February 26, 2011 - 29 Weeks, 4 Days

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to update the blog as much as I would have liked to this week. I had three mid-term exams and didn't have a lot of time to do anything else. Luckily, Amaraa has done well this week. On Wednesday, Dr. Anderson came in and told Amaraa that her blood transfusion and the iron supplements they have been giving her had finally paid off. Her blood count was at 35. He said that for most people, that would be normal, but it is probably a world record for her. We were worried that the transfusion hadn't been worth having since it had only raised her count to 29 when they checked it two days later. But, it just took a little while for her bone marrow to wake up. Now, she's doing much better. She had another bleeding episode on Wednesday. They seem to be happening more often now. She passes huge blood clots that look like her liver fell out. It was scary at first, but now that she knows she's not losing babies or vital organs, she doesn't get as nervous.

She has been having regular contractions over the last week. At first, they weren't very strong, but they have been increasing in intensity throughout the week and now they have started to hurt. The doctor came in yesterday and told her that he thinks the contractions will continue getting stronger and hurting more and more. Eventually, he said, they will strong enough to rip the remaining part of the placenta away from her uterus and they will have to deliver the baby.

Amaraa still enjoys all the visitors who come to see her. The hospital is quite far away from most of them, but they still take time out of their day to drive down and see her. Thank you all for being so thoughtful. We also appreciate Tonya Worsley and the Primary Activity Days girls from our ward's Primary who have been coming to help Skylar with his reading every day. It may seem like a simple thing, but it makes a huge difference to us right now.

Amaraa's hospital neighbor went home yesterday. Amaraa was always jealous of her because she could hear her showering twice a day. Amaraa is only allowed out of bed for a short shower every other day. Now she misses her because it's so quiet. Luckily another neighbor moved in today. It's funny how you get to know your neighbors when you can't see or talk to them. I was at the hospital last night when the neighbor left and the nurse offered me her food. She said the lady had told her she didn't want it because she was going to make her husband take her out for dinner. Now Amaraa expects me to take her out to dinner when she gets out of here. Fat chance! Just kidding. She probably deserves that much.

This post's picture is the baby monitor screen. The red line is the baby's heart monitor and the blue line is monitoring Amaraa's contractions. The hump in the blue line shows that she had just had a doosie.