Random pictures

Grandfather and Harper at her 1st birthday party. Grandfather had a peice of cake and that is an easy way to make best friends with Harper.

Ben's brother's family at Harper's first brithday party. This kiddo is so crazy.

My sister's family on my nephew's birthday.

OK, this is all the pictures for right now. Hope you enjoyed them.

Snow Day!!!

The boys LOVE to eat snow. Max would fight Bruno for snowballs.

Phoebe watching the boys from a safe distance.

The boys going for the same snowball.

Mommy and her babies.

It is rare to get a calm picture of Max looking at the camera. He is so precious.

Ben and I loved getting to 'play' in the snow with the dogs. They love it. Max was acting like a puppy hopping around trying to catch snowballs. We cannot wait to play with Aubrey in the snow when she gets bigger.

A couple of my creations

Ben gave me a sewing and embroidery machine for my birthday so Aubrey could have custom items. I have made multiple burp clothes and some pacifier clips. I have been working on a dress, but I hit a glitch. I cannot work on it right now, once I adjust to things I will add the sewing stress back in.

Here is the start of a lot of pictures....

Miss Harper showing us how she is going to hold Aubrey. Harper and her mommy are taking good care of me today. Thank you!!!

Here is my terbutaline pump. It has a not-so-stylish pouch it goes in that I can hook to my pants.

My injection site. I can't even feel it now, the day of site change I am sure I probably will again.

This is my transmitter. The little box on the bottom left is my recorder (monitor) that my sensor belt on the right attaches to.

Home sweet home!!!

As I sit in bed this morning enjoying my sweet baby girl's kicks, I am so completely thankful. Thankful that I have a gracious Lord who has granted our daughter more time to grow, thankful for the knowledge that he gave to the doctors and nurses to care for me, thankful for family who are completely changing their schedules to help accommodate bed rest, thankful for the prays that definitely helped bring us home together, and thankful for my WONDERFUL husband. Ben has been such a trooper. He is hopeful that I will get to return to work soon. That would be nice, but I don't know that I can. Taking a shower yesterday had me contracting, walking up the stairs to get in my house yesterday had my back KILLING me, and something as simple as brushing my teeth had me a little crampy this morning (I was even sitting down). But, we see Dr. Banks first thing Monday morning to welcome him back from vacation, so we will get more of a plan then.

So, our first night home.....ahh. So nice. Sleep was great. In the hospital I was averaging about 3 hours a night, even the night of the phenergan coma. I still have to wake up every 4 hours to check my heart rate prior to my scheduled bolus of terbutaline, but I slept well. We turned in at 8pm and awoke at 530am. I managed to schedule bathroom breaks last night every 4 hours I was up, then back asleep, so pretty much, I am on my pre-t pump sleep schedule.

To those of you wondering about this "t pump," I will elaborate. Every 3-5 days I stick myself in a fatty area (my thigh or abdomen) with a needle that has a short catheter over it. There is essentially a band aid around that to secure the catheter in my skin. I remove the needle, leaving the catheter and attach my med tubing to the site. On my hip, I have a pump that is pretty small (like the size of the newer glucometers) that has a syringe of terbutaline in it. I get a small continuous dose of medication then every 4 hours the pump automatically gives an additional dose. If I have more than 6 contractions an hour, I can give myself an extra dose of medicine as long as my heart rate is less than 120bpm. I change my syringe when it is empty, which lasted me less than 24 hours yesterday. The tubing gets changed with my site change. It is not that bad. The first day I had it, I felt like it was in my way, I felt the medicine go into my leg every 4 hours, and I couldn't lay on the site. Now, barely recognizable. Since I am on the t pump, I have to do home contraction monitoring. I monitor for 1 hour twice a day. I have to stay laying down during monitoring, so before monitoring, I must have an empty bladder and everything I need in reach. I can pause monitoring briefly, but they would rather you not. Once I monitor, I put my monitor into the transmitter and send my strip to Alere, the home health company, and a perinatal nurse will call me in about 30 minutes to review my strip and discuss the need for intervention. I can monitor more than twice a day if I feel 'different' or think I am contracting a lot. I can mark contractions that I feel on my monitor and that lets Alere know if I am having pain. If I do an additional monitor, then I call them so we can get speedy treatment. Obviously, if I am contracting like every 2 mins, I call the doctor.

Our life has made a complete 180 degree turn since Sunday when we were oblivious to anything going on. Now our life is even more focused on this little princess. I think we are in for trouble because I there is no way to keep from spoiling her now. We are pretty sure that we will be the proud parents of 1 child the rest of our lives. We have both been on an emotional roller coaster fueled by sleep deprivation and fear the past week and would hate to chance something like this happening again.

Okay, so I will be 26 weeks pregnant on Saturday and we are really hoping for 10 more weeks. Please pray that we make that mark. Pray for my husband and family that they don't kill me by the end of this. I know it is very difficult for them, but it is not easy to lay around like a bum and be waited on constantly. I will keep everyone posted, likely daily. I plan to get some pics up here, I mean I do have tons of time on my hands now. Thank you everyone for your continued prays!!!

Yet another day...

