thanktitude

We have made it to 30 weeks and I am so glad.
We ended up in labor and delivery again this weekend, but we continue to not dilate or have any cervical change, and sweet baby Atlas remains active with a great heart rate so he gets to stay inside longer. Yay!
We are on bed rest for the next 4 weeks. Which means no Thanksgiving. Well, it means a different Thanksgiving.
The age old tradition has been to drive to Winfield, KS and visit extended family for several hours, eat too much, and drive home in a food induced comatose state. And the next day always had me putting up the Christmas tree and decorating, usually with a little help from curious pups.
This year will be different, quite possibly to prepare us for a lifetime of different once the little man arrives. While I am not looking forward to bed rest, I know it will be well worth it. I imagined myself running around getting things ready for the month of December and enjoying putting all of his tiny baby things together and in perfect order, you know being that awesome pregnant lady that goes on brisk walks, meets up with people at coffee shops and goes shopping for her bump. But the good Lord has a different plan. A more important one. And I'm ok with that. As Jerry Bridges says, "the Lord maneuvers our lives in such ways that we have to trust Him more."
I recently listened to a sermon that talked about the glory of the Lord, and how glorifying, or giving glory to something can be seen like introducing someone to a new song or band that you think is awesome. You talk and talk about how great it is, all the awesome parts of the chorus or bridge, the acoustics and harmony, that you finally just get out your phone, you tube it and play it for them. Say half way through the song, even though they've never heard it before, they try to sing along, or anticipate whats next. Or worse they just start talking while the song is still playing. They're not actually listening. They're not soaking up what is happening at all. I've been doing that. I've been trying to ascribe reasons for why our pregnancy has been so difficult, why our baby seems to want to come early, why my physical health has brought down my emotional health. Trying to anticipate whats next and why its next, and theres got to be a rhyme or reason that I can get insync with so I can be in tune for the next trial or joy. Thats not how it works, God doesn't need a rhythmn or a rhyme. He is. He is the one thing that remains. My life purpose is to display his abilities. His power, healing, sovereignty, goodness, Gospel. There is surprising freedom in that. Aaaaaaand I often forget it and don't live out of that freedom.
SO this Thanksgiving will be different. It won't be homemade foods and extended family. But it'll be Thanksgiving. Thankful for another week of the little booger growing inside, thankful for my sweet husband Jarrett, who has had the short end of the stick for far too long, and for family and friends who have been so supportive.
Our baby blinked at us when we last saw him. It might've been a wink. I'm not sure...

An Eventful Weekend

So we have had an eventful weekend.
Friday night we had some sweet friends come over for dinner and ended up watching hilarious youtube videos and playing nertz. It was great. I laughed so hard I was questioning whether shaken baby syndrome can happen in the womb. We love you guys Seth and Ali!
We stayed up way too late friday night, and had a marriage conference at our church Saturday 8:30-3:30. Needless to say we arrived fashionably late. It was a great conference, had 4 sessions of mini sermons and recap/question and answer time with your significant other following them.
After nill sleep and a long (but nice) day Jarrett had work at 4:30, and I went for a short walk.
And then I thought my water might've broke. Which I was surprisingly calm about, I waited over 30 minutes for the doctor on call to call me back (ends up the operator gave her the wrong area code-oops). I was informed I should go to the ER asap. Amidst waiting for her call I noticed my Braxton hicks getting much harder to handle. They weren't really easing up at all and were back to back.
Within the hour my mother picked me up and we headed to Wesley. By the time I got there I was having real deal contractions. They hooked me up to a monitor, baby was doing fine (great heartbeat, no stress, lots of movement-Praise God!) but the contractions were not letting up.  Also a blessing was my blood pressure and heart palpitations-both were in normal range and staying steady even with the pain and adrenaline rushes.
After going through different tests and scrapings (no fun when you aren't pregnant-living hell when you are) we found out that my water did NOT break (Praise God!) but the contractions were up to 2-8 minutes apart and were getting worse post taking Tylenol. I found out when you are in preterm labor there are certain steps that are taken to get ahead of contractions, because if you aren't in active labor (dilating) these steps can actually halt preterm labor. Tylenol was the first step, and they got worse. IV fluids was the next, and didn't put a dent in them. Morphine was next. Then we found out I'm allergic to Morphine...and when I say allergic I mean the IV site turned bright red and crawled up my arm and itched like crazy within a minute of starting the injection. She was already 3/4 of the way done putting it through my IV when we found out I was reacting to it, so she pulled the needle out of the IV site and immediately followed it with Benadryl. Benadryl is also a step they take to stop contractions. Up until this point in my pregnancy I haven't been allowed to be on Benadryl because I have super low blood pressure and tend to pass out. :) Luckily I was on a bed and all was safe and sound. After about 4 hours of contractions the Tylenol, 3/4 a dose of Morphine and Benadryl did the trick.
Throughout this entire process of trying to get the contractions to stop or at least slow down they wouldn't allow me to eat and they also had to check periodically to make sure I wasn't dilating. Yes, they were preparing themselves and me to go meet baby Atlas early if I had cervical change. At 27 weeks. Eekers.
Scary? Yes. Strange sense of calmness through out the whole ordeal? Yes. God thing? Yes.
PS-Thank you to some sweet friends (Dave and Tat!) that freed my mom up to wait with me at LDR until Jarrett got off work.
We are eager to meet our little man but have a renewed vigor to have him grow and 'bake' just a bit longer. There have been a lot of restrictions with this pregnancy, unexpected complications and a lot of unanswered questions but we know that God is in control. And we are grateful. Because if I was, I would've given up a long time ago and missed out on some really hard lessons and sweet blessings.
Since then, my doctor has confirmed that my braxton hicks will probably be intense and I may still have contractions here and there up until the end. We're now on kind of hyper 'alert' to what to do if the contractions last up to an hour and what the process will be for our little dude if he comes early. We're also being recommended to do elective csection at 39 weeks (if we make it there! we just might!) because of my height (more so lack of birth canal length) and his size. I meet with a specialist (hopefully before Thanksgiving-just in case) who will perform the surgery if that is indeed what needs to happen for him and myself to be in the safest shape. Until I reach 34 weeks they see no need to do full on bed rest (I'm on modified, again) or steroids (grateful for both) unless I go into labor again.  Which we don't anticipate, but we know God is sovereign and good.
Will all of these posts be about pregnancy? No, but for now, probably. It has kind of taken over my life.