A Baby update

Boy since the 28'th of December, it seems like life hasn't stopped for even a moment!

For those who missed my last post and aren't sure what has been going on for Curtis and I lately: December 28'th I went to my OBGYN for my regular appointment and my blood pressure was 150/90 (quite high). Long and short, I spent the night in the hospital and ended up on blood pressure medication. I went home and then December 30'th a home-care nurse came to check on me and my Pressure was 152/106 (very very high) and I had to go back into the hospital. I stayed overnight again and they put me on more meds...

So now I'm on a moderately high dose of Blood pressure medication (Adalat 60 Mg once a day, and Labetolol 300 Mg 3X a day). The max dose of Labetolol they can give me is 2400 and right now I'm at 900 so they can pretty much double what I'm on before having to induce me to get baby out.  (that is assuming my kidney's don't crap out first, and baby isn't being affected by my high blood pressure)

The issue is a battle between my body and the baby's placenta. (for any who don't know, the placenta is what feeds the baby, translates my blood and food into the baby's blood and food via the umbilical cord. It looks like a brain, stuck to the uterus wall, and the umbilical cord runs from placenta to baby)  For some reason, baby's placenta is fighting my body causing high blood pressure. The long-and-short of it medically is, the medication will work for a bit, then the placenta will fight back a bit harder, and they'll have to increase my medication. It'll be a back-and-forth that can only ultimately be resolved by getting this baby out.

The problem? I'm only 33 weeks and 4 days. They'd ideally like to wait till at least 36 weeks (a "term" baby). At the severity my body is fighting, it is very unlikely that I will make it that far before they have to take baby out. we're taking it one day at a time right now. If I had gone into this mess at 36 weeks, they would've induced me right away.  The good news is with our medical technology, a baby born even at 28 weeks stands a very strong chance of survival, and our baby, although requiring medical help from the NICU, would likely do well still if he had to be born today.

Our fetal assessment showed him to be roughly 4 pounds (that's give-or-take a full pound they say).  We saw a photograph on the hospital bulletin board of a baby born at 1 lb 12 oz who is now healthy and doing well, so this was encouraging to us.

Today my pressures have been high but not so high I have to go into the hospital (bottom number in the high 80's to mid-high 90's). If my pressure gets to 150/100 I have to go into the hospital, so you can see how stressful it is for me to take my blood pressure 4 times a day!

I DID have to check in at St B last night. So in less than a week I've had 3 hospital trips. This time, fortunately the doctors were granted wisdom (thanks for the prayers) and chose to leave my medications as they are, since one of them (Adalat) is a long-acting drug that requires a few days to fully show itself in my blood pressure.

Curtis and I appreciate all the prayers and support! We ask that you would continue praying, especially pray for wisdom for the doctors, and that God would work a miracle in my body, so this little baby has the best chance at a healthy life he can get.  You can pray for Curtis that he would have the energy and patience needed to care for me, and run his business. He's under a lot of pressure with all this responsibility. I wish I could help him out, but obviously I need to do just-about nothing right now except grow a baby.

Please also pray that God would grant me the self-discipline needed for me to take it easy. I'm pretty close to being on bed-rest (they want me to move around a bit, but nothing more than grabbing a drink, going to the bathroom, changing seats etc...). If I can't keep it under control at home, I'll have to spend the rest of my pregnancy in the hospital (which I REALLY don't want... hate those fluorescent lights...)

Anyway, I'll try my best to keep this blog updated, but my first priority is rest, so if it takes a few days for me to post, rest assured, at least I'm resting! Thanks again for all your prayers, and we appreciate your continued support! We know that God has this situation in his hands. This is God's baby, not ours, and we are prepared to follow God's plan and not our own. We obviously have our own plan for how this should all work out, but if God's plan is different from ours, so-be-it. He knows best. In this knowledge, we continue on with peace in our hearts, and are gracious for the care and healing He is providing to us now.