Well, our baby girl has grown one day older in my womb (Dr Robinette reminded me this morning). Thankfully, things are going well and still homeward bound tomorrow. Last night was an interesting one. An NICU nurse practitioner came by and greeted us and explained some of the stuff they have going on. It was very nice, I thought. Ben thought it was nice that she came by to talk, but when I explained that the OB probably put a consult in to them, he didn't like it at all. She left about 8:30 and about 9pm I started contracting every 5 mins. When I met my magic 6 within an hour, I called the nurse for some tylenol and zofran (I had gotten all worked up and upset) since I knew she would be calling the doctor soon. After speaking to the dr on call, she came and collected a magnesium level to make sure it was theraputic, gave me tylenol, and IV phenergan (bad idea). I am very sensitve to meds and my breathing went to less than ideal. I had to be put on the pulse oximeter and Ben and the nurse would wake me up a couple of times to get me to breath deeper until it started clearing my system some. Well, needless to say I slept last night and Ben did too. The contractions did stop with the phenergan, so that was good.

This morning after Ben got a bath to get ready for work, we sat me on the side of the tub and I got a sponge bath. It was GREAT! It made me feel so much better. He has been so wonderful. He told me this morning as he was basically carrying me to the bathroom that he wished we had the camcorder at the hospital bc I looked so fun trying to walk. Anyone who has ever been on mag will understand, your muscles just don't function as well.

After bathtime, I got my second dose of celastone, yay for getting big girl lungs. The dr came in and saw me about 730. We decreased my mag to 1gm and started oral terbutaline. He said we are still planning on leaving tomorrow and that they were contacted Matria, the company that will supply the terbutaline pump that I will go home on to keep contractions away (or at least not regular). Miss Aubrey went on the monitor for about 30mins and looked just great as always. These contractions have not bothered her, thank goodness. Last night, I guess they were bothering her, bc when I would start contracting, she would kick my uterus. I thought it was amusing.

After all that, Ben and I enjoyed a quite breakfast together before he left for work. It was nice. He wasn't at the hospital when the dr came by, bc the security alarms at work were going off at 7am and he had to go meet the police there. When he came back, he was pretty upset. One of his coworkers was at the office when he got there and asked how I was. I guess it was the first time he had been asked and he said he lost it. He just doesn't know what is going on and it scares him. If you know Ben, you know he likes to have a plan. Plus, between my body doing crazy things in response to these meds scared him too.

Please continue to pray for us. Pray for strength as Ben is not going to get to stay at home with me during the day, and I don't think he likes being so far away. (not that he is far, he is just not with me and Aubrey). Pray most of all that God protects Aubrey and me and that my body will keep her in until she is big and strong enough to survive outside of the NICU.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and keeping our family in your thoughts. This is not going to be easy, we know, but God is in control. We put our faith in him in the beginning and he has not failed us yet. We know that God will give us no more than we can handle.

Talk to you later!!!!

Not exactly the vacation I was wanting

So for those of you that don't know, I am in the hospital at 25 weeks with preterm contractions. This weekend I was having a lot of pressure off and on and after being ordered by a coworker to go to the hospital, I gingerly called the doc on call but then waited until after work to turn into L & D for what EVERYONE thought was going to be a 1 hour triage and then off to the house.

Well, not so much. They put me on the monitor and low and behold I was having a lot of uterine irritability and contracting. Okay, big deal a shot of brethine and out the door in a couple hours when we are sure they have stopped.

Think again! An hour and 1/2 later, I am contracting. blah. Okay big deal there is not a lot of them, so I started taking Procardia every 6 hours to stop them. I would still have like one or two an hour, but they told me that they weren't worried unless I had more than 6 an hour.

Alright, good. We just got bought a room for the night but who cares. Aubrey is in, we are good.

At about midnight they took me off the monitor to help me sleep, yeah right. At 4:08 I go back on the monitor. By 4:36, I am in tears I had just had my sixth contraction while on the monitor. The nurse comes in and tells me if I have one more she is calling the dr. At 4:50 she returns to tell me what the dr has ordered since I had had 11. After shot of brethine, ouch. Let's check your cervix....yay. I had dilated to about 1cm. (More tears) I have just earned selestone (steriods) for Aubrey's lungs and the dreaded Magnesium Sulfate drip.

I don't care how miserable I am or look. Aubrey is being great. She is not requiring continuous monitoring, just like every 5 hours. Yesterday everyone kept asking if my dates were correct bc Aubrey has been acting like such a big girl.

So the plan now is to try to wean my Mag tomorrow, (I am still contracting like once an hour) and see how I do. I receive the 2nd steriod shot in the morning. If all goes well, I go home Wednesday. On bedrest until I see my doctor on Monday when he returns. I will either go home on a terbutaline pump or procardia.

I will try my best to keep everyone updated, I mean really, what else can I do.

Please keep me and Aubrey in your prayers. I love her so much and I do not want to see her little body laying in the NICU. Thank you.

22.5 week appointment

Well my belly is definitely blossoming and our sweet baby girl is perfecting river dance on my bladder. Last Friday, the day before I was 22 wks, Ben felt Aubrey move for the first time. He is completely in love now. It is so cute. He told me not to go down the stairs that had snow on it Saturday while we were taking snow pics because he didn't want me to fall while I was carry HIS baby girl. It was so sweet. To all the people that have asked if I am having twins, which by the way does not offend me, I love my new tummy, I measured 23 weeks. Right on target. Next month is the dreaded glucose tolerance test...blah. But after that on MLK day we are having our 4D ultrasound...how exciting!!! We can't wait to see Aubrey again. On another note, my friend just had her baby at an estimated 25 weeks. Please keep Miss Isabella in your prayers. She is doing better already, but has a long road ahead of her. Alright, more to follow soon, and quite possibly a new tummy pic.

Bye!!!