32+ week update!

Hi...it's Shannon doing a blog entry for Kim. Yes, that means she's admitted back into the hospital again. Here's what's happened the last couple of days:

*Wednesday: they had their appt w/ dr. montgomery on Wednesday and they had some good news and not so good news...

the good news is that the baby looks really good. he weighs approx 4 lbs 4 oz. and all organs seem to be in tact. As of Wed., her cervix was still around 1cm and appeared to be closed at that time.

The not so good news was that her FFN came back positive that time (which means that she has a 50+% chance of going into labor within the next week or so). to be on the safe side, her doc was gonna giving her another round of betamethizone shots (steroids) to help baby's lungs develop in case he chooses to arrive really soon. She was so elated after the appt and then so bummed after they got the positive result. She says, "i was on such a roll... what happened? that's what i get for being too overconfident. i totally thought that i was going to make it to March. now i'm just hoping for February! PLEEEEAASE baby, please make it to February."

back to the good news... as of Wednesday she was officially 32 weeks pregnant which is a HUGE milestone! now she just needs to get to 34 weeks and she'll feel much, much more comfortable with baby coming any time after that. Their doc says that if she gets to 34 weeks he will be ecstatic... but even if baby comes now at 32 weeks they'll be ok with that because they have come so far since first being put on bedrest and the baby has such a better chance of being healthy now.

This is what their doctor told them at the appt. on Wednesday, "he thinks that she will have a really short labor. "about 4 hours front to back" were his exact words. i guess this is because of her cervix and how it likes to dilate when she has contractions. anyway, his point for saying this is that she'll need to come in right away if she starts noticing anything different happening with her body. so they're paying extra special attention to every little thing she was feeling. so far so good except MAJOR HEARTBURN".

anyways...i guess you'd say that he spoke too soon cuz, Wednesday evening, they went to the doctor to get the 1st (of the 2) betamethizone shot (steroid)...and everything still seemed fine, until Thursday...

*Thursday: so, this brings us to yesterday (Thurs.)...i talked to Kim yesterday around noon to see how she was doing & she said that she was doing fine but she hadn't felt the baby move a lot that day. when they went in for the 2nd betamethizone shot and she also mentioned to them that she hadn't felt a lot of movement that day, so they hooked her up to hear the baby's heartbeat & as soon as they did, he started moving a lot and she started having pretty strong contractions. It all seemed to snowball from there...they checked her cervix and she had dialated to 3 cm! they kept her on the Procardia (the medicine to help stop contractions), but decided not to give her anything else to stop labor since she's 32 weeks and also, since she had just had a steroid shot. Anyways, to sum yesterday up... last night, it really was looking like baby was coming, but finally the contractions slowed down and pretty much stopped.

*Friday: we went to see Kim and John at the hospital this morning & everything still seemed pretty calm. She's still dialated to 3 cm., so it seems like things kinda came to a halt...for now. We've just kinda stopped "guessing" what's gonna happen, cuz this baby is full of surprises. :) i just feels good knowing that she's in the hospital and is being monitered constantly, since things are so unpredictable. As soon as i hear anything else worth blogging about, i'll do another post for Kim...i hope that things stay "boring" for a few more days at least!