Take A Deep Breath: A Liam Update

When Ciaran is angry, he's learning to "take a deep bref, squeeze your hands togever, and count to ten to calm down". It's not working for him so well. He'd rather throw something (hey, who wouldn't) but he likes to tell his Dad and me to do it if he thinks we're upset about anything.

I think I might need to take his advice a bit more. Especially where Liam is concerned.

I had another appointment with the Perinatologist yesterday morning. They did another ultrasound to measure growth and to check on his encephalocele. There's good news.

His encephalocele hasn't grown. It actually looked smaller to me, but I think that's just because his head is getting bigger.

Liam 28 weeks 3 days

The ventricles in his brain aren't getting any bigger. They're still at the fuller end of normal. That is awesome. It means there's no obstruction to the cerebrospinal fluid. And the doctor said if it hasn't developed yet, she's optimistic that it won't.

Apparently if his ventricles had continued to get larger, they would start talking about intentionally delivering him early to put a shunt in his brain so that he wouldn't get hydrocephalus. Can I say what a huge relief it is to hear that isn't the plan at this point?

The rest of him is growing beautifully. If they take his head into account, he measures a touch behind. But that's not really accurate because his head is being compressed a bit by the 'Cele and they don't really know how much to measure. If they only take into account the rest of him, he measures ahead, which makes more sense to me since they have my due date wrong. They have me due the 30th which A) doesn't work with when I ovulated and B) was determined by a second trimester scan which took into account his head. It kind of annoys me a bit because if he comes early, I'd like them to know he's not as early as they think.

Liam already has his lips like Brennan and he just loves having his hands up by his face.

My next appointment is in two weeks, and I'm grateful. I think it will be good for my nerves to have nice regular peeks inside to see that he's doing well. As always, I'm so appreciative of all the good thoughts, energy, and prayers people have been sending our way.

Oh! And I passed my fasting glucose. Which means no one is forbidding me to eat ice cream. I've had a 40 pound weight gain. Someone please take the ice cream away from me!