Posts Tagged ‘risk’
Wednesday Hero
This Weeks Soldier Was Suggested By Echo9er


On August 11, 2004, Navel Hospitalman Luis E. Fonseca, Jr. was awarded the Navy’s second highest decoration. The Navy Cross, which is awarded for extraordinary heroism while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States and must be performed in the presence of great danger or at great personal risk, was awarded for his actions while serving with Amphibious Assault Vehicle Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, Task Force Tarawa, II Marine Expeditionary Force.
On March 23, 2004, Fonseca, Jr.’s unit were trying to take the Saddam Canal Bridge. Five Marines were injured when their vehicle was hit by an RPG. Fonseca, while still being fired upon by machine guns and RPG’s, pulled the Marines to safety and established a casualty collection unit inside his own medical evacuation vehicle. After his vehicle was hit once again, Fonseca organized litter teams and directed the movement of four of the Marines, while personally carrying one wounded Marine over open ground to another vehicle. On November 15, 2004, Seaman Fonseca was awarded the “Grateful Nation Award” from the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs for his actions.
“I was doing my job,” said Fonseca. “I wish I could have done more.”
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. If you would like to participate in honoring the brave men and women who serve this great country, you can find out how by going here.
23 weeks pregnant
Taken from Babycenter.com:
Your baby is more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound. He may be able to feel your movements now, so put on some fun tunes and dance around the house. No matter what race your baby is, his skin is red and wrinkled at this stage and will likely look pink or reddish at birth. Blood vessels that show through your baby’s transparent skin cause this coloration. His true skin tone will develop over the course of his first year.Blood vessels in your baby’s lungs are developing to prepare him for breathing, but complete lung development will take many more months. The lungs are the last organ to fully develop in babies. That’s why premature babies (those born before 37 weeks) often have such a hard time breathing. Babies born this week have a chance of surviving with the help of intensive medical care, but their risk of serious complications is very high.
Positive Triple Screen Test
I discussed this somewhat on my other blog, but I figured I’d talk about it here too. Whenever I figure out how to combine both blogs, this may end up being a double post, but what ya gonna do. Let me give you a bit of history for those of you who do not know me.
I use to be on Depo Provera. When I went off of it to try and get pregnant, I was under the assumption that it would take up to 18 months to get my cycle back. I had a kidney stone and when they did a CT scan (at least, that is what I think it was) I went a new OBGYN and he told me I was wrong about the Depo and ran a bunch of tests. He first told me that I had premature ovarian failure. Then when my test results did not come back to confirm that, I had polycyctic ovarian sydrome. He then started me on hormone replacement therapy. It made me sicker than I have ever been before. Then he wouldn’t return my call when I complained about it. I decided to go to another OBGYN and get a second opinion. Guess what? It takes up to 18 months for Depo to get out of your system. My cycle returned about 18 months after going off of it. I think it still took us another 6 months to get pregnant with Madison.
Getting pregnant with Madison was the easy (and fun) part. What was next to come wasn’t. I ended up in preterm labor with her 6 times (4 times it was stopped with medicine). One of my many visits was Christmas Eve. I ended up with 6 ultrasounds on the kid. On the 5th ultrasound, her waist was measuring short, so we had to get another one. They thought she had IUGR. Of course, after 5 ultrasounds, she was stubborn and would not show us if she was a boy or girl. On #6, she was cooperative. We found out she was a girl and that her waist was measuring fine. The funny part of this story is that she is most long waisted kid you will ever see now. At 2 years old, I had her in 4T shirts because otherwise they were too short.
Fast-forward to now. Madison is now three. In July, I suffered a miscarriage at 5 weeks. It was devastating. We decided to try again and I am now 4 months pregnant with a due date of June 25. On Thursday night, we got a phone call from my OBGYN and are slowly seeing our world crashing in on us again. My triple screen came back high. What does that mean?
That means that I have a higher risk for having a baby with a nueral tube defect. We went on the internet and did a search on that term. What this usually means is spinal bifada or Anencephaly (this is the really bad one. This is fatal).
I also found out that there is a high false positive rate for this screening test. However, I keep going to the place where what about the people who aren’t false positives. What happens if we are one of those?
Here’s our plan of action. I already have a Level II ultrasound scheduled for Feb. 2nd. Before the ultrasound, we have to meet with a genetic counselor who will tell us our odds of how bad this is. Then we have the ultrasound. We should be able to tell from the ultrasound how bad it really is (or how good). However, if the baby does not present correctly, we may still not have an answer. We then need to decide if we want an amnoicentisis (sp?). They will do one immediately if we decide to do it then. If they fast track it, then we would have an answer by Tuesday. Otherwise, there is a 7 – 10 day wait for the results.
Needless to say, I am a wreck. Bill keeps telling me to think positive and I am finding it hard to do. I think the miscarriage has jaded me. I am trying not to go to all the dark bad places in my head, but it is hard. And the wait till Friday might kill me. So if I seem a bit bitchy or mad or sad, this is why.






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