The waiting game is tough

I know that some of you who are following along are wondering what in the heck is going on?!?!  Well, so are we.

Like my previous post said, I started having contractions about 8pm on Thursday the 15th.  Went into the Birth Care Center only to find out that I am not dilated at all yet and so its hard to know whats going to happen.  Over the weekend the contractions got somewhat stronger and of course this caused the Kaufman's to panic a little bit.  And, me too, honestly.  I did not want to be responsible for them missing this birth!  They are so far away, its not an easy trip to get from Portland all the way to small little Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  After several days of consistent contractions, many conversations with friends and family, and some sleepless nights worrying, the Kaufmans decided to hop on a plane and come to Iowa.  When they first told me that plane tickets were booked, my heart sank a little bit.  What if this is just a false alarm?  What if he really isn't coming?  Now they will be stuck here in Iowa for several weeks and I will feel terrible!  Well, as I have learned over the past several days is that the human body has a mind of its own and it really is impossible to try to predict what will happen.  And I really didn't need the pressure of trying to tell them the perfect time to come.
As soon as they landed in Iowa, I had a sense of relief.  They are here now.  No more stress trying to decide to tell them when to come, based on how I am feeling.

The last few days have been... interesting.  ;)  First of all, its been so great to get this time with the Kaufman family.  Our 4 kids are just loving every second together and can't get enough!  This is time we wouldn't have had if we would have went with the normal plan of the c-section on Nov 13.  We would have had 1 day before the baby arrived and the girls would have only been here for a few short days.  This bonding, together time, has been really awesome.  And my boys getting to know the Kaufman family has really pulled it full circle.  They now understand who Baby K's family is!
Here is a photo of Kellie & Chris' girls when they had just hopped off the plane... Go Hawks!  :)

We had to put a goodie basket together and in their hotel room for a warm welcome to Iowa!

Here is day 1, Kenley feeling her baby brother!  

And Kellie getting to feel what a contraction feels like from the outside

We've tried to keep busy because at this point, there is no reason to just lay in bed and try to stop anything from happening.  Drs and nurses all say that Baby K will be just fine if he decides to come at this point.  So, Kellie and I have hit up the spa, went out to dinner with some girlfriends & of course, attended a few Doctors appointments.

 Spa time ^^

Some yummy fruit sent by a friend, Megan Baker!! So thoughtful and delicious!! ^

After dinner, with girlfriends!  

In the waiting room for baby K's NST (non stress test) that he passed with flying colors this week!

And a few photos of the men.  They've really had a blast together this week.  They've golfed twice and at one point had 9 kids and 4 laid back dads over watching football while the girls were out at dinner.  Chaos but they handled it awesome!

