It's complete!!

Feeling incredibly proud of myself and very accomplished tonight. My first baby hat is complete! Ta-da!

Relaxed

Nick finished his finals yesterday, so him and Makenna came over snoqualmie pass this afternoon and they will be on this side of the mountains until the 28th when he goes back to school. Now that Nick is done with school for the quarter and there isn't a snowy mountain pass between us I feel like a ton of stress has been lifted and I can finally relax. I was terrified that something would happen and baby would have to be born and Nick wouldn't make it here in time. Delivering a baby is terrifying enough, I couldn't imagine not having the man I love not there with me and being alone. Now that he will be less than an hour away at anytime I feel ok with baby arriving anytime now. I obviously would like her to keep cooking as long as possible but at least chances are that I won't be alone now.

It was fun having Nick and Makenna here with me for a little bit today. My day is always brightened when my family is here. I feel like my heart is whole again every time they are here. They left early this evening to go celebrate Nick's sister, Amie's 16th birthday! I can't believe she is 16 already! Happy Birthday Amie!

I started another knitting project. I am making a baby hat. I started it yesterday and since I have nothing better to do. It is almost done already. Even though it makes me sound like an old lady I love that I know how to knit now, and I am really enjoying it. It is nice to have learned a new skill. I also know that after this baby comes I won't have much time for knitting for a while so I might as well take advantage of my quiet, alone time and get some projects done.

Other than visitors, the most "exciting" thing that has happened today is that there was a power outage in the hospital. The power came back on fairly quickly but it took almost 2 hours for the ventilation system to be back up. It made my room feel super claustrophobic and hot not having any air moving. No bleeding, and only a few contractions today. It looks like I'll make my goal of 32 weeks tomorrow. :o)

Overwheled!

Today I am feeling completely overwhelmed by kindness. My wonderful friends from work put together this fabulous basket of goodies for me and my family over the last two weeks and Michelle and Babbi brought it to me today when they came for a visit! Ever since they left this afternoon, I have been filled with gratitude. There have been so many kind and wonderful things that our family and friends have been doing for my us the past 2 and half weeks.

There are a few other things in this picture that were sent from my family members to help keep me be better in the loop while I'm over here such as a laptop and a nook tablet. I am so thankful for all of the wonderful people that God has placed in my life. It is amazing to know how many people have been praying for my family and have pitched in to help in unimaginable ways. We are so blessed to have all of you in our lives!

Yesterday I relived history for the 5th time and was on magnesium all day for contractions and bleeding. The nurses were saying that they think I may have broken a record of some kind by being on mag 5 times in 16 days and still being undelivered. They think it's pretty incredible and I got to keep baby girl cooking one more day and that's all that matters. Today was uneventful and has been a wonderful day. Having company all weekend has really helped keep my spirits up. Only 3 more days until I make it to my first goal of 32 weeks pregnant. :o)

Today's Update

Good evening! I have had a wonderful day today. Nick and Makenna came over this morning, and have been here most of the day. Nick's mom came from Gig Harbor a little bit ago to get Makenna and take her to their house for now the 3rd weekend in a row. I can't even begin to express how thankful I am that Makenna has somewhere familiar to go and somewhere that I know she will be loved and well taken care of on the weekends while I'm in the hospital and Nick is here with me. Not to mention she LOVES being there. Makenna has had so much fun especially with Nick's younger siblings Amie (16 next week) and Taylor (12). When I told her earlier today that Grandma Sherrie was coming to pick her up later she asked "And Tay-yer too?" From what Sherrie says they are having a lot of fun with Makenna to.

Medically things today have been fairly quiet. I was contracting every 6 minutes with irritability in between during my non-stress test this morning which made the Dr's talk about hanging IV fluids and the dreaded magnesium again as a precaution if I was going to deliver today. Because the contractions weren't painful and I kind of begged them to give me a little bit longer to see if this was really labor before starting all of the dreaded stuff, my uterus actually behaved for once and they didn't have to start the mag! Hooray! It's the little victories. :o) I don't think I mentioned in my blog from Wednesday that the Dr's have decided that if I go into labor again they aren't going to go to drastic measures to stop my labor. If I start contracting uncomfortably, and contractions are regular they are going to hang IV fluids and the Mag at a very low dose (for baby's brain development) and sometimes that will slow things down but if I continue to contract they are going to just let me deliver.

