Bump Update

Thirty weeks today.

In the third trimester.

Less than three months left to go.

At times I feel this pregnancy flew by, and at others it seemed to drag on without going anywhere!

So far, everything has gone... smoothly. 

We've had all the regular tests and ultrasounds and there are no concerns.  The anatomy ultrasound was done at the hospital in the Obstetrics Department.  There was extra special attention paid to the heart and kidneys since those were key pieces in Caelan's CHARGE diagnosis.  Everything looks good.  I have a regular appointment tomorrow at which time we'll schedule another ultrasound for around 32 weeks just to confirm again that everything is developing as it should be.

Some people have asked if I'm worried that we'll have another baby with CHARGE.  I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about it, but I don't think I'm worrying over it.  After Caelan was born, both Damian and I went through genetic testing to determine if we had any of the same "unique" genes as Caelan and we didn't.  It was explained to us that Caelan pretty much did this all on his own.  Kind of a fluke.  I try to keep that in mind.

I met with Caelan's Geneticist early on in this pregnancy as we had agreed we would years ago when Caelan was first diagnosed.  It was explained that although Caelan did do this on his own it still increased our odds in it happening again to 1%, compared to 1 in 10,000.  I'll admit I wasn't happy to hear that.  At that time we were also offered further testing via amniocentesis to determine for sure whether this baby had the CHARGE gene.  We declined.  It's our understanding that the majority of CHARGE cases are still clinically diagnosed, and that not all children carry the gene.

I definitely feel older this pregnancy especially as I enter the most uncomfortable stage.  I feel like I'm up most of the night trying to get comfortable or going to the bathroom.  Oh, and the leg cramps... charlie horses that have me jumping out of bed like a mad woman and this time around I've also had cramps in my feet and toes?!?  My hips, my groin, my back all ache most days... lots of complaints!

I'm happy to say that I've decided to start my maternity leave two weeks before my due date, which will probably jinx this baby into coming two weeks later, just to teach me a lesson.  I just figure that both Darcy and Caelan were around two weeks early so this one should be too!  Before that I'm going to use up my remaining vacation days.  That brings my last day of work to around Feb 8th, depending on how many surprise snow days we have between now and then.  To say that I'm looking forward to it is probably a bit of an understatement!