32 Weeks Gestation

Lincoln is now 8 weeks old and 32 weeks gestation.  He's about 3.5 pounds - I should have looked that up today!  He is doing really well on his binasal IMV.  Dr. Mintzer says immunizations start in TWO days!  I spoke with his nurse Heather today, and she said we can spread them out, just let nurses know.  I have no problem with him being immunized, but I'd rather he take his time getting them, rather than getting them all in one fell swoop.  Now that Lincoln is extubated, he's much easier to get out to cuddle.  Daddy and I both get to hold pretty much whenever!  He cried today and I caught it on video.  This is the third day we can hear him, but the first two days it was so soft we could barely tell.

Yesterday I went to my endocrinologist appointment.  It was a follow-up since I had had gestational diabetes.  Dr. Miller was not concerned about my numbers told me to stop testing.  I do have to go for one final round of blood work to check my A1C.  That will tell us if my diabetes went away this time or not.  While I was there, I mentioned that my hair is falling out (remember from my hair appointment last week?).  He kind of poo-poo'ed it, and I said I knew it wasn't from the pregnancy yet.  He asked how I knew that.  I replied that with my other two pregnancies my hair had been amazing, then at pretty much 3 months to the day postpartum it had begun falling out like crazy along my hairline.  He agreed that that was normal for post pregnancy.  I said this time it is different.  I predicted that we were having a boy, because my hair was so different this time - very thin, very fragile, etc.  The prenatal vitamins didn't seem to help either.  As I was speaking to Dr. Miller, he was typing the entire time.  So he asked me to show him where I was losing my hair.  I showed him the spot on top of my head.  He said aloud as he typed, "Not FOS."  I asked what FOS stood for, he said Full of Shit.  He said a lot of women come in complaining of losing hair, but its due to post-pregnancy or thinning hair as you age.  This was neither of those.

Dr. Miller told me I have Alopecia Areata, an autoimmune disease.  He told me to see a dermatologist right away (I have an appt for Monday morning.)  Essentially, my white blood cells see my healthy hair follicles as unhealthy and attack.  So I have four bald patches the size of half dollar coins.  I'm doing a terrible Donald Trump comb-over to hide them.  The good news is they can grow back, the bad news is they can NOT grow back and more hair can fall out.  I'll know more after my appointment with the dermatologist.  I don't know if there is medication I can take, but I do know they can try to speed up the regrowth with steroid shots.  This couldn't have come at a worse time.  I have enough to deal with, and now this on top of it.  It's very frustrating, embarrassing, and I want the universe to go a little easy on me right now!