.

Thanks for a fun day, Girls! I hope we can do it again sometime soon!

A Southern Wedding

On friday the 13th (what a brave couple), Jessica, who works at LSUHSC with me, and Matt got married at Southern Oaks Plantation. It was absolutely beautiful. They had a perfect evening and the wedding was complete with all the southern charm you could ask for.

Congratulations Jessica and Matt!

Huge sigh of Relief

So the past few months have been quite an emotional rollercoaster. We started out with bleeding from 8-13 weeks of the pregnancy. That finally cleared up and things were looking normal, except for the giant fibroids. At 8 weeks I was measuring 21 weeks, with the largest of the fibroids at 10X10 cm. So much for my plan of not showing until I was 4 or 5 months pregnant.

We did our quad screen around week 16, which came back with an elevated AFP (alpha fetoprotein) which can be indicative of a neural tube defect. We retested a week later, and that came back normal, but our doctor had already set us up to see a specialist for an ultrasound to detect spinal abnormalities. So off we went to the specialist at East Jefferson. The first ultrasound with the specialist looked good, but there was a small area around the baby's pelvic bones that she couldn't see. On our followup, we got the all clear for the neural tube defect --- everything looked good with the spine. Unfortunately, the doctor saw what looked like a heart defect, specifically a VSD (Ventricular Septum Defect). So she referred us to a pedatric cardiologist, and our tour of the areas hospitals and specialists continued with Children's Hospital as our next stop. At 21 weeks I was measuring 33 weeks, but the largest fibroid was down to around 8.5X10 cm. At least it's not growing anymore. But all the other fibroids have grown together to form a continuous area of fibroids, which will likely cause issues during delivery, and perhaps preterm labor.

Today was our appointment with the Pediatric Cardiologist. He said the baby's heart looks good! He couldn't see any defect, and thought that the image that the other specialist had taken probably looked like a defect because of the way the picture was taken.

So we've been averaging an ultrasound every 3 weeks or so with all of the early complications and trips to see various doctors. I guess that's not so bad since it's really reassuring to see the baby moving, but I'm ready for some normal pregnancy stuff and a break from all the scares.

For now ... a huge sigh of relief .... and hoping for shrinking fibroids and no new issues.

More Home Improvements

Over the last month, we've done a few more home improvements, made some new purchases, and redecorated a bit. Jeff's birthday was in May, and a weight bench and weights was at the top of his birthday list. So here's our new exercise room.

While Jeff's parents were visiting for his birthday, we decided to make a major purchase that has been on our wish list for a while now. Jeff finally got his flat screen tv, which led to rearranging the living room. With Jeff's dad here to help, they got the tv hung up and the wires for the direct tv run behind the wall. We still have to find some appropriate shelves for the dvd player and the tivo box, but for now, this set up works okay. Thanks for the help Fred!

We also painted the trim in the guest bedroom, which has been on my "to do" list for about the last two years. We decided to stay with the light purple color and go with white trim. The purple looks a little more gray next to the white trim, but with some new bedding, new drapes, and the futon relocated to the guest room, I think it looks quite nice. I'm sure it's only a matter of time until I am itching to repaint the whole room. I love to paint!