Back to UCSF...but for good reasons!

Today Cole got a chance to return to the place of his birth, UCSF. Or, more precisely, the place across the street from the hospital where he was born - the UCSF obstetrics clinic, where mom spent many a Friday being viewed and probed and prodded in order to keep him inside about 16 weeks longer than he apparently wanted.

Most importantly, he got to visit with our great doctor, Anjali Kaimal.

We feel so lucky to have found her as an OB while we went through this difficult pregnancy! And Cole took a liking to her right away - not surprising since she's the first face he saw when he was born into the world - and since she's a huge part of the reason he was born so happy and healthy all the way out at 35 weeks and 6 days.

While we're at it, there are at least three other people at UCSF who share the credit for the happy ending of it all:

Dr. Russell Laros, who decided we should go ahead with the surgery at 21 weeks (Labor Day weekend), despite the fact that others in the hospital thought I was too far along in the process of miscarrying to even try...

Dr. Mari-Paule Thiet, who actually placed the cerclage - doing so successfully despite what apparently were pretty long odds given what things looked like when she got in there...

Cathy Gleason, the ultrasound technician who noticed that my cervix was effacing slightly at my routine ultrasound visit on August 17th - only 18 weeks and 6 days along - the day my infamous bedrest started...

And so many more people who interacted with us and helped us along the way.

We feel so lucky to have had the wonderful people of UCSF working to help us through to the very end! Thanks to all of you.

p.s. - we might have gotten Cathy's last name wrong - if we did, sorry! :)