Life On the Couch.

Well, it looks like I will be living on the couch at least for the next couple of weeks. We had a very frustrating and scary weekend which ended with my being discharged from the hospital on bedrest until 34 weeks. I am allowed to get up to take a 15-minute shower and to go to the bathroom, and that's pretty much it. Which sounds like it would be fabulous, but in reality gets very old after about the first 15 minutes, especially when you have a mile-long to-do list you are itching to knock out before your baby gets here! Which, with any luck, will be later rather than sooner, especially if I stick to my bedrest. *sigh

Thankfully, my mom is here to help and is trying to get some of the items on my list scratched off before she takes the kiddos down to Mena for an extended stay at Camp Garner and Papa while I continue my couch bonding. We considered having her stay here, but if you could see the kids buzzing around me like little bees and Norah climbing all over me like I am a human jungle gym, you would see that perhaps even bedrest is not all that restful when my 3 kiddos are involved! : )

I will miss them, though, and I am just hoping the 2 weeks will go by really, really fast. I worry that little Norah will forget me, and then when she gets back, either the baby will already be here or will be coming any time, and then things will be even more topsy-turvy for her. Poor sweet girl. I hope she does okay with all of it.

Anyway, back to this weekend, in which pretty much everything went exactly the opposite of what we were wanting, with the notable exception of the fact that Shiloh is still inside me! On Thursday night, my friend Elizabeth was FINALLY in the hospital having her baby. She was overdue and had been desperate to get that sweet little girl out of her for a good couple of weeks, so when we heard it was time to push, we all headed up to the hosptial in Rogers to be there to get an early peek at baby Emmy. Unfortunately, once we got there, we found out that the pushing was not going so great, and they thought it was going to be a while. After hanging around for a bit in the waiting room and with Norah and a massive entourage of Elizabeth's family and friends, Jason and I decided we would head on home and come back in the morning to see the baby, who ended up arriving by c section after 26 1/2 hours of labor for poor Elizabeth. After all that, she wouldn't fit! It seems like babies pretty much have a mind of their own about how and when they are going to get here. Speaking of which...

That night, I had a hard time getting to sleep because I noticed that the baby didn't seem to be moving very much. I finally fell asleep at around midnight 2 kicks and 30 minutes into a kick count. I woke up at 6 a.m., still worried about the baby. I was having some contractions, which were getting a bit uncomfortable, but I decided they were probably fine and headed downstairs to eat some breakfast and lie down to try another kick count. I ate some yummy zucchini bread from Allison (thank you!) and drank some milk, then laid down on the couch to see if he would wake up for me. He did, at least somewhat, and we finished the kick count in about an hour. Granted, it usually only takes about 5-10 minutes, but I decided this was acceptable. Unfortunately, while I laid there, I noticed that I was also having several uncomfortable contractions in a row, so I figured I would go take a nice, warm bath to relax. I soaked in the tub and read for a while, then after drying off, I noticed I was having some spotting. (Sorry if that's TMI, but it is a key part of what goes down, so oh well!)

Well, since I was planning on going up to the hospital to visit Emmy anyway, and my clinic happens to be attached to the hospital, I decided I might as well go in and have them take a peek at me while I was up there so that they could tell me I was just fine and I wouldn't have to worry. So at 9:30, Jason and Norah and I made our way up to Rogers with plans of a brief and reassuring doctor's visit followed by some cuddling with a sweet little newborn baby girl and probably a stop off at Wal-Mart to continue my registry tour.

Unfortunately, that's not exactly how the day went down.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional, and all of the following descriptions of tests and stuff are told according to the best of my recollection and with the best of my understanding. Which may not always be totally accurate, so if you know better than I do, feel free to correct me! I was pretty drugged up for a lot of this anyway, so this description is the best I could do!

Anyway...

I got to the doctor's office and they decided to do a non-stress test on the baby and a fetal fibronectin test on me. The stress test would make sure that they baby was still doing okay in there, and the fetal fibronectin test would hopefully provide us with a little reassurance. If it came back negative, that would mean that there was a 99.8% chance that I would not go into labor in the next 2 weeks.

I had never had a non-stress test before, but I decided right away that it would make me feel better, because it involved hooking me up to a contraction and fetal heart rate monitor and having me push a little button whenever the baby moved, and then somebody that knew what they were doing would look at the strip and make sure Shiloh was doing okay. That was what I really wanted to know, so I was on board. Shiloh was pretty awake while I was doing it, so despite my continued contractions, I was fairly confident that we would pass the non-stress test with flying colors and then I would feel much better about the way things were going so that we could head on over to see baby Emmy without a cloud of worry hanging over our heads.

