26 Weeks!!

Well, we hit 5 weeks here on Monday and 26 weeks on Saturday. Here’s what’s been up the last week.

7/16
Ultrasound day – Crystal’s cervix is pretty short. Short enough that Crystal’s nurse stood her on her head again. One of the normal doctors is on vacation, so the doctor helping out isn’t very helpful. He didn’t provide much information, so we feel like things aren’t very good. For Crystal, this was one of the harder days since we’ve been here. Just not knowing if things are okay is worse than knowing one way or another. We definitely don’t like the uncertainty.

7/17
Kenny had the day off, so just before lunch, he went fishing with his gunsmith. We had a lot of visitors today and enjoyed all the company.

7/18
26 weeks! That means another shot today. Crystal’s nurse said that at this point, every day that we can keep the babies where they are, is worth 3 days in the NICU. That helps us feel like every day gains us so much!!

7/19
Kenny had today off, so we spent the day resting. It was much needed. Kenny’s been working like crazy and Crystal has just been tuckered out.

7/20
5 weeks in the hospital as of today and another ultrasound. The fluid around babies is being maintained, so the change in dosage and frequency of the medicine does not appear to be affecting the babies. Crystal’s cervix remains closed, but is still really short. She also got weighed again today. Even with all the goodies we’ve been eating, she’s not gaining weight, but the nurses and doctor’s don’t seem too concerned at this point. They just said that we need to get back to stuffing the calories down, so we’re going to start with Carnation shakes a couple times a day.

7/21
Dr. Austin is back today. He gave some good news. He is still confident that we’ll be able to go home at 28 weeks. That makes us feel so much better. Now we at least feel like the ultrasounds haven’t been bad. We just get so much more information out of him that we do from the “substitute” doctor. During the monitoring of the babies today, Crystal had a great conversation with Nurse Tori. She was very informative and was trying to provide some details for what to expect once we get to delivery as well as what to expect with the doctors and nurses in Labor and Delivery and Mother/Baby. She just didn’t want me to be surprised that we’ll get less attention than we do up here. She is also so willing to provide information on her experiences. We’re grateful that there are nurses up here like her.