18 Weeks Today

Wow, 18 weeks! Every week that goes by I feel that much closer to actually being able to bring this baby home safe, although even that 28 week mark is still 10 weeks away. But I do take comfort in the fact that I have made it through 5 weeks on bedrest so far and all I have to do is make it through that 2 more times and then my baby has a 90% chance of being ok if she comes (in spite of a long hospital stay). I guess it seems silly just to hope far that rather than full term. Obviously every day or week more that the baby stays in there is better, but it keeps me sane to break it into smaller portions, instead of thinking I have to make it 17 more weeks until they take the stitches out. To me that seems a lot more overwhelming, in fact near impossible. I mean really, a stitch in a soft cervix is really going to hold a baby in there until full term??? I know and have heard many stories of success, but to me it seems so questionable. And even though the dr. seems less than encouraging, he also says that for most people it does in fact work successfully. So we hold on to the hope that we are not in control of this past what we can do physically plus the fact that for 80-90% of people that truly have an incompetent cervix (sometimes it is not diagnosed correctly and there is something else going on) the stitch does the job well. I would say overall those are pretty good odds.

Oh and finally finally I have gained some weight! It makes me feel a little "more pregnant" to know that I am gaining a bit. I am 3 pounds up, although not officially up to where I was before I got the morning sickness. Uck I am so glad that is over for the most part. Gone are the days of laying on the couch at 2 am praying that I would puke just for some relief. The awful thing about pregnancy sickness (it is not just morning for me, but all day long) is that when you puke it does not really bring relief for more than, say, 2 minutes or so. But I survived the weeks of constant indigestion, unrelenting nausea, gagging at every smell in existence and sucking on jolly ranchers one after the other just so I could have something in my mouth to distract me. Now I still get the occasional waves of nausea, but I can deal with that over the perpetual feeling of UCK! Thank you LORD!