Going to Labor and Delivery

We've moved to labor and delivery!!! Emmaline is coming. Tara is 4cm and 80%.

Revised Game Plan

Emmaline has not made her appearance yet. Tara was able to get some much needed sleep last night. She is much more rested today than she was yesterday. God knew what he was doing by not sending her into full blown labor yesterday. Silly us for thinking otherwise. We've recalibrated our expectations and our mindsets as of this morning and are just trusting that God knows what is best, even when we get impatient.

We just saw Dr. Wiedower and discussed our revised game plan since 2 days ago we all thought that we would have a baby in our arms by now. Tara is going to do a lot more activity today. Walk around, sit upright, squats, etc... ok maybe not squats. Since she has been on bed rest for a month even the walking around will be a big change. We'll see how that goes today. Tomorrow morning Dr. Wiedower will check her. Depending on how much progression she has had we might get go home. 

There is also a little bit of weather moving in this evening, so between that and increased activity we'll just see what happens.

Learning Patience

It is 1pm and still nothing major. Just waiting. Sometimes God has a funny sense of humor.

I just took Tara outside in the wheelchair for a Subway lunch date. It was nice to get her some sunshine. We'll see if sitting upright in the chair for a while does anything. 

In the meantime, we wait. 

Waiting

Tara had a hard time sleeping in this morning. She was up by 5am and is now showered, hair done, make-up done and 'ready to push' as she put it. Now we wait. She got the last anti-contraction medication at 11pm last night. As of 8:20am everything is fairly calm. We just assume that she'll start contracting soon and have a baby in the next day or two. We'll just have to wait and see and trust in the Lord's perfect timing.

As we get impatient we just need to remember that she is only 36 weeks. There is nothing wrong with Emmaline staying put a little longer, but we are ready to meet our little girl. Tara has been patient through 4 weeks of bed rest in the hospital now so a little eagerness to meet Emmaline is due. 

I think that if she isn't contracting before, then she will be by this afternoon. The afternoon is always when things flair up. But we'll just wait and see.

36 weeks, We made it!

36

36 Weeks!

Wow! We made it to 36 weeks. When we came into the hospital 26 days ago we were just hoping and praying to make 33 weeks, let alone 36. We are so thankful for the prayers and support. We are so blessed that our little girl has gotten to cook as long as she has.

The last 48 hours
The last few days has been OK. Friday night and Saturday morning were pretty quiet. Saturday afternoon things started to get going though. Tara had enough contractions that they had to give her an additional procadia to slow them down. It worked for a little bit. Then Saturday evening they got rolling again. The scary thing was that Emmaline's 'heartbeep' (as Crosby says) slowed when Tara would contract. Sometimes that happens as a fluke, maybe the baby rolled of the cord or something,  but it can be a serious problem it persists for very long at all. Our nurse Carol, got serious real quick as soon as she saw the deceleration. They were able to get it back to normal by changing Tara's position an additional procardia to help stop the contractions. They also gave Tara a percocet to take the edge off of the pain, because she was hurting with the strong, intense contractions. It wasn't a fun afternoon and evening for Tara, but eventually it all calmed down and she got some rest. Sunday has been OK so far. Some uterine irritability and a few strong contractions, but nothing too major.

Shifting gears

Nurse Nancy

Since we hit our goal of 36 weeks we are shifting gears. Dr. Weidower got back in town from her ski trip yesterday and we'll see her tomorrow morning. Tara will get her last dose of procardia at midnight tonight, which is preventing her from contracting (well, it is supposed to at least). It will wear off around 6am on Monday. We are pretty confident that Tara will start contracting very regularly tomorrow morning when it wears off. The question will be how long it takes before she starts to progress further and actually move next door to a labor and delivery room.

So we think we'll have a baby Monday or Tuesday, but we'll just have to wait and see what God has in store for us. Would you join me in praying on Monday morning?

35 weeks 5 days

Tara is getting ever so close to crossing that 36 week mark. She is still doing well. She is riding our daily roller coaster of what each day will bring. For the most part it has been a smooth couple of days. Still staying the course and planning to go off of the meds on Monday.

We've had the blessing of Crosby's visits two days in a row. It is good. I'm not sure if Tara or Crosby looks forward to them more.

Thanks for the prayers and support! Seriously, thank you. Here are a few pics.

35 weeks 3 days

The last few days have been good. Nothing crazy, but not calm either. Tara is certainly contracting daily and at times they have to give her extra meds to get it to slow down, but we've just conceded it is an annoying and sometimes painful part of life for her the next few days. Tara is stil being a great sport and doing what is best for her baby girl.

