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!!!