Unfortunately, they came and interrupted my test after just a few minutes and said they wanted me to go over to the hospital for observation and a shot of terbutaline because of the contractions. Well, I was not too thrilled about this. Going to the hospital was not part of my plan for the day. After repeated assurances that it was probably fine and was just for observation, I headed over to the labor and delivery floor for a shot and some more monitoring while Jason and Norah went to the 2nd floor to check me in.

Everything that happened from here until about yesterday afternoon is a big blur in my head. First they hooked me up to a monitor and gave me a shot of terbutaline to try to get the contractions to stop. By this point, the contractions were about 7 minutes apart. When the shot still wasn't working after a while, they decided to check me and discovered that I was now a fingertip dilated, which also did not fit in with my plan for the day. Shortly after this, we got the results of the fetal fibronectin test in. We were all counting on this to be negative, and I'm afraid I did not react very well. When the doctor came in and said it was positive, I vaguely recall sitting up straight in the bed and saying something to the effect of "POSITIVE? It was supposed to be NEGATIVE." They tried to calm me down by assuring me that a positive result was not a guarantee that I was going to go into labor and only meant that I was at increased risk, but all I could think was that it was supposed to be negative.

At that point, everything started going really fast. They gave me a dose of steroids to try and help Shiloh's lungs mature and then started me on Magnesium Sulfate to try and stop the contractions. At some point they checked my cervix, and I had gone from long and thick and closed when I first arrived at the hospital to 30% effaced and 1 cm at some point along the way. Frustrating. They also discovered on the ultrasound that I apparently have too much amniotic fluid, which is probably making the contractions worse.

Eventually, with lots of IV fluids, the magnesium and some painkiller called Nubain, the contractions slowed down and eventually subsided. They kept me in the hospital for a couple of days, giving me another dose of the steroids and weaning me off of the magnesium to make sure the contractions would not come immediately back when I went off it.

They didn't come back, and on Sunday afternoon, they released me on the condition that I would stay on bedrest once I got home. So until 34 weeks, here I sit. The doctor said he was pretty sure I would make it to at least 32 weeks (which would be tomorrow), that I might make it to 33 weeks, and that it would be possible for me to get to 34 weeks, but he wouldn't count on it. I would very much like to fall in the "don't count on it" range of this estimate, so please pray with me that we get to AT LEAST 34 weeks.

I really, really, really don't want Shiloh to have to spend a long time in the NICU. It is heart-breaking to have to go home without your baby, and to have other people be in charge of him and tell you when you can see him and hold him and feed him. Also, if he gets here very soon, it will be so much harder on his little body. As long as he is in me, he gets to be relaxed and just grow and have an easy time of things, and once he is out, he will have a lot of work to do and have to have so many tubes and wires hooked up to him and have to get pricked with needles a bunch of times a day, which is no way to have to come into the world. The longer we can avoid him getting here, the better. So we need AT LEAST 2 more weeks. Please.

In the meantime, I am going to just sit here on the couch and try to get a better attitude. I have spent most of today feeling anxious and a little sorry for myself, which can't be helping things. Instead, I will take Jason's advice and try to focus on the things I am thankful for:

1. At least we made it this far. 32 weeks is much better than 26, 28 or 30 weeks.
2. Shiloh is nice and big for his age. He was estimated at 4 pounds, 10 ounces on Friday, which means that he will probably hit 5 pounds by this Thursday if all goes well. This is very good.
3. We live near great hospitals that have good NICUs.
4. I am stil pregnant, and my water isn't broken.
5. I have a wonderful safety net of family and friends who are here to help us get through this mess. I do not know what I would do without all of them.

So that's where we are now. On the couch, still pregnant, and trying to be thankful. I guess it could be a lot worse, so I should just count my blessings and try to enjoy my time of rest. It will probably be the last good rest I get for many years to come, so I'll try to just think of it as the world's most boring vacation. : )

Thanks for reading and for praying for us, and I'm sure I'll be blogging from the couch again at some point in the near future. What else do I have to do, after all?

Still here...

Well, it was a long weekend, but I am still pregnant. That is a very good thing! I will post more about this later when I have the energy, but for now, we are just thankful that little Shiloh is still safe and sound in my belly, right where he belongs. We really need him to stay in there for at least 2 more weeks, so if you think of it, you might just say a little prayer for him to stay put.