Steven, Chris, my dad and a friend Landon ^


Now, the real update on WHAT is going on!!!  Every day I seem to get stronger and stronger contractions.  Since last Thursday I haven't had more than an hour without any contractions at all. some nights I sleep thru them and sometimes they wake me up.  My doctor said it would appear early labor has started.  And, at this point, they wouldn't try to stop it from happening.  However, I am supposed to be a scheduled C-section, due to my twin pregnancy with my boys.  So, If I were to start to dilate, they would want to get me to an OR to get the baby out, or I risk going into active labor and trying for a VBac.  I've had two doctors now tell me that my pelvis most likely couldn't deliver a baby.  My mom had the same problem.  And with this being a surrogacy and my mindset has been C-section the entire pregnancy, I would love to stick with the plan.  If something changes and we have to try for a VBac, I am in no way against it.
On Tuesday I went and saw my doctor and she checked my cervix and said it was STILL closed.  No dilating and that baby's position was still high.  He hasn't moved down yet.  However, she said that can still all change in a short amount of time.  Since I have never labored before, its hard to tell me what to expect as far as what will be the difference and make something change.  My doctor said that I might end up making several trips into the hospital to see if I've made progress because they would prefer that, then for me to ignore it all and end up having a baby at home.
Yesterday at lunch I started having quite a lot of pain just as we sat there and ate.  Contractions were happening (as they always are) and there seemed to be more pain behind them than normal.  I mentioned something to Kellie and later that afternoon I decided to track them a little to see their pattern.  They were about 7-8 minutes apart and all pretty strong.  Some had pain with them and some just the tightness.
After about 3 hours of those, they seemed to fizzle out a little bit.  Then around 6pm they started back up.  Seemed to be stronger and this time back pain had started with them, along with overall cramping and discomfort.  We ate dinner and just continued the evening.  Around 9pm is when it all seemed to change.  Back pain was much more achy and painful than before, cramping had increased and my contractions were about 5-6 minutes apart and each one was VERY strong.  My mom is an OBGYN nurse and she was over at the house and was feeling the contractions on the outside.  She said she felt like these were the strongest yet and she couldn't imagine these weren't the real deal.  My belly would feel like a hard pumpkin during a contraction.  Absolutely as tight as possible!  Every few contractions would make me feel like I wanted to breathe thru it.  They continued until about 10:30pm and then we decided to just head to the hospital to see if these few days had changed anything at this point.  I knew my OB Dr was on-call, so I thought it was perfect timing since she was the last one who checked my cervix and would know for sure if anything had changed.
The answer?  NO.  No change.  Ugh.  Today I am 36 weeks so we are soooooo glad we have made it this far!  I think the most frustrating part is just having no idea what to expect and what is going to happen!  I just cannot imagine that this can continue for 3 more weeks.  I have a pretty high pain tolerance and some of these contractions take my breath away.  I will be exhausted and SO uncomfortable if this goes on for that much longer.
So, at this point we just keep waiting.  The Drs and Nurses have all reassured me that I did the right thing by coming into the hospital because everyone is different and there is no way to know if the contractions are doing anything.   Always better safe than sorry.
Kellie and Chris have continued to say that they are glad they are here with us.  That the stress of being far away was too much and although they might have an extended vacation here in Iowa, it will be worth it.  That is such a huge relief because this is what I was worried of.  They would get here and then nothing would happen.  But, again, there is still quite a bit of action happening and changes daily so anything can happen!  No one knows.
It's been hard to update you all without a clearer picture of what is going on.  We don't know much and baby K seems to make the rules.  So, we appreciate the prayers and thoughts that you've all sent to us.  Much support has been felt and received and we are grateful for all of it!
We will keep you informed as things happen.  Thank you for reading!

-Kenz

Baby K attempts an early arrival

Okay, this is going to be strictly an update for those of you who are following along... or trying to!  haha.  I know we have made some Facebook posts over the last few days updating you on Baby K and how things are going.  So, I thought it might be helpful to put all the pieces of the puzzle together in case you were wondering ;)

First off, I had my first NST (non-stress test) on Wednesday at my OB office.  The nurse told me that they would watch baby for 20 minutes on the monitor and be sure he raises his heart rate at least 15 beats for at least 15 seconds and they wanted him to do this twice.  This just shows that he deals with stress okay.  If he doesn't do this within 20 minutes they can continue up to 40 minutes to be sure he passes this test and the test is called "reactive".  IF he doesn't do this within 40 minutes, its called non-reactive, and basically it means he failed.  And then I would be sent over to have an ultrasound and a Bio Physical Profile.
So, his baseline heart rate was right around 140 beats, which is perfect.  After about 15 minutes he wasn't raising his heart rate on his own so the nurse did some different things to try to get him to get excited and accelerate his heart rate. She had this little vibrating device that at first almost seemed like tickled him! He moved right away and his heart rate started increasing.  However, he got very board of it fast.  haha.  As the next 40 minutes went on, nothing was phasing him :(  She was having me lay on my other side, push on my belly and anything she could think of to get him to accerlate his heart rate.  After about an hour my OB dr looked at the monitor and decided she felt it was non-reactive and she sent me over to ultrasound.  Of course the nurse said this was the first time it had ever happened to her.  Darn it!!!  I broke her perfect record! haha.  And, it also worried me that something was wrong.
Luckily, the ultrasound went beautifully!  Baby K looked great and he passed the BPP (bio physical profile with flying colors)!  They watch the baby in ultrasound and he gets 'points' for doing different things.  8 points are possible and he got all 8!  Wahoo! Such a relief.  He was measuring 36 weeks 2 days, so just a little over a week bigger than my gestation.  He was 6 pounds 2 ounces according to the ultrasound so he's definitely a growin'!
Okay, so fast forward to Thursday night.  Around 8pm that evening I started noticing I was having some contractions.  I pretty much ignored them because on Saturday and Sunday last weekend I had a lot of braxton hicks but they were all over the place, no rhyme or reason and not timeable.  So, I assumed this was the same thing happening.
But, I was laying watching tv at about 10:30 when I said to Steven "gosh, these contractions seem to be kind of regular.  I feel like I am having a lot of them.  And I have some back pain with them which is new."
So at 10:40 I started timing them.  By midnight I had 13 contractions and several of them came with mild cramping and back pain.  hmmmmm... interesting.  I decided to go to sleep and see how I felt in the morning.  From 12-2:30 I tossed and turned and had several strong contractions that actually woke me up. Not overly painful but just enough to make me realize them while sleeping.  So at 2:30 I got out of bed and moved to the couch to time the contractions again.  Same thing happened as earlier, they were frequent and some of them strong.  They were consistently about every 6-7 minutes.  From everything I read about and have heard from friends about braxton hicks, this seemed different.  At 4am I got in the shower and then called down to the hospital to speak to the on-call Dr.  I told her what was going on and she told me I needed to come in and be seen.

