Patience is a Necessity: 23 Weeks

"All human wisdom is summed up in two words--wait and hope." Alexander Dumas

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If I had to identify one of my own major personality deficits (and just pick one!) it would probably be patience. I know that I am not a very patient person. Since becoming a mother three years ago, I would say I've made great strides, but am still far from perfect in this respect. When I sit quietly at home on bed rest contemplating recent difficulties and challenges, I often wonder whether this ordeal is meant to be a major life lesson in patience. I don't know. But whether this experience has an overall purpose intended on some higher level, it most certainly will bring with it a greater capacity for patience.

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Friday went very smoothly for me during the day. I read, watched a movie, had a visitor and ate. That's pretty much it. But I didn't have any obvious physical woes. That is until 8:15 pm when I experienced one of the symptoms on the "go straight to the hospital now" hospital discharge instructions. Thankfully, the doctor arrived very quickly, did some tests, and said we were fine. Apparently, it was just a normal side effect from the surgery and not a "big problem." But this again left us in a state of fear and trauma.

Saturday morning we woke up and the house was hot despite the fact that our new ac had been running all night. Ross went upstairs to investigate and found a large pool of water, which upon further investigation was observed dripping into our kitchen ceiling. That was bad enough, but the thought of making it through a 100-degree Memorial Day weekend was not pleasant thought. But like so much of our experience this year, there is very little you can do to actually control the outcome of many life events. You can take action in the right direction, and refrain from taking action in the obviously wrong direction. Then you can wait and hope. In the case of the ac, this worked out. The ac guys reappeared within in an hour or so and got things triaged so we would have a cool house until they return next week to finish (oh, please, oh, please) the job. And so things go on. Ross is keeing up his crazed level of effort to keep the house under control and Wyatt cared for. Wyatt is trying to deal with things the best a three-year-old can.

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My goal: stay well; make it through next week ceding control over most aspects of my life without bitterness; and try to get back to at least working from home soon.

Surviving Bed Rest Hour by Hour

We made is through day one of home bed rest. Unfortunately, I am having intermittent contractions which are simply terrifying for me. I haven't yet been bothered by the boredom because I spend every hour that passes without a contraction just being thankful. Contractions are the enemy of Wallis's welfare and my sanity. After worrying about this we called the nurse who told us to come get checked out by the doctor this morning. He said everything appeared fine and to keep resting. Easy for him to say. I have now seen all but one of the doctors in the practice, which I think might be six. When I weighed in last Friday, I saw a gain of 16 lbs total which freaked me out. When I saw a loss of four pounds this morning, I was more freaked out. The doctor wasn't worried about it, but I was grateful for all the second breakfasts I ate in the first trimester. (That's the benefit or curse of not suffering morning sickness.) I am just not very hungry since I've been on bed rest. This is very unusual for me because even when not pregnant I am always hungry. Hoping I regain a little of my appetite so I can put weight on the baby. I wish it could all go directly to her. Just skip my ass and go straight to the baby girl.

I am now confined to the bedroom (meaning the couch and tv are out) because our HVAC is disconnected. Ross worked like crazy to get the HVAC guys to come install the new system that can cool upstairs. But trying to get an HVAC repair in May in Texas is next to impossible. There is no shortage of work when everyone in Austin discovers on May 8 that their central air isn't working. Finally, he scheduled these guys a couple weeks out. Well, the timing ended up not so good. Anyway, they were supposed to be done yesterday (coincidentally the first 100 degree day this year for us) but they weren't. At least they loaned us a window unit for the bedroom. Now we are all sleeping in here at night. Hoping they finish today, but not counting on it. They have to redo all of ducts upstairs. This is a big job in a 100-year-old house with a very strange upstairs configuration.