Now back to the couch, which is apparently my home until we hit 34 weeks! 16 days and counting...

A Weekend at the Zoo!

I hope everyone out there had a great 4th of July! We sure did! We ended up spending the weekend down in Mena with my parents, and to say that we had a full house would be an understatement! Their house has 4 bedrooms, and into those 4 bedrooms we managed to pack: my mom & dad, my sister Jamie, the 5 of us, my Aunt Nancy, my cousin Steve and his wife Jennifer and their 3 kids, a friend of their family's named "Bubba," their son's girlfriend, their Shih-Tsu and my parents' 3 cats and 2 dogs. *whew! Needless to say, beds and showers were quite the commodity, but with the camper set up in the yard and a rotating shower schedule, it actually all worked out just fine! It was great to get to visit with them, especially since we only get to see them about twice a year and they are so much fun to be around!

On the first day of their visit, it rained all morning but then cleared off enough for us to make our way to what turns out to be the world's creepiest and dirtiest zoo.





It was truly terrifying on so many levels! Every animal the guide tried to introduce us to was either poisonous, prone to biting or carried some form of disease. I fear this raccoon may have somehow possibly been all 3!





Our guide also acted like I was just crazy for not letting Autumn and Bear go into a cage to pet the mountain lion, which he claimed was "friendly." I had my doubts, and no amount of his or Autumn's protesting was going to budge me! I did, however, let them pet this suspicious-looking creature. Hmmm...





After that, we made our way through the many, many massive piles of poop back to the smelliest pig I have ever encountered, and then it was on to a giant alligator, which we had the dubious privilege of observing from a rotting, rickety dock just a few feet away.





The man brought over a dead rat to try to feed to the alligator, who was uninterested. Apparently determined to get something to eat a dead rat, he brought another one over (in his bare hands, mind you), and placed it on the dock to see if the owl that had perched itself over our heads might be interested.





Between the owl and the gator, I could not shake the feeling that we were being hunted. That, combined with the intermittent breeze that kept blowing the pig smell over our way along with occasional blasts of rotting fish stench from the otter cage was just too much for me to handle, so I held my breath and navigated the minefield of manure piles back to the exit and got the heck out of there! I just cannot describe to you how grossed out I was. Never again! Ick!





After our failed experiment in zoo-going, we drove the rest of the way up Rich Mountain to ride the train and do a little exploring. Much better! The only problem with this leg of the journey is that women who are seven and a half months pregnant apparently do not fit so well in tiny trains! : )





We made the best of it though!











Stay tuned for the adventures of Steve Williams the Snake Charmer, pictures of a pregnant lady in a bikini and finally... Fireworks!

For now, I am off to spend a little quality time with my good friend the couch. I'm feeling a little not so much today, and it's raining anyway, so I'm thinking it is a good time for some R&R!

J+J

Wishing a very happy first anniversary to my little sister Jamie and her hubby Joe. They're two of my favorite people, and I wish them many many happy years together! I can't believe it's already been a year since their beautiful beach wedding down in Florida... Click the picture below to check out their gallery!





Happy Anniversary guys! Thanks for all you do for us... We love you!

"30 Weeks!" or "Pop Goes the Belly Button!"

WARNING: MUCH-LONGER THAN ORIGINALLY INTENDED BLOG POST TO FOLLOW! (sorry!)

I can't believe I'm already 7 and a half months pregnant with baby Shiloh... It just seems surreal! I am 30 weeks and 3 days right now, and I was just 30 weeks and 5 days when I went into labor with Norah. We had to go by the mall today to pick up a suit for Bear to wear to a wedding next weekend, and I a combination of being exactly this pregnant and in exactly that spot gave me major flashbacks as we walked through the center court...

It always gives me the heebie-jeebies just a little as I walk past the Great American Cookie Company, because that is the exact spot where I was when my water broke with Norah. I had been having contractions all morning, but I had just been checked a couple of days before and told I was probably fine, so I figured it was just really bad Braxton Hicks or something until I was at the mall and everything started really going down. At first, just a little bit came out, and I thought that I had just had a little "accident." Norah had been down so low for several days that I needed to pee about every 10 seconds, and I just figured I had waited too long and she had kicked my bladder or something. I was embarrassed, and I didn't want Jason to know, so I decided to go to the bathroom and evaluate and see if I could manage to somehow get by without having to tell him. He was at the play place with Bear. It was Bear's birthday.