I got to the hospital about 5am and was hooked up to the monitors.  After about 10 minutes the nurse told me that I had already had 4 contractions.  Whoa!  She kept saying "you are definitely contracting on here!!"  She went ahead and checked my cervix and it was still closed!  Wahoo.  This means that I was not dialated at all.  However, it makes it more confusing.  Because according to my contractions and the way I was feeling, it seemed as though I was in labor; but my cervix said otherwise.
So, the nurse gave me a dose of terbutaline to stop the contractions and calm my uterus down and told me to head home.  However, told me to come back if they come back any stronger or more frequently because anything could change at this point.
I went home around 8am and was feeling good.  Ate some breakfast and then went to sleep since I had only slept a few hours the night before.  I woke up around 12:30 and ate some lunch and was still feeling great!  I thought for sure we were out of the woods and it was just false labor after all.
However, around 3pm I got some strong contractions again.  After that the frequency picked up and we were right back to where I was the night before.  I had rested all day, drank as much water as possible, and tried as hard as I could to relax my mind and be stress free. I had 1 hour where they were completely gone and we were all hopeful that was it for the night.  But, unfortunately Baby K likes for it to be known that he is in charge!! ;)
Contractions came back.  I kept timing the contractions and they seemed to be no less than 4-5 an hour and some hours went all the way up to 8-9 that hour.  Most of them were mild with no pain.  But later in the evening the back pain and cramping came back.  Darn it!!  So after debating and debating on if I should go back to the hospital, I decided to try to go to sleep again.  I fell asleep around midnight and I woke up at 7am!!! Hallelujah!!  I remember waking up 1 time in the middle of the night because of a strong contraction. Other than that I didn't feel all the mild ones that were most likely happening.
This morning everything was calm and quiet until about 9am.  Now, they are back.  6 in an hour so far and 1 was very strong (slight pain with it).  So.... we wait.
I plan to relax all day and just see how things play out.  At this point its extremely hard to tell if this is early stages of labor or if baby K is playing jokes on us with false labor.  I tend to feel its not false labor at this point since its been SO consistent and nothing has really been able to stop it.
I've been taking baths and that is hit or miss on if it helps. One bath was a miracle worker and helped a ton and then the next bath I had several contractions during.  After this I am getting in the bath again.  So, we'll see.