We are going to try our very best to make it to Monday for 2 reasons. The first being that it will put us past the 36 week mark. The second being that our OB left Tuesday to go skiing in Colorado and won't be back until this weekend. Yes, the other OB's in her clinic are very good docs, but we would really like to have her deliver Emmaline. 

We cannot say enough about the nurses and staff here at Baptist LR 2H. They are wonderful. They know their stuff when it comes to keeping babies cooking and they are just genuinely excellent caregivers. There are several of them that we don't just consider our nurses, but also our friends. We are very blessed. 

We'll keep you posted if anything changes. In the mean time remember, no news is good news.

My wife, the barometer

Tara had a fairly placid weekend, which was a nice break from the excitement of Thursday and Friday. That is it was placid until the storm front rolled through last night around 6pm. Then her barometer went off and she started contracting. Barometric changes are a powerful thing, especially on a uterus that is walking a fine line already.

Long story short she contracted at various intervals from 2 minutes to 9 minutes apart throughout the night...all night long. The poor girl got a little sleep thanks to ambien and additional procardia, but even then she was on the monitors and contracting. Needless to say she is tired and sore today. It has gotten to the point that Tara doesn't even request to get put on the contraction monitors unless she thinks that they are less than 3 minutes apart.

35 weeks!

We got to have another ultrasound today. It was great to get to see little Emmaline. Everything was good. We confirmed for the third time via ultrasound that she is indeed a girl. She measured 5 lbs 13oz. Of course they say that measurement is plus or minus 15 oz. So they are hedging their measurement by 16%. How would you like to have a 16% margin of error in your line of work. I can see it now. Sorry Elder Board, I know our budget was $923,000 but our expenses were $1,070,000 which is within the 16% allotted margin of error. So everything is cool right? What is $147,000 amongst friends?

Anyhow, I digress. We are getting pretty excited about meeting Emmaline soon. The question on our minds is will her hair be blonde or dark? What do you think?

35 weeks!

Today marks 35 weeks for Emmaline! We are so thankful to have made it this far. Next Monday, January 30, they will take Tara off of the medications preventing the contractions and let whatever happens happen. So we'll try to make it 8 more days.

34 weeks and 6 days

I'm going to try my best to not use the phrase 'still cooking' in this post since I think I've used it every post in the last 2 weeks. Tara had a good night last night, despite having had really strong contractions from 3:30-7:00pm early in the evening. They gave her an additional procardia and eventually the slowed down.    Her body just really wants to contract, but there was still no further dilation. Marion is up with Tara for the weekend and I'm home with my main man Crosby.

Thanks for all the prayers and support. Hard to believe that tomorrow will be 35 weeks!

34 weeks 5 days and still cooking

Today we are 34 weeks 5 days and still cooking. We are starting to get excited about the prospect of actually having a baby soon. We can't wait to meet Emmaline. It is a funny thing, with this preterm labor so much of our energy and prayers go into preventing the birth. We've been in the hospital for 17 days now. While we would love to make is 9 more days and hit the 36 week mark we are beginning to actually look forward to having this baby and holding our beautiful Emmaline whenever God decides it it the right  time.

All kinds of excitement

Well we've had all kinds of excitement this morning.

Excitement #1:
If Tara is going to have contractions they will normally get going after 3pm, except they started around 9am this morning. They got to where they were 2 minutes apart and painful. For about an hour we thought we might be heading down the hall to labor and delivery. She earned an extra procardia, drank water like crazy and they eventually started spacing out. By noon they got to about 10 minutes a part and she came off of the monitors. Apparently this is the roller coster that we are going to ride until the baby comes.

Excitement #2:
Some sweet ladies from Fellowship Conway and Jazzercize that couldn't make Tara's skype shower decided to come do a little shower for Tara here in her hospital room. Thankfully the contractions were starting to space out a little to when the ladies showed up. They brought a lot of joy and distraction for the chaos of the morning. Tara felt truly loved on and enjoyed their company.

We'll see how the rest of the day goes...

The last week in pics

Sage, Dawson, Danner and Tara

34 weeks!

Tara, Jeremy, Neil, and baby on the wall

Still Cooking

Well Tara was finally able to go to sleep around 11:30pm last night. The contractions finally spaced out enough to let get rest (with the help of an ambien). Dr. Wiedower should be by soon, but the basic game plan is just to stat the course in the hospital, on meds, on bed rest until 36 weeks.

If you haven't seen the pic on the contractions when they were going full force last night look at previous post. Glad we got that junk settled down. No more rocking the uterine boat!