I made a beeline for the closest bathroom, the downstairs one in the men's Dillard's. It wasn't until I sat down that I realized what was happening. Water just kept coming and coming, and then I kind of panicked a little. I managed to find my phone, but it took me several tries to hit the right buttons to call Jason. I was shaking a lot and crying by now, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I had been feeling like something was very wrong for several days, but I had managed to talk myself into thinking that I was just being paranoid since the doctors kept saying that everything was probably fine. I wanted to believe them, so I did, but my water breaking was undeniable proof that things were not going as planned.

Jason came to pick me up at the Dillard's, and I tried to fashion a pad out of toilet paper and paper towels, but it was really no use. Liquid was gushing out of me, and the contractions were getting worse. I don't really remember walking to the car, but I remember getting to the hospital and begging them to please stop it because it was too soon. By the time we got there, I was already dilated to 3 and the contractions were about 5 minutes apart. They gave me steroids for Norah's lungs and magnesium sulfate to try to stop the contractions. At first it wasn't working, and when they checked and found that I was already almost to 4 centimeters, Dr. Cole ordered the epidural. Then, all of a sudden, the contractions started slowing down and then came to a stop. I was exhausted, burning up and numb from the magnesium, but I was very thankful, because I wanted the steroids to have a chance to work. We were all hoping that it would be at least 48 hours before labor started again so her lungs could get the full benefit of the medicines... Little did we know that I would lay there dilated to 4 with a broken water for 9 days before she would be born.

I guess I will continue this story at another time... It's a bit mentally exhausting to go through, and right now I need to go finish packing for our weekend of fun! But you can see why being at the mall today would give me a mild stress attack... I was very glad to get out of there in one piece, no labor in sight!

Speaking of no labor in sight, I had a checkup yesterday, and so far everything looks perfect! My cervix is still closed, Shiloh is up nice and high (I could have told him that from all the not being able to breathe and heartburn, but it didn't hurt to have the ultrasound confirm it!), and there is every indication that the progesterone shots are doing their job so far! I'm not a big fan of the several days of itching and soreness that come after each shot, but it is soooooo much better than being in the hospital having a preterm baby that I can't even tell you! We are past the very most dangerous part now, but if we could get to at least 34 weeks, we could probably avoid the NICU and our chances of breathing problems would go way down, so we are really praying that he stays put for AT LEAST another 3 and a half weeks. I feel very hopeful!

So that was a lot of typing to get to the pictures, but here they are! The ever-expanding belly at 30 weeks, complete with my newly "outie-ized" belly button!




And here is the progression of the baby belly so far:




We thought now might be a good time to try to get a picture of Norah giving the baby kisses, but she was too busy saying "Cheese!"




She loves to sit in my lap and point at my belly and say "Ba-bee, ba-bee, ba-bee" over and over. It's so cute!





When I got up, Norah decided it would be fun to play "Peek-A-Boo" for the camera. That girl cracks me up!





And not to be left out, Autumn hopped in front of the beauty dish for a quick headshot:




We are planning to do some maternity pictures with all 3 kids (and hopefully Jason as well!) some time in the next couple of weeks. It seems like this pregnancy is going so fast, especially now that we're close to the end. We better get on the ball or we'll miss our chance!

Oh, and while I'm at it, I guess I might as well post a quick shot of Bear in his new suit. He loves the thing, and claims he is going to wear it to school in the fall... I suspect I may have a little Alex P. Keaton on my hands! ; )





Well, was this a long enough post for you??? I guess I had a lot to say... Now, I better go pack or Jason is going to kill me! I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend! We are off to Mena for a nice long outdoor weekend with the family. Happy 4th of July! See you on Tuesday!

Yet another camp!

Autumn was really excited to attend the Gymnastics camp at the University of Arkansas earlier this week... It was held in the Bev Lewis Center, which has an impressive array of equipment that completely blew Autumn away! She hadn't really done much in the way of traditional gymnastics since she was about 4 years old, but she took to it like a duck to water. By the end, she was able to do a front handspring, a roundoff and a back walkover on the balance beam, and she managed to pull off a back layout on one of the trampolines!

She spent the week working in small groups with the Razorbacks gymnasts and coaches, and then they finished things off with a performance in Barnhill Arena. Each group of girls had come up with a cheer and a dance to do, and then they were presented with certificates! Although I was not too thrilled about getting to spend another hour or so sitting in bleachers while hugely pregnant (I thought I was done with bleachers when baseball season was over!), I really enjoyed getting to see Autumn strut her stuff out on the mats. I think we may do this camp again next year. She had a great time!

A Day of Silence for Cohen.