My Faith and Joy… and Boys!

It’s hard to believe that the temperature outside today has catapulted over 90 degrees – summer is here!  When I was admitted into the hospital three weeks ago, I had been wearing long pants and a long-sleeve shirt, and we were still occasionally using our electric blanket at night.  It’s such an odd feeling to have transitioned from spring to summer and not personally experienced the shift.  It’s also odd to hear the nurses talk of the scorching heat and oppressive humidity and not to expect to feel it myself at some point during the day.  I haven’t felt those summery conditions in a year!  I had been looking forward to spending these early summer evenings on our screened-in back porch, but I’m thankful now to be here, even if it means I have to imagine the warmth outside.  If the Lord wills it, I can spend some of the delicious evenings this fall pushing a double stroller on the bike path nearest our house, and dreaming of spending next summer playing outside with our almost 1-year-old girls.  What a beautiful thought!   

I am pleased to report that the girls cooperated with their monitoring this morning.  Each shift, a nurse places two ultrasonic dopplers on my belly to trace the babies’ heartbeats.  Ideally, the doctors want to see 20-30 minutes of two consistent heartbeats.  However, because the girls are still so little and they have a relatively large space to move around in, it’s often difficult for the doppler monitors to get a continuous heartbeat on one baby, let alone two.  To make matters worse, the girls apparently aren’t keen on being monitored; they kick the dopplers or squirm around even more than normal as soon as they detect they are being monitored.  A week or so ago, the girls were moving around so much, and the nurse was getting more and more frustrated, that I actually had Jim raise his voice and demand that the girls sit still, hoping that they would listen to their father J  However, it didn’t work – they kept on wiggling.   I can only hope that this tendency doesn’t bode poorly for their cooperative skills later in life!  However, today, the girls were docile and consented to let their heartbeats be tracked for the time necessary.  I was a proud mama!

Here we go!  I am beginning what I pray will be the first of many pregnancy-related blogs, which will later (much, much later!) transition into a lifetime of baby-related blogs.  I am attempting to master the art of typing while lying down, so please allow me a double excuse for any incoherent blog postings: placenta-brain, as well as clumsy fingers. 

Yesterday marked my 2^nd full week of hospital bed rest.  In many ways time has passed by quite quickly.  I have rarely felt bored, due to the steady stream of calls, e-mails, guests, and nurse visits that have kept me occupied and blessedly distracted.   Of course, each hour also seems like an eternity when we consider the importance of every additional day that our girls spend in utero.  Today, our girls are 26 weeks, 2 days, and although the last ultrasound estimated them to be much smaller than we would have liked, we are grateful for these additional weeks of pregnancy.  When we were admitted to the hospital two weeks ago, with preterm labor at 24w1d (24 weeks, 1 day), the thought that I would still be pregnant two weeks later sounded miraculous.  So even though our girls are measuring in at a tiny 1lb7oz and 1lb9oz as of 5/30, we trust that the Lord can perform a miracle and fatten these girls up in record time!  Please pray that their abdominal measurements catch up at our next ultrasound – the perinatologist said their abdomens were not growing as he would like, which may be a sign of placental insufficiency; i.e. they aren’t getting the nutrients they need from their placentas, implying that the girls may grow better on the outside than inside the uterus at this point.  But ultrasonic science is not exact, and the doctor admitted the measurements may be flawed, so he is withholding a decision until we have more data points from our next ultrasound in two weeks.  The girls will be 28 weeks at that point (an important gestational milestone), so we will be thrilled if the pregnancy can continue even that long. 

Our Lord is so gracious in allowing us the gift of life in the first place.  We trust their lives are in His capable and faithful Hands, and we look to Him for peace during this time of waiting and anticipation. 

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to pray for us, write to us, call and visit us – each and every effort is warmly appreciated.