frazzled Friday

So another day of stress-free "non-stress testing"... non stress my hiney!

So the day started off fine. Kristen was a very good girl, not complaining about her new level of inactivity, she just needed one or two reminders.

I'll take a moment to brag, I'm not always the biggest help around the house so I felt rather proud of myself doing multiple loads of dishes, a few loads of laundry (I think I killed one shirt), dusting and cleaning the main floor, all except for the actual floor, floors, bathroom and bedrooms are on tomorrow's agenda, so far. All while keeping Kristen with a snack or a drink. And getting us out of the house in time for today's appointments! Today is the day I don't have school, Mon-Thur will be a bit of a different story and I am sorely perplexed. Kristen assures me all will be well and that she will remain as vegetable like as possible. I'm feeling rather aggressively protective and will have a hard time leaving Monday morning.

We got to the hospital for today's non-stress test, a quick blood pressure check and the second steroid shot. The reading I did on the web said steroid shots are given to women in risk of delivering soon, not just early... who the hell invented this damn internet thing...

Kristen's blood pressure was 136 over something equally as pleasing and Wolverine's heart rate was right where it should be. The nurses were in phone contact with our doctor. What he didn't like was that Wolve's heart rate was so consistent, yeah I typed that right, too regular?!?... Apparently a baby awake in the womb will have a heart rate that fluctuates up and down like a rolling wave up to ten or twenty beats in difference. Our little guy was apparently napping because he was sitting steady at 157 beats per minute... so the doctor ordered two hours of monitoring. The nurse used a little noise maker thing to startle him, which startled him for about 1 second until he went right back to sleep at 157/minute. Next they decided to bribe him with food. (already he's going to have unhealthy connections with food as a reward!) The nurse took me to the special fridge and I loaded up (making sure to get myself my own string cheese this time) and brought Kristen lots of little juices, puddings, crackers and cookies. The food worked, he perked up for a minute, but not very long. It wasn't long before he fell back into his 157 range. He kept trying to hide from the monitor, kicked it a number of times too. The doctor was at Utah Valley delivering a pre-term baby so he didn't get to come and talk to us. We did find out though that if we delivered now we would have to deliver at Utah Valley and not Orem since UV has a NICU, great, let's start making plans for a few months of NICU, that's not stressful, not stressful at all. If we don't make it to 34 weeks we will be at Utah Valley.

Our doctor is known for being extremely careful and taking no risks, which I totally appreciate. It's just a little stressful, but so far everything is fine. We have another test scheduled for Monday, and two per week from here on out.

I have this little habit of showing rather little emotion. I tend to be more expressive on here since no one is right in my face, that's not my normal way of doing things. I get pretty emotional pretty easy, yes I can cry at a good movie trailer. This might be related to why I prefer to show little emotion, it's easier to bottle everything up then trying to decide how much is ok to let out and when... I'm sure I'm harvesting a nice collection of ulcers.

I was very calm at the hospital, but when Dad called from MI to check up on us as we were leaving the hospital it was all I could do to keep it together. Why is it so much harder to remain composed when someone you love, who loves you, asks how things are going? It's not like they are going any differently than they were before they asked.

Hmmm, I may have just been a little too honest even for me. anywho...

A lot of hospital time in the near future, no one is making any more aggressive plans than that, that we know about yet.

Crystal (Kristen's friend from CO) apparently has taken the calling of getting people to come over to help out. We're not the best at accepting help, but we'll make an exception and will welcome any visitors, casserole or not.

I hope those who are local will find a way to come visit Kristen so she doesn't go crazy with boredom. Anytime of day is fine. She is allowed to answer the door.

Aunt Karen has already offered to bring us dinner on Wednesday, which is so sweet, that sounds like I am being sarcastic but I really mean it.

Sunday is when I am supposed to sing my song at church... I don't think I'll cancel, Kristen wants to come hear me, we got permission for little things like that at the most. So I get to add stage fright to all of this...

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers, the longer he stays in, the better.

So many people have gone through so much worse than we are right now, we are actually very grateful.