Kidneys, kidneys, kidneys…

Who would have thought I would have said that word a billion times in one week?  But Aliza Jane is still having issues with hers, so we are trying to figure out what to do next.

Here is the scoop:

Her creatinine levels went up from Friday.  On Friday, they were .95, and today they were 1.3.  When I found out this news, I immediately broke down in tears.  I’m sure the other moms in the milk bank enjoyed the sounds of my sniffles along with the airy rhythms of all of the pumps not so gently squeezing the life out of us all.

Anyway, we spoke to a urology student on Friday who was following Aliza Jane, and he scared me half to death.  He told us that her kidneys could potentially fail in the near future, that her surgeries would be very dangerous, and that her kidneys were doing terribly.

However, we spoke to a neonatology resident today at my request, and he had a very different story to tell us.  We asked him about her raised creatinine levels, and he said that while they don’t like it that her levels are that high, it would still take years for her to sustain enough kidney damage to fail.  He also said that the surgery they do to fix this problem is risky just like any other surgery due to anesthesia, possibility of infection, etc.  But he said he did a month of pediatric urology during his education, and basically all they did was treat what Aliza Jane has.  He reassured us that it is very routine.  Not only that, but it is minimally invasive.  If you want to read about the procedure, this is a good website for it:

Percutaneous Nephrostomy Tube

Once they drain her kidneys, her kidney function will improve.  She will most likely have the tubes in her for a while.  I am guessing that they will keep them in and let her grow.  That way, they can see if she will outgrow the blockage that is in her kidneys or just let her get bigger before they do a more invasive operation to remove the blockage.  Once they remove the blockage or she outgrows it, they will be able to remove the tubes, and more than likely, her kidney function will be at 100%.  It will be a long road for her the next few weeks, but we are praying she gets through it and comes out on the other side nice and healthy.

So, yes, it is scary because it is still surgery on such a tiny little one, but I feel much better today than I have in a few days.  Aliza Jane is a very strong baby who continually improves in every other area.  She is up to 31 cc’s a day for each feeding.  (Unfortunately, my milk supply is getting less and less with each day no matter what I do.  I am pretty sure that she will run out of milk sometime tomorrow night or Wednesday morning as it is now taking me 2 pumping sessions to get enough for one feeding for her and she eats 8 times per day.  I simply can’t pump 16 times a day.) She has been practicing drinking my milk with a bottle and yesterday she drank 15 cc’s with the Occupational Therapist she is working with!  She has only done 5-7 cc’s on the other days because she falls asleep!

She is also maintaining her own body temperature very well, so she is off her heat in the isolette, though she still spends her days in one.  She is keeping her blood sugar levels up, and she is more alert every day.  We had a Developmental Specialist come see her today, too, and she said that she is doing very well.  Her only draw back is that she is not completely feeding on a bottle yet, but she reassured us that she will learn that over time.

We are very proud of our little lady!  Not only is she a beauty, but she has made so much progress.  We can not wait to get the kidney issues behind us and move on from all of this stress.  And I can’t wait until the day when she doesn’t have to be poked with needles and have all sorts of monitors stuck to her beautifully pink skin!

Please continue to pray for her and for the doctors to have wisdom about further plans for our Aliza Jane.  We just want her to be healthy and home with us!

11 Days Old…

Aliza Jane (as we have decided to call her instead of just Aliza) is growing!  She has kept her weight up at 3 pounds, 9 ounces for the past 2 days!  This is great news as she needs to keep growing in case she needs surgery.

Speaking of surgery, this is the whole story on that:  Aliza Jane still has elevated creatinine levels.  Creatinine is made in the body and filtered out through the kidneys at a consistent rate.  She is not filtering out the creatinine as fast as she should be.  Typically, infants have some creatinine in their body that is transferred from their mother at birth, but they filter it out within the first day or so of life.  Aliza Jane’s creatinine level increased during her first day of life to 1.7.  She has since gotten it down to .95, so it is decreasing, but not fast enough.  Her kidneys are still full of urine, and one has gotten slightly worse.  She is passing a normal amount of urine in her diaper, though, so that means that she does not have 100% blockage.  As for her creatinine,  the urologist said that if her levels do not get lower than .8 or .9 in the next week or two, she will need surgery to drain her kidneys or surgery to remove the blockage in her kidneys.  Otherwise she could face complete kidney failure in as little as 4-6 weeks.  If they choose to drain her kidneys, they would put tubes through her back into her kidneys to drain the excess urine.  If they decide to remove the blockage, this will require invasive surgery.  The urologist emphasized several times that either one would be very dangerous for a baby her size due to the anesthesia and other risks involved.  In other words, we want her creatinine levels to decrease so that they can postpone surgery as long as possible.  The only way she would not need surgery is if her creatinine levels decrease to what we think the urologist said was .2.  In that case, they would just monitor her and perhaps do surgery later on in life.  It is also possible that she could outgrow the blockage with time, but again, they won’t let her just be under observation unless her creatinine levels are very, very low.

This news was heartbreaking to me.  I cried the whole day they gave us this news.  I was so exhausted both mentally and emotionally already that I just couldn’t hold myself together.  Since we found out this news, I have been trying to trust in God with my daughter.  But it is very hard.  Everyone keeps saying, “God has it under control” or “God knows what He’s doing”, and as much as I want those things to comfort me, it is very hard.  Because I know that God, in his infinite wisdom, doesn’t always make things easy or perfect.  He doesn’t always heal.  He doesn’t always raise from the dead.  And He was still in control when my brother was killed 5 years ago.

So, this has been a huge mental struggle for me.  Josh keeps telling me that it seems like I am already mourning her death even though she is still here.  In a way, he is right.  I am trying my hardest not to set myself up for heartache by expecting the worst. But that is not fair to Aliza Jane.  I have to remind myself when I’m holding her and loving her that I shouldn’t hold back because it’s not fair for her to have a mommy who is afraid to love her because I don’t want to be hurt.  I love her so much anyway.  There is really no way I couldn’t.  So for now, I am trying my best to just enjoy being with her and enjoy being her mommy.  But a part of me is heartbroken every time I look at her because I can’t tell the future, and I am scared to death of it if I were to be honest.  Please understand how vulnerable I am being with these feelings.  It is embarrassing to be saying all of these things, but I think it’s important that I share them, especially since I believe if I don’t get them out, I will end up driving myself crazy.

But, on the positive side, Aliza Jane has been maintaining her own blood sugar levels without a glucose drip for several days now!  She finally got her IV removed, and the only things hooked up to her now are her feeding tube and all of her monitors.  Also, she has been practicing eating with a bottle once a day with an occupational therapist, and she is able to suck and breathe at the same time.  That’s a great accomplishment for her!  Also, she was lifting her head up as she was leaning on my chest during