February 20, 2011 - 28 Weeks, 5 days

This week has been fun. A lot of good friends have been to visit Amaraa -- some of which we hardly get to see anymore. We have been blessed with so many good friends. People seem to come out of the woodwork to give us their support during our times of need. We have amazing ward members and amazing friends. Thank you all.

Amaraa is doing well. They finally took out her IV this week and she and the baby have been doing so well that they didn't make her wear the baby monitor last night. She was finally able to get a good night's sleep. The baby's heart rate has been pretty consistent, but they said that he still sometimes has some irregularity. Tomorrow she goes in for another appointment with the perinatalogist at Maternal Fetal Medicine. They'll measure her fluid levels and also measure the baby. They don't like to measure the baby every week, so they only measure every couple of weeks. They say it gives them a better idea of actual growth that way. Two weeks ago, he weighed just over two pounds, so we are hoping for three this week.

The nurse weighed Amaraa today. She lost two pounds this week!  Yay!  Without the IV in, she isn't gaining so much water weight. She is definitely eating for two lately. They'll bring her meals in and she'll eat those, and then her Mongolian friends will bring Mongolian food and she'll eat that too, and then she'll ask me to stop at the store and get her a pint of Haagen Dazs! They let her order the food she wants at the hospital now and yesterday she ordered so much they had to bring it in on two trays! So, she feels pretty good about losing two pounds. I think it's hilarious.

I brought the kids in on Friday. Amaraa misses them so much, so it was good for her to see them. We spent quite a while at the hospital and the kids had fun spending time with their mom. They danced for Amaraa, and Jasmine cuddled up with her mom in the bed and had some mommy-daughter bonding time. They had a great time.

Whoa There, Baby!

Welcome to our blog! We decided to start this blog to keep everyone informed about what is going on with what has become a crazy pregnancy.
Here is a bit of background to get started:
We found out we were expecting in late September. We had thought we were done having kids, so it was a big surprise. We were so excited. We were both enrolled in a crazy Geology class that required us to hike up Rock Canyon at 8:00 AM every Tuesday morning. On one of our brisk morning hikes, Amaraa started having some pain. She powered through and endured the class. I took her back to the University for her next class and she called me crying about 45 minutes later, saying she was in the bathroom and she was bleeding. I had gone to American Fork after I dropped her off at school, but told her I would get back to her as soon as possible. In the meantime, some unknown angel heard her crying in the bathroom stall and offered to help. She went and bought Amaraa some needed supplies and brought them to her. We will forever be grateful to this girl, who got away without Amaraa seeing her or asking her name. Anyway, I picked Amaraa up from school and we rushed to the OB/GYN. The doctor did an ultrasound and found that the baby was OK, but that Amaraa had a "low-lying" placenta. They said that they would just watch it carefully but that they would just have to wait and see what would happen.
They said that there wasn't anything they could do until the pregnancy was 24 weeks along.
About every week from then on, Amaraa woud have blood gushes. These would mostly occur on weekends when I was out of town working. And invariably they would happen at 2 or 3 in the morning which meant middle-of-the-night, two-hour drives for me to meet her at the hospital. One time she was rushed to the hospital in the ambulance and another time, a good friend made the late night run. If I remember correctly, we made a total of 6 runs to the hospital between 10 and 24 weeks. At first, we were seen in the Emergency Room of the hospital, but they said that at 19 weeks they had to start sending us up to the Labor and Delivery department. Every time, it was the same story -- they would monitor the baby until the night was over and then send us home. Three weeks ago today, Amaraa had another gush of blood during the night. We didn't go to the hospital because the bleeding decreased and we had an appointment with the doctor the next day anyway.
We had had an appointment with the perinatalogist from the Maternal Fetal Medicine department a week earlier and she had said that if Amaraa had any more bleeding, they might have to admit her into the hospital. At our appointment, everything looked good, but our doctor reminded us that we needed to get to the hospital if Amaraa bled more than usual. Well, no sooner did we get her home from the doctor's office than Amaraa started to bleed again. And this time she was bleeding a lot.
We rushed to the hospital for lucky visit #7 and they decided to transfer her to the regional hospital and admit her. It has now been three weeks. Amaraa is still in the hospital and is still bleeding periodically, but so far, the baby is still right where he should be, growing on target and seemingly blissfully unaware of what is going on. The doctors are going to keep Amaraa in the hospital until she has the baby. We are perfectly content to have our baby stay where he is for awhile. So in that spirit, we have launched our blog to tell our little one, "whoa there, baby!" and document our experiences here. We welcome your feedback and comments.