New Residence....9/30/97 - ?

Well, the doctor finally booked Nancy a suite in the maternity ward. At the end of week 28, she's gone farther than they thought before she finally had to pack her bags and settle in for the long haul.

She's getting used to her new surroundings, and the hospital's maternity ward is quite nice. Although it's not home, they've done things to make the atmosphere a bit more hospitable as opposed to the normal 'sterile' stereotypical room.

Today (this update) is 10/3/97, and she's been allocated a prescription for tributalene (not sure of the spelling there), which they hope (and it appears to be working) will slow up or stop contractions which would initiate preterm labor. Some of the nastier side effects are the rising of body temperature and heart rate, along with some resulting shakiness. This makes for a very cold room when I visit, but I've learned a sweater will come in handy next time.

The outlook is good so far; they're hoping to get another 2-4 weeks out of this before we reach the end. We'll keep you updated.

10/20/97...Still counting...

Things are getting a little more exciting every day around here. Nancy is now nearing the end of her 31st week, which has surprised us as much as the physicians. She continues to do well, still in the hospital on bed rest, and the kids have checked out perfect on every test (and that's every day lately).

Nancy is getting a lot of visitors, which makes her happy. We even have a new friend a door or two down who is having triplets, and the two of them expect to be caring for their newborns in the ICU side by side. It's a great thing to have someone close by you can share things with who's sharing the experience like no one else can :-).

The goal now is to get through Halloween, and from there to push our way as far into November as "we" can. All of the babies are over three pounds now, with one as high as three and a half. Amazing how small that is in terms of a singleton pregnancy, yet how large you believe it is under these circumstances. If she can stick it out until mid-November, we may get most or all of them close to four pounds - that's great because health, feeding, and being 4.5lbs or more let's them come home....er, yikes! (what am I saying?) :-)

Now if only I can figure out how to get my hands on a van.........

10/30/97...almost...

The doctors just continue to be happily amazed at Nancy's progress. All this time and no difficulties (:::looking for some wood:::) so far.

They have decided to go ahead and give Nancy injections over two days which will enhance the development of the babies' lungs. She really looks like we're going to make it past our latest goal date of Halloween (although it really would've been neat to have their birthdays coupled with costume parties), and may even push into November some. The plan will probably include lifting what meager medicinal treatments she is receiving around November 5th or so, and letting the kids tell us on their own when they're ready to join the world (if they're smarter than me, that'll be when they're around 18).

Nancy has now gained about 55 pounds or so since we started measuring, and it looks as if all of the kids are somewhere (+/-) four pounds now. There's still less than half pound difference from the biggest to the smallest, which is really great news. Every few days they take some "baby measurements" which register on a point scale of 1-8, and so far they've been an 8 every time.

Since we won't have any more sonograms, or size measurements now until the birth, the next page will probably have some shots of the nursery, and any of her I can manage (gotta keep MY health in mind).

Stay tuned.......