Yesterday the doctor's and I had a little pow wow and I was told that because I have not gone one day without bleeding for over 2 weeks now that I have what they call a chronic placenta abruption. That basically means it will never heal like they hoped it would. Because it won't heal, it makes my condition even more high risk for hemorrhage, loss of placental function that could lead to fetal intolerance, growth restriction and even fetal death. Due to the intensified risk of these complications, they have made it clear that I will definitely not be going back to Ellensburg at any point of my pregnancy and that IF I make it to 35 weeks I will be delivered at that point. They are still hoping that I will hold out until next Wednesday when I'm 32 weeks before delivering but they aren't confident at how many more days baby will tolerate being in-utero. With my now 3rd round of preterm labor under my belt they aren't sure how long my uterus is going to keep baby cooking either. Having the small amount of medical knowledge I do, I knew in the back of my mind what the risks were but I was in denial that I could potentially loose my baby. Having someone actually tell me flat out the risks are with zero sugar coating it really hit me yesterday. With all of these things being said, please continue to pray and send positive energy our way. It has been working so far and I am really feeling that we need them more than ever. Love to all!

Still Pregnant!

I'm sorry I haven't updated today. I'll post more tomorrow but my update today is I'm happily still pregnant and had a very uneventful day. :o)

You Get What you Ask For...

Yesterday I complained about being bored and well today was anything but boring! This morning around 3am I woke up with lower back pain. Thinking that I just need to change positions I tossed and turned a while and then finally got out of bed to use the bathroom and guess what I saw? Blood... After taking a minute to wake up I realized that my back pain was coming and going and my belly was tightening. Once again I was bleeding, contracting and the magnesium sulfate was started for the 4th time now. It felt a little like dejavo. Luckily so far, my contractions have responded very well to the dreaded "mag" and they have stopped almost completely. Once again baby girl looked like a rock star on the monitor and I am now back to having a "stable" amount of bleeding and no longer considered a labor patient. I'm starting to feel like the boy who cried wolf. Being so far away from family and not always knowing if this is it or not, I have Nick and my mom pack bags just in case and have a babysitter on standby and then things calm down. I guess it will happen on the day that I don't have any of those things in place.

This morning when all of this started they did a quick ultrasound to check the position of baby and guess what? She is actually head down! Because she is now head down the doctors are giving me the option of having a vaginal birth after cesarian delivery (VBAC) and they are encouraging me to at least give it a try. Having a VBAC was never something I had even thought about during this pregnancy and I was ok with that. I was ok with my scheduled c-section day, and getting to work until just a couple of days before that date. It was all planned and that sounded great to my slightly OCD need-to-have-a-plan-for-everything personality. Now that I am at a bigger hosptial that handles high risk deliveries routinely, I have the option of having one here. Nothing else about this last trimester of pregnancy has turned out how I thought, so why not just keep going with the flow and at least give it a try when I go into labor? If it doesn't work out, I'll just get the repeat c-section I was planning on.

Today my sweet friend Stacey came to visit and kept me company for a while and then my wonderful mom came to be with me for the afternoon also. I'm so thankful they came to be with me. Even though things had slowed down it was still nice to have someone here with me while my drama was happening. I'm 31 weeks today and as of tomorrow morning I have made it two weeks! Hopefully we can hang on another week, but I'll take days and even hours at this point. It all counts. I'm feeling pretty accomplished to have made it two weeks. Here's to more bored and pregnant days. Cheers!

Just Keep Swimming

So my update for today is medically I'm exactly the same. Still lightly bleeding and still pregnant. :o) I thought it might be fun to document how I get through my days here.

Today my time was spent catching up on celebrity gossip, painting my nails, working on my scarf, grey's anatomy marathon, talking on the phone and facetiming my family, checking Facebook 900+ times and playing family feud and bejeweled on my iPhone.

Isn't hospital bed rest exciting? It wasn't so bad the first couple of days but now that I'm rounding the corner to day 13 it's getting a little old. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

Sigh, I wonder if tomorrow will be as fun?