December 5, 2014 "30 Week Ultrasound"

December 4th- What a long day!! At least I was able to sleep about 5 hours last night. Today Michael and I just sat around watching TV, and working on my blog. I'm so hot and he's freezing. It's normally the other way around, but its because of the steroid shots I've been taking. The food is actually pretty good here. The nurses have been wonderful. They come in and place the fetal monitor on my belly for about 30 min. twice a day. It is great to hear that he is doing alright and see that we are not having contractions. I also receive intravenous antibiotics every 6 hours along with my other medication. The doctors say that the goal of 34 weeks is because beyond that we run a high risk of infection and of course that's just not worth the risk to either of us. Besides, by that point he will have everything he needs to continue to develop in the NICU. So our prayer now is that we can go to Dec. 30, which is 34 weeks. The bleeding has slowed down a lot as well so hopefully we can just hang out! Maya has come to visit several times now. She is such a wonderful person and great resource to

help us through all of this. Holly, the lady who had fetal surgery the same day as me, came to visit as well. She is here until delivery too. It is good to have someone to go through this with. She was a valuable resource for me on Tuesday night when I was panicking because I couldn't get in touch with Dr. Goodnight. We got a beautiful bouquet of flowers today from my husbands company, Piedmont Natural Gas.

December 5th- Today we had our 15th ultrasound. Although my water broke on Tuesday the technician found two pockets of fluid measuring about 6 cm. That's really good news. She says he now weighs 4lbs 9 oz. That's even better news! Of course, he is still Frank Breech with both feet above his head. The only bad news we received was his ventricle sizes went up again. His right vent grew from 35mm to 43mm. His left vent grew from 25mm to 30mm. We are still waiting to speak with the NICU doctors and Dr. Elton about the shunt surgery.

We had a wonderful little visitor this morning. Becca Powell brought her son to see us. She is a remarkable mother of a spina bifida child, Huck. I have been speaking with her since before our fetal surgery. It was wonderful to finally meet her but especially little Huck. Although he was born at 29 weeks, he is perfect! Just what Michael and I needed today. He was walking around, kissing his mom, smiling, playing, and waving goodbye. Just absolutely adorable. It was so encouraging to us both. She brought us a sweet package of goodies including some premie clothes for Rayden.