Full Moon

Are you blinded by the light yet? Nathan took this picture last night and I must admit, I didn't think I was this huge until I saw the pictures. Holy Moley!

Check out my beautiful Linea Nigra, I hear this won't go away till a year after I've given birth. Suuuper.

I'm now going into my 36th week of pregnancy. Hopefully I have only 2-3 weeks to go. I keep talking to the baby and telling him, "You know, anytime you wanna come out cause it's too crowded in there feel free to!"

Today I went to Boston to have some testing done and meet with the NICU department at the hospital I'll be delivering at. Testing was fine. All they did was monitor the baby's heartbeat and my contractions, and took some measurements of the baby. Everything was normal. The Pleural Effusion is still there, and thank God, it hasn't gotten worse. The High Risk doctor did say that I don't have to be induced if the fluid stays the same. Now if it gets worse or the fluid starts to settle in other areas of his organs, then getting induced is the way to go.

After the tests, we met with the NICU and asked every question imaginable. How long would he stay there if he couldn't breathe on his own when delivered? What happens if he comes out and can't breathe? What actions are taken? What happens if he's on the respirator and can't seem to breathe on his own? Are there any other procedures that can be done to remove the fluid? What are the risks? Will there be people in the delivery room on call in case?

A lot of these questions were unanswered because they won't know till he's born. One thing we do know, is that if when he's born and can't breathe on his own, they will take him to the NICU and put him on a respirator. Then what they do is take an X-ray of his lungs to see how they look. They slowly reduce the amount of Oxygen given to him to see if he's able to breathe on his own. If he can great! If he can't then they would most likely extract the fluid with a tube.

The time he'd stay there if this happened is unknown. What we know is that we're (the parents and limited family members) are welcome to come in 23 hours of the day to see him. We took a tour of the NICU and we saw so many tiny babies. It was so sweet, but I'm sure for the parents, it must be heart-wrenching to leave them there. The pediatricians were very optimistic and encouraged us to have the same mindset.

Here are the 3-D pictures of his face!