The Experiment at 34 Weeks

Well since Tara hit the 34 week mark yesterday Dr. Wiedower decided to take her off of the medicine (Procardia) that is preventing her from having contractions to see if Tara could go without it. We did the same thing with Crosby. (http://thekears.blogspot.com/2009/11/more-things-change-more-they-stay-same.html) Tara would have been due for a a procardia at noon, but she didn't get that dose. The first couple of hours were fine. We had a nice visit with Chris Rippy and Lauren Ramoly. Around 3pm Tara started having some contractions, which is when her contractions would normally start getting bad when she was at home.

The game plan as of 33 weeks & 4 days

Dr. Wiedower just stopped by on her morning rounds and we talked about a game plan for the next couple of weeks. Now we say game plan knowing fully that it may all change tomorrow. We would rather have a plan in our heads and adapt, improvise and overcome along the way. If nothing else it helps Tara as she lays in a hospital bed to feel like she knows a little of what will happen.

Tara is 33 weeks and 4 days as of today. On Monday we will be 34 weeks and 1 day. At that point they will do a fetal fibronectin test, which can serve as an indicator of her likelihood to NOT have a baby in the next two weeks if it is negative. A positive result doesn't mean much, but a negative is a good indicator that the bun will stay in the oven for a little while longer.

Dr. Wiedower also plans to take Tara off of the meds that are preventing the contractions on Monday and see what her body does. If she can get by without the meds that is a little better for Emmaline, but if we need to go right back on them we will. going off the meds at 34 weeks seems to be what Dr. Wiedower would do with most patients, but we've already learned Tara's body doesn't do labor like 'most patients'.

Just hanging out

We are 33 weeks and 3 days as of today.

The past few days have been somewhat smooth. Tara had some break through contractions on Monday after we got a tour of the NICU and earned some extra pills, nothing too serious though. At least not serious enough for me to reach for my catcher's mitt yet. (Tara seems to find zero assurance in the OB training that I revieved in my EMT course 9 years ago)

That being said she isn't looking to do anything other than be mostly horizontal in this hospital bed. When I asked her about trying to get a pass from Dr. Wiedower today to go outside in a wheelchair Tara replied that she would stay put and had no interest in rocking her uterine boat.

Thanks for the support and prayer. We are just going to stay the course for now... thankful for each day that we get to keep Emmaline cooking.

Tara's Virtual Baby Shower

Tara's Virtual Baby Shower, a set on Flickr.

The girls in our Community Group threw Tara and great shower at church this morning. Since Tara couldn't come in person we did the next best thing... she skyped in. Thanks to everyone for their love and support.

Settling In

Tara had a great visit from her parents and Crosby yesterday evening. She must have read 4 books with him in her bed. It was a much needed visit for both of them.

This morning Tara is doing well. They took her IV out so she feels free. The meds for the contractions are working great, so far (yes, I know this can change any minute) it is much more peaceful than our last time with Crosby. Praise the Lord! Maybe catching it a little sooner helped. I pray that our blog posts are not as drama filled as last time.

If you want drama then here is the first blog post from 'Camp Crosby'. Just start reading there and click 'newer posts' at the bottom to read through our last go round in 2H (antenatal unit) with Crosby.

A new day

Tara woke up this morning a new person. The stomach bug was gone and it was obvious she felt 300% better. It was a good day.

She didn't have any serious contractions.

She wasn't sick anymore.

Her parents came to visit.

Crosby even got to come see mommy in the hospital for the first time.

Thanks for the prayers and love! It was a really good day.

Quick update, 28 hours into our stay

In case you haven't heard me say it recently: Dr. Amy Wiedower is the best OB ever. We are so blessed to be in such good (& spunky) hands.

They did an ultrasound today and Emmaline measured exactly 32 weeks and 3 days, which is good since she is 32 weeks and 3 days old. The meds seem to be working very well at keeping Tara's contractions at bay and the stomach bug appears to be easing up on her. We are doing well.

Crosby got to facetime with mamma tonight. I'm not sure which one of them loved it more. Thanks for all the support and prayers. We are very much at peace.

The Eager Emmaline Story Begins

Tara's contractions have been pretty regular and by Tuesday evening got to 2 minutes apart consistently and were more intense so we can to L&D at Baptist LR upon her doc's recommendation.

We thought we had gotten intervention in time and she had not progressed any upon checkin last night. We were hoping to get some on drugs be sent back home last night, but they wanted to monitor her. We were fine with the safe route.

Then the stomach bug that we thought she had avoided (Crosby and I have both had it this week) hit in the middle of the night. Which is actually good that we were in the hospital where they have things to lessen it's effect. Once she can shake the bug she'll feel much better.

[disclaimer: if OB numbers are going to bother you you may need to not read my updates for the next month]