In other less-than-thrilling news, I am reading Water for Elephants. I told Ross to get me something fairly light and easy to read. Good book so far. Haven't seen the movie, but I have plenty of time for that later. Contemplating getting Netflix. I have seen about three movies in the past three years. Maybe five. Really. I have worked all the time since I was 16, except during law

school, which was its own almost full time job, so it is really strange to just be at home. I wish I could bank all this rest for when I am exhausted caring for a newborn. Too bad it doesn't work like that.

Tomorrow is 23 weeks. This was the longest week of my life. But every week is critical for Wallis. Just plodding along, day by day.

Released

We've made through three of our four major hurdles. We got through 48 hours without infection. Passing this milestone resulted in our release from the hospital. The MFM said we need to make it for two more weeks to have a good shot a delivery close to term. Hope, hope, hope, and rest is all we can do.

I am now on bed rest at home. This is going to be very challenging for all of us. Ross will be left with all the work that he does plus all the daily chores that I usually do. I have nothing but awe for single parents. When Ross had his appendix removed, I was left to all the work for only a couple days and it felt like A LOT. Ross has an amazing capacity for hard work, but I really worry about the stress of this on him. Wyatt is already showing that he's under stress as well. Four nigths without his mama is a lot. We have been fortunate that until this point we have had the luxury of keeping Wyatt on a pretty tight schedule. Ross and I are really creatures of habit and Wyatt has fallen right in with this. Needless to say the last few days have turned that upside down a bit. Luckily for us, Wyatt has spent the night several times with Bobo and regards that as a vacation, so it wasn't upsetting at all (in fact he was pretty thrilled) to have her as his primary caretaker. He loves spending time with Pops and Bobo and he's going to be doing a lot of that over the next several months. That said, a little chaos has crept into his world and it is starting to take its toll on him. For me, well, you can imagine type-A-minus on bed rest for weeks. I am most disappointed that I am not getting to spend time doing lots of fun stuff with Wyatt this summer as I had planned AND that I am causing Ross so much stress. BUT, priority one is getting our little girl to full term or close to it.

We've made it through so much with Wallis; or she's it made it through so much with us. We just need a couple more miracles so she can join our family. We have years of family fun to look forward to. Just taking it day by day.

Praying for Another Miracle

The next post about our niban baby was supposed to be about how our baby girl had a great sonogram at 20.5 weeks where the MFM (maternal fetal medicine specialist) pronounced her "perfect." This post would have included the funny ultrasound picture of her holding up her index finger to indicate that she's number 1. Apparently, she disagrees that she is the number two anything. Instead, I am writing this post from a hospital bed on day four of bed rest after a risky surgery with great hopes that will meet our baby girl later rather than sooner under much better circumstances.

While she may be perfect, I am not. I went in for a routine appointment on Friday at 22 weeks even. I mentioned that I thought maybe I had some mild, minor infection. The doctor did an exam (which is not routine this early) and discovered that I was already one cm dialated AND she could see the amniotic sac. I was taken by wheel chair to the labor and delivery ward at the hospital. Ross and I decided that we needed to name this girl right away. So on Friday night he called me and told me that we decided to name her Wallis Adele. Wallis is just a name that I really like and was on this list before we knew Wyatt was a boy and Adele is the middle name of my dear friend Christine, who once offered to be a surrogate for me, despite her general dislike of being pregnant.

We made it through our first 48 hour trial (me with sanity barely intact) and have made it through rescue cerclage surgery, which was very risky for our girl. We are now almost 24 hours into our third hurdle of making it two days with no infection or labor. Each doctor has reminded me that we have done everything that we can do. There is nothing to do except stay in bed and think good thoughts.

This baby has survived so much that I really think that she's meant to come home and be Wyatt's little sister and get all the love we have to offer. I pray that she can stay safely in utero for another three or four months. We've already gotten so very lucky that the doctor examined me and caught this early. Apparently, it is very rare to catch incompetent cervix, because the loss simply happens suddenly unless there is some past history requiring extra monitoring. We also have an MFM who has a cult following and is very, very good at the rescue cerclage. So for today we are grateful. Just making it day by day.