Thursday, November 30, 2006

Plus One

Each morning in my prayer, I thank God that he has given us one more day. Dr. Carpenter said that from this point forward the boys will each gain 1/2 oz each day...so every additional day is so important for healthy growth and development. We should have another growth scan on Wednesday to see how the boys are progressing.

The lowering of my meds turned out not to be such a good thing. Yesterday was pretty uncomfortable and the monitor showed much more irritability and contractions than the day before. So when Dr. Carpenter came in last night he agreed that we should bump me back up and just leave things the way they are. Hopefully the combination of medications that we have will continue to keep the contractions to a minimum.

Sloan's mom visited with us today and she brought us a Christmas tree. Sloan dug through all the boxes in our storage closet and managed to come up with some ornaments, so our tree looks very nice in our window.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

24 Weeks!

Well we have made it one more week...11 more to go!

The doctor came in this morning and seemed to be happy with the way things were going. She lowered the level of Magnesium to see if we can potentially get me off the IV and just on oral medication. I will still be in the hospital until the babies come, but I wouldn't be at such a great risk for infection from the PICC line in my arm.

We had a great visit from my brother today. As great a visit as you can have...it can't be too much fun to sit and look at someone in a bed hooked up to machines!

Thank you to everyone for all of your prayers and support. It is truly humbling to hear that there are so many people out there praying for us...and we may never know who they are! God is great!

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Change of Plans

Well today brought some changes, it looks like we will be here for the long haul. I had an ultrasound scan to determine if there have been any cervical changes is the past few days. At first it looked as though there were only slight changes, but (thankfully) I happened to have a contraction during the scan so the doctor was able to see exactly what is happening to my cervix during contractions. The contractions are indeed causing cervical changes with my cervix shortening to less than 2 cm during the contractions. So for now the plan is to reside in the hospital for as long as we can and our goal remains to do everything we can to keep me undelivered. Our doctor was reassured that his plan of very conservative care was indeed the right thing to do.

I just got finished with a procedure to place a permanent catheter (PICC line) in my upper arm to deliver my IV meds as opposed to the traditional IV that has to be changed every 92 hours. I have also been started back on the oral meds I was on before coming to the hospital, just to give the benefit of an additional measure to stop contractions.

The boys remain unaffected by all that is going on. We monitor them twice a day and their heart rates are perfect. They seem just as active as ever and thankfully seem unaware of the situation at hand. It is reassuring to know that we are in the best place to be going through all of this, we have access to some of the best doctors in the country.

We appreciate all of the offers that have poured in over the last several days, everyone has been so generous. We really are doing very well here and have everything that we really need (thank you to our preacher for the Playstation). Yesterday was a sad day in that Jake went to live with mom in Austin (not permanently of course). Although this has been very hard on Sloan and I, seeing as though Jake is like our first child, it was even harder knowing that he was home alone so much and surely feeling abandoned. I never thought that I could be so emotional over not seeing my dog, but it has indeed been incredibly hard for me. So for the next several weeks he will enjoy running in the morning with mom and driving Charlie crazy the rest of the day! Hopefully he will be just as anxious to see us again when this is all over.

Lord willing, our residence will be St. Luke's Hospital for the next 11 1/2 weeks. It is our prayer, that as eager as we are to meet Grant and Zachary, that they enjoy the comfort and security of the womb until they are 35 weeks. Sloan and I are perfectly content spending Christmas here as long as it means our boys aren't born yet.

Please continue to keep our little guys and my health in your prayers.

We love you all!
Sloan & Jessica