Both girls passed their NST this morning. The nurse also mentioned that their heart rates are demonstrating signs of maturity; that is, the rates are getting slightly lower. When we first started the daily monitoring, the rates were in the mid-150’s, and now they’re in the 140’s. Our little girls are growing up! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
This morning, one of the perinatologists (high-risk obstetricians) commented on how impressed she was with our progress. She said it felt like it was not too long ago that they were admitting me with the hope that they could stave off delivery for a mere 48 hours to give the lung-developing steroids time to work. Those steroids were vital to the girls’ long-term health if they were to have been born at 24 weeks. Now, as we approach the 30 week mark on Thursday, it almost feels greedy to keep asking the Lord for one more day. He has blessed us abundantly, and I am so thankful – not only because, if our girls were born now, their prognosis is vastly improved over if they had been born over a month ago. I’m also simply thankful to have had the joy of being pregnant this much longer. I love being able to feel them move inside of me, as I try to imagine what gymnastic maneuver they are performing. I love feeling them hiccup, the rhythmic pulsation of their tiny bodies against my skin. I love listening to their heartbeats, that audible manifestation of strength and life, that reminder of the Lord’s creative and sustaining power. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Psalm 139:13-14). <\/p>\n
His works are indeed wonderful – I know that full well!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Both girls passed their NST this morning. The nurse also mentioned that their heart rates are demonstrating signs of maturity; that is, the rates are getting slightly lower. When we first started the daily monitoring, the rates were in the mid-150’s, and now they’re in the 140’s. Our little girls are growing up! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pKyNb-p","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":54,"url":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/?p=54","url_meta":{"origin":25,"position":0},"title":"Fun and Games","author":"Emily","date":"July 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The girls decided to have a little fun at the expense of my nurse this morning, much to their mother's consternation. They somehow managed to position themselves just perfectly so when the nurse tried to monitor their heart rates, she was registering the exact same rate for both babies, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/?p=54#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":196,"url":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/?p=196","url_meta":{"origin":25,"position":1},"title":"Ride Along","author":"Emily","date":"March 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday, we took advantage of the warm weather and took the girls for a ride. A Razr ride. For the uninitiated, a Razr is a smaller version of a Polaris Ranger, which looks like a golf cart on steroids.\u00a0 Some of you may recall that Jim and I posed beside\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/?p=196#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"IMG_4227","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh3.ggpht.com\/_B1otl5NooiE\/SdAgXth0pPI\/AAAAAAAABAE\/88CN4S3ZloQ\/IMG_4227_thumb%5B7%5D.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1020,"url":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/?p=1020","url_meta":{"origin":25,"position":2},"title":"24","author":"Emily","date":"January 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday was a milestone for me.\u00a0 I reached the stage of this pregnancy at which I was admitted to the hospital three years ago while pregnant with the twins.\u00a0 24 weeks and 1 day.\u00a0 I doubt I\u2019ll ever forget May 16, 2008.\u00a0 Jim and I drove early that morning to\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 6 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 6 comments","link":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/?p=1020#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"IMG_7453","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/pbarch\/PB\/myfaithandjoy\/3d32635966b5_13B50\/IMG_7453_thumb.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35,"url":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/?p=35","url_meta":{"origin":25,"position":3},"title":"An Upbeat Day","author":"Emily","date":"July 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy Fourth of July! Although as my obstetrician joked this morning, it's a bit hard to celebrate independence day when I'm the prisoner of a hospital! He encouraged me to hang on at least until Bastille Day, July 14, the holiday to celebrate the release of captives. :) Today marks\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":56,"url":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/?p=56","url_meta":{"origin":25,"position":4},"title":"Excitement","author":"Emily","date":"July 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, even though the girls' heart rates looked good today, my heart got a little jumpstart! A resident did a quick ultrasound this afternoon and she wasn't able to measure one of the girls' amniotic fluid level. She called in a higher-ranking resident, who similarly struggled to find an adequate\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1544,"url":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/?p=1544","url_meta":{"origin":25,"position":5},"title":"Thankful to be Home","author":"Emily","date":"July 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019d like to say that my recent blog absence was due to an abundance of exciting activities this week, but unfortunately, I had an abundance of exciting contractions that landed me in the hospital for a little while!\u00a0 I was pretty nervous, because the contractions were coming back-to-back and were\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/?p=1544#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"002","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com\/pbarch\/PB\/myfaithandjoy\/8e34b85d66b0_12A5E\/002_thumb.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfaithandjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}