Another week under our belt!

Well, we're at 34 weeks and 4 days today. It was a pretty eventful week actually. On Monday James and I went to Johns Hopkins to meet the Maternal-Fetal Medicine OBs that will deliver Jack. We had an appointment with one of the fellows. She was nice and we went over everything with her regarding Jack and the pregnancy issues thus far. They didn't do an ultrasound or anything. It was more of a meet-and-greet. We did get a tour of the pediatric intensive care unit and saw a baby on ECMO (heart-lung bypass). We were glad to be able to see that and talk to the head of the ECMO team but I have to say it did give us a reality check and made us a little nervous. It's this massive machine that surrounds the tiny baby and the tubes coming out of the baby's neck are clear so you can see the blood going in and out. I swear those tubes look like they were half the size of a garden hose. They told us that once they put the cannulas in the baby's neck then they can't use that vein and artery again. We also learned that if it's absolutely necessary they can do repair surgery while the baby is on ECMO but it's not recommended because of all the heparin they're on when they are on ECMO. We were also surprised how bright and loud the PICU was. The nurse said the babies are so heavily sedated it doesn't matter and that it's more important for them to see their color etc. It did make us feel like he'd be less 'delicate' then we previously thought.

On Wed James had to take me to the doctor and then for an ultrasound of the gallbladder. The pain got really intense and I was so nauseous I couldn't eat (I lost weight again too). The good news was that the bile ducts are clear but now I have 'several' stones. The kidney is still swollen too. The surgeon still won't touch me unless I'm literally yellow with jaundice so we just have to wait and see how long I can go and hope none of the stones get lodged.

Today (Friday) we saw Dr. Kramer. Jack passed his biophysical exam again. He was moving and was happily sucking his thumb knuckle. His heart looks good but his liver was 'up' for the 2nd week in a row. My amniotic fluid levels also jumped way up again so the polyhydramnios is back. The doctor said that is likely making the other issues worse because of all the pressure. I told Jack to stop sucking his thumb and start swollowing his fluid! Jack is still breech and Dr. Kramer said he doesn't believe he will turn at this point. Hopkins said they don't routinely do scheduled C-sections but as long as Jack stays breech we won't have a choice. Dr. Kramer said we'll just keep monitoring us closely and hope we just keep logging days. His feeling is that between the polyhydramnios and gallbladder we won't be scheduling the delivery...most likely it will be an emergency type of situation so the plan is to continue bed rest and take it one day at a time. We also discussed the MRI again. I really wanted to do this but he convinced James and I against it. He said that he thinks that right now Jack has about 50% chance of survival and he thinks if we do the MRI we could catch things on a bad day and it would devestate us. He said he doesn't want to take the hope of 50% away from us and that either way the treatment is the same so why put ourselves in a position where we could just lose all hope. As much as I want to know more accurately how much lung Jack has I agreed with him. I think seeing the ECMO and feeling so physically and emotionally drained at this point is probably enough. The rest will be up to Jack and I know he'll fight hard.

Next week we go to Hopkins on Tuesday for ultrasounds and to have an exam with one of the more senior perinatologists then we see Dr. Kramer on Friday. I'm happy to say we finally got the go ahead to stop seeing the regular OB.

Love,Vic
PS: no pics this week :-(