32.5 Weeks and Counting!

Good news! I am now past the 32 week milestone and baby is staying put so far! He is pretty well developed but breathing and eating could be hard for him still and the longer he stays in there the stronger his brain will be, although everything should be firing at this point! It's still early, but every week that goes by just means that he'll have less time he'll have to spend in the NICU. I'm still on bedrest, but as long as baby is okay, I don't really mind, it's not forever!

The stats: My cervix is still short but has been holding at about 1.4 cm. I recently asked my doc the difference between a short cervix and effacing and they are essentially the same thing, without boring you with the details. The shorter the cervix, the easier it is for your body to dilate for labor. So basically the 1.4 cm length means I'm about 65-70% effaced, depending on the doc that is measuring. That's partly why this has been scary since my cervix dropped to that length at 28 weeks and they were'nt sure how fast it would drop the rest of the way. And for some unknown reason, I'm higher risk for preterm labor since this is an IVF baby. I am also now 1 cm dilated, but I could stay that way for endless amounts of time!

Other good news is that I no longer have to go see the high risk docs! It'll be really nice to just see my ob weekly rather than a different high risk doc every week. The bad news is that my ob will be doing a physical clinical check on my cervix every week now instead of using an ultrasound. The bad news is that I won't get to see baby again until he enters this world when I haven't been able to see his weight or anything for a month already! Am I spoiled or what?!

Honestly, this whole experience has been scary, but more so, it has really allowed me to see so clearly how blessed we are. I don't usually get super mushy but I feel so lucky to have such great friends and family that have supported us so much through all of this. I can't say thank you enough. We are so excited to have this little boy in our lives and can only hope that we can teach him the sort of love and compassion that everyone has shown us. And it goes without saying that none of this could be possible without Gods help. He really does have a million pieces to a puzzle for each of us that only he knows the big picture of.

Oh, and we decided to name him Noah! We're still working on the middle name!