Day 6.....

Well it's day 6 of being in captivity. Things are pretty much the same as they were the day I came in. No bleeding, blood pressure is great. They are doing twice daily NSTs on the baby and she's doing great. It's tough to be here when I feel completely fine. People keep telling me that they don't know how I'm handling this so well. I honestly don't either, but I guess the saying about not knowing how strong you are until being strong is your only option, or something like that, is true. It does no good to cry all day and be sad. That won't make the time pass faster. I also credit my personality type to my success in not going crazy. I'm generally not an emotional or overly sensitive person. For once these are strengths instead of awkward quirks. I miss my kids so much much this isn't for forever.
Speaking of my kids, Aaron is having them clean their room and I think we've discovered Ethan has some hoarding tendencies. He keeps getting stuff out of the trash and stashing it places. This makes me laugh because I'd probably be doing the same thing if I were at home right now. Noah is chanting "throw it away" and it's sent Ethan off the deep end. Oh ya gotta love those kids.
I want a Starbucks....so close, yet so far.

It's been a while....

Well...as you can tell from the date of my last post it's obviously been a while since I've written in this blog. I have suddenly found some time on my hands so I hope I can keep up with it a little better. Let's start at the beginning....how this new time in my life came to be, if you will. It started about a week after I found put we were expecting another baby. It was an unexpected blessing, I was on birth control and breast feeding and getting pregnant was the farthest thing from my kind. I had finally come to terms with adding a fifth child to our family when I started bleeding. I was lucky enoug to have never had to experience a miscarriage, but I assumed this is what was happening. I continued t bleed for days and made an appt with my OB for an ultrasound to see if there was anything there. Well much to my surprise, ther was a littl baby with a little heartbeat at 6 weeks inside of me! Praise the Lord! Well, it didn't explain why I was still bleeding, or why I continued to bleed week after week. Many visits to the OB and one ER trip gave me no answers. I bled heavily, passed fist sized clots and continually thought I was miscarrying. However, ultrasound after ultrasound shows a healthy little baby doing well inside me. Finally my OB sent me to the high risk doctor in Portland because my prenatal screening numbers came back high for Spina bifida. The ultrasound in Portland at 16 weeks finally gave me the answer I was looking for. I had a 10cm blood clot behind the placenta, causing the placenta to rip away from the uterus. The Perinatologist didn't seem concerns, so neither was I. Starting a couple days after that ultrasound I had a series of very large bleeding episodes which scared me, to say the least. Within minute my pants were soaked and blood was covering the floor, or car, or wherever I was. I was getting weaker and barely able to care for my kids. Thre weeks later I had a follow up ultrasound in Portland. In the lobby I began to have one of my now familiar bleeds. I get to thultrasoud room and proceed to cover the floor, table, everything with blood. The ultrasound finds that the clot had gotten a bit bigger and the placenta was further detaching..it didn't look good. The doctor gave us the option to terminate in case we didn't wish to comtinue with the most likely doomed pregnancy. We told him we absolutely would not be terminating, we would be fighting for our baby. I was admitted to the hospital May 4th and given 6 units of blood. I continued to bleed and once my hemoglobin levels were stable two weeks later I was released to bed rest at home. My pregnancy wasn't yet viable so there was nothing more they could do for me. I spent the next three weeks at home loving on my babies and attempting to rest. It was hard, but I wanted my baby to have a chance and every time I walked around the bleeding was aggravated. This past Thursday we came back for a follow up ultrasound to check the baby's growth. She is doing great and growing just as she should. The clot has shrunk to 8cm but there is still a good portion of placenta that isn't functioning, because I am now 24 weeks, the pregnancy is now considered viable, therefore if I have a complete placental abruption, my baby girl would die if we were at home. In the hospital she can be taken quickly and put in the level III nicu. So...that brings me to wear we are currently at. I'm in the hospital until I deliver, basically waiting for something bad to happen. Either I'll have another bad bleed or I will go into preterm labor. Every day she stays in improves her chances of survival. They don't expect me to stay pregnant past 32 weeks which on one hand is reassuring. That means there is an expiration to my boredom and homesickness. This is the hardest thing I have ever been through. I miss my kids, I miss my husband. I'm lonely and isolated and I can't even eat what I want. But....in a few short weeks we will have a little girl that was such a surprise but now I see was a God given blessing. If you see my husband, give him a big hug.....he needs it. :) Ps forgive any typos, my iPad likes to autocorrect things without my permission...