So... if this was just a regular pregnancy of my own, I would never in a million years be updating everyone with all this.  Because I would just deal with it and see what happens and if I go into labor, then so be it.  BUT.... Kellie and Chris being thousands of miles away is throwing such a huge wrench into all of this!  Poor Kellie just miserable not knowing what to do.  She wants to be here but I hate for her to come all this way if this ends up just being a false alarm.  Kellie is currently in Destin, FL on a girls trip so its also kind of a difficult trip to get from there to here in any sort of hurry.  Chris is in Portland, which is still far away, but they have red eye flights and many other flight options so him getting here quickly won't be quite such a fiasco.
And, I just wish I had a gut instinct to tell them.  I wish I knew this was it so I could say "yes, hop on a plane and get here!" or "No, this isn't it.  Hang tight and we will have you come when its time."  But I truly am SO confused.
At this point, there is 2 flights later this afternoon and early evening that Kellie could get on.  So, we are going to keep waiting it out and if anything becomes more regular or painful, Kellie has decided she might just come.
I spoke to another friend last night who has been a surrogate also and who is also a nurse practitioner (giving me some advice) and she said "Kellie probably will never mind if she ends up coming and its a false alarm.  Yes, she will be out the cost of a plane ticket but I bet she will prefer that over not coming and missing it.  So just keep that in mind."  That made me feel better and she's so right.  It's SO amazing that Kellie and Chris both work from home and so this doesn't throw a huge curveball into that.  They can come when they need to, which is awesome.  And of course, I work from home too, so this isn't interfering with much for me either.
So... for now... thats the update.  Sigh.  We know that they will not stop active labor at 35 weeks gestation because baby's usually do just fine.  However, if you know me, you know I am a HUGE advocate for full term.  My twins were born at 27 weeks gestation.  And yes, I know thats a very big difference between 35 weeks but still.  I fully believe babies need that full 39-40 weeks!  So, I would love if we still had a few weeks left to let him bake.  But, at this point, its out of my control and whats going to be, will be!  I know without a doubt, he will be perfect whenever he decides to make his appearance.
Send some love to the Kaufmans.  I know they are stressed.  I know they want some clarity on what to do and I wish I had that for them.  We will keep you updated as we have some updates.  For now, we just wait it out and see what Baby Kaufman plans to do.  He is just SO excited to meet his Mommy, Daddy and sisters!  I don't blame them... they are all pretty awesome ;)

Happy Saturday.

-Kenz

Why?? .... The question she didn't want to have to explain...

An entry from Kellie: 

So many people have asked WHY I can't carry a baby for myself. I would be lying if I said that doesn't sting each time. I've learned in this experience to never ask a woman more than she is offering to tell when it comes to infertility. So although I wanted this blog entry to be about #BabyKaufman, I feel like I needed to start here for now. 

4 years ago, we let out the biggest sigh of relief when our little peanut we fought for since 12 weeks was born, breathing and overall healthy. Although she was earlier than we would've hoped, she was perfect. 

At our very first ultrasound with Kenley, we were told I had a complete placenta previa. The placenta was completely covering my cervix and was very unlikely to move out of the way. This complication can go without any issues or can be life threatening for mom and/or baby without much in between. Immediately some lifestyle changes had to take place. For the next 3 months, we didn't have any major issues along the way and all was smooth sailing. 

At 26 weeks, I woke up, as normal, with Campbell Lynn and went in to go to the bathroom (all us moms know you are basically dying to pee each morning) and everything changed. I immediately knew something was wrong but had a sweet 19 month old baby girl looking straight at me. I was bleeding out. I asked Campbell, very calmly, if she could go get my phone for me. She quickly did exactly that. I called Chris, who luckily at the time worked 5 minutes away and told him "it was happening." 

Chris raced home and got me to the ER where we found out I was having contractions I wasn't feeling which caused my placenta to abrupt. They said we were going to have this baby today. I was terrified. We had no name. No nursery. There were so many things I planned to do with Campbell before her sister came. So much more time I needed with just her. When I asked them what to expect with her at this gestation, they said "all we can say is she will be viable." That was the worst moment of my life. 

Luckily, after two rounds of magnesium (hell on earth) and 5 days in the hospital, my doctor was able to control my contractions and stop all bleeding. I was sent home on STRICT bed rest (to the bathroom and back) for the remainder of my pregnancy. After a few weekly checkups, my doctor decided the risk of keeping me pregnant was much higher than the risk of delivering her early. I was told I would've had around 3 min to get to a hospital had I ruptured again before completely bleeding out. 

Here comes the tough part... At my last appointment, my doctor asked about our future plans for children. In that moment, I confidently said we were done. Who wouldn't after all of that?! She instantly looked relieved. She informed us that she would HIGHLY recommend me never carrying a child again. The risk was too high. She couldn't make me do it but I would be risking my girls never having a mom to watch them grow up if I decided to do otherwise. There was too much damage. The odds were against us. In that moment, we agreed on me having a tubal during my c-section and I was confident in that choice. 

On September 27, 2011, we went into the OR with a blood bank ready to go and welcomed our miracle baby Kenley Jae. During my c-section, my doctor let out a gasp and said I had the largest blood vessels she had ever seen. That was a scary thought for someone with my condition. After it was all done, tubal and all, I held Kenley for the first time. She was perfection. That day was the beginning of our journey as a family of 4 and also a day that begin our journey to #BabyKaufman.