Hospital Bound

Well, Friday didn't go exactly as planned. I think I've had a chance to talk to most of you. Sorry to those who are finding out this way. Long story short, baby is still small--very small. I'm now on hospital bed rest and will deliver sometime in the next week. Here's how it all went down:

8:30am Friday: showed up for our ultrasound. Justin and I were in high spirits, talking about what to do over the weekend, laughing etc. The technician does the US and all is going fine. We see the baby moving around, making sucking motions with his mouth and grabbing his toes with his hands. Then, as is normal, the technician leaves with her findings and she and the ultrasound Dr. come back in to give us the results. Well, the Dr came in and didn't look good. Her whole demeanor was tense and serious. She informed us that our baby was still small--smaller than the first US we had (13th percentile), although she wouldn't give us the number. She instructed us to go straight to our OB (one building over). She was calling ahead to let them know we were on our way. They leave the room. I start crying. We just didn't know what to make of all this.

We head out of the US office and for the first time look at the written report they gave us. Baby is in less than the 1st percentile of weight/growth. My firth thought was 'that can't be right. We must be reading it wrong.'

9:30am: We show up at the doctor's office. Again, we get treated with a sense of urgency and seriousness. There is a waiting room full of people. I walk up to the front desk--they don't even take my name. They say they're waiting in the back for us. We immediately get escorted into a room and our DR comes in moments later. She's as serious as everyone else (but she's not exactly Ms. Optimistic on a normal day--I like that. Doesn't sugar coat anything). She tells us that our baby officially has IUGR (Intrauterine Growth Restriction) and that we're going straight to the hospital. She doesn't know what's causing it, but the first 24 hours or so will be data gathering to try to find out what's going on and determine what they can do. They get me in a wheelchair and wheel us over to the hospital.

10am: we're registering and getting into our room. It's in the high risk pregnancy ward--down the hall from the birthing ward. I will remain here on bed rest until the baby comes.

Rest of day Friday: I talk to a few doctors and get lots of tests taken. Basically, our baby isn't growing inside of me anymore. They don't really know why, but there's doing a bunch of tests to determine that--is it infection?, is it chromosomal? Is the placenta just not doing it's job? The first plan was to deliver the baby on Monday or Tuesday, but that's changed a bit. On Friday, they did an amniocentesis (big long needed that goes into my belly and they take out some amniotic fluid). From this fluid, they will test for chromosomal abnormalities and baby's lung development. The chromosomal results won't come until Monday. But, we got the lung results yesterday. His lungs are still in the immature state. There are 3 stages of lung development: mature, transitional and immature. They were thinking/hoping that he would be at or near the transitional stage, but that's not the case. So I've been getting steroid injections to help with at. Ultimately, the goal is to get his lungs to a point that after delivery, he won't have to be on a respirator. On a respirator, the likelihood for complications goes up a lot. It's just not a good scenario. So, now we wait. 48 hours after the last steroid injection (last one was Sat night) so on Tuesday nite or Wednesday, my DR will make a determination if it's better for the baby to stay in me, or if he'll grow better and his lungs are developed enough to come out. I will probably have the baby within a week. The good news is that the baby is looking otherwise healthy. He gets monitored 3x-4x a day--they watch his heart rate and it is fluctuating within the appropriate range very nicely. I'm having contractions, but can't feel them. Dr's aren't worried about that. And, the baby is moving a lot which is good too. SO, because he's looking so good, they may keep him in for as long as they can (week?).

Friday was a hard day. Yesterday was a lot better. Justin and I watched some basketball, had some friends come by. A much more positive day. I still have my down moments, but in the end, I know the hospital is the best place for me and the baby to be right now so that makes me feel better. I should note that my health is perfectly fine. That actually makes it a bit frustrating--I feel great, but I'm restricted to almost no activity. Oh well...

Today will be another lazy day, movies, books, games etc. Tomorrow we'll learn more information so I'll post more when I know it.

Justin's doing really well. He has an awful lot on his shoulders right now--we're moving starting this Thursday. It's only 6 blocks away, so that's nice. We have plenty of people helping us (him) out. We're just hoping now that baby won't come on Friday or Saturday (big moving days). Some friends are taking Rupert for the week, so that will be one less thing for Justin to worry about. And, we have those same friends (thanks Sam and Amber) helping Justin pack today. Justin will work Mon-Wed (again assuming baby's doing OK) and will then take the rest of the week off to move.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a million details--my head is just spinning with them.
I know we'll all be OK--just a challenging time.

Love to all,
Stacia