Technically today is probably day 2, but since I’ve been here just 24 hours now after supper we are going to call it day 1 and go from there.

I recently came across a blog that followed a set of extremely premature twins (24 week range), starting with their first day in the NICU and following through a five month stay, their early days at home, and through a subsequent hospital stay/surgery for one of the twins.  You can start their whole story, here.  (I will warn you though, it is addicting reading).  Because of the way the blog is done you can actually just use the next button to go all the way through from post to post.

Reading through the blog was extremely helpful for me in seeing what life could be like for Miss Siena if she is transferred to the NICU.  Seeing up and down days and set backs and progress and milestones was good reading for me and the mom noted it was good for her to go back through things too.   Subsequently I thought that I should do something like that starting now during the pregnancy/hospital bed rest phase.  I thought about using Caring bridge or starting a separate blog but mostly I never keep up with anything other than this blog so you will be stuck with baby content for a little while (actually hopefully a long while)!  When the story is *finished* I will write an intro/conclusion post and link to it so that anyone who stumbles into our little world looking for information on that will be able to find it.

Today was mostly a good day.  First check in with the med student-resident-fellow-attending team which didn’t learn much new except they decided not to continue to monitor for ferning/amniotic fluid unless I have a large gush of fluid which they don’t expect to happen.  Long chat with a neonatologist about prognosis for early membrane rupture.  Some good news, some bad but overall encouraging.  I liked this dr. quite a lot.  He had good ideas and information and I feel much more informed about what to expect at the time of delivery.   Also saw the hospital’s dedicated OB social worker who gave Tim a free parking pass and passed along some other local resources for now and said she would keep an eye on our case and see how it progresses so she can connect us with other resources (such as Ronald McDonald House, breastfeeding, support groups, etc) as needed once baby is born.

As the social worker was leaving it was already almost 1:00 and I hadn’t even ordered my lunch yet and she told me I needed to say no to the next person who stopped by and let them know I needed to eat before any more consults.  No sooner than she closed the door and I picked up the phone, than in walks another person.

Only this time the person wasn’t alone, they were bringing me Jesus!

Someone had gotten my name on the hospitals daily communion list and the Eucharistic Minister was brining me communion and checking to see if I wanted someone to come daily and setting that up for me, along with passing along info on televised Mass, etc.

Needless to say, I did not send Jesus away.

In the afternoon I had a second visit with the nurse in charge of the palliative care (perinatal hospice) team, we had met several weeks ago.  She just wanted to touch base with us and see if we needed anything.  Talked a bit about needing to be more flexible at delivery than a typical palliative care birth plan.  Neonatology had talked with us about initial interventions and assessments and how they will communicate their thoughts on things as they unfold and so we need to meld that with the palliative care team if they become necessary (which while I choose not to focus on that fact, is still a real scenario).

Finally today I had my first betamethazone (steroids for baby’s lungs) shot, a pertussis booster, and some really snazzy fancy inflatable calves which I’m supposed to wear whenever I am laying down…which is most of the time.  Oh and I had my IV site flushed.  And Siena’s daily monitoring was great.

I am not digging the Mayo food service.  I read something on a website about long term hospitalizations suggesting trying everything on the menu once before repeating anything and I’m going with that for now and hoping I come up with something that I find somewhat palatable and worth repeating.    For someone who eats mostly exclusively real food (even when it’s not healthy its still made from real ingredients) I just don’t know about the processed craziness and severe lack of seasoning.

Most updates won’t be this long.  I’m told the rest of my days here will not be so exciting and future consults will be much more staggered.  Tomorrow I will start trying to do a picture of the day with my updates but I’m in a corner room with poor internet.   It is the only room on the antepartum unit, however, with its own shower so I will take the trade (although I also traded size which I will withhold a verdict on until after all the kids have visited at once).  Tim says we can always upgrade temporarily to a higher data plan and I can use my phone as a hotspot as I have great cell service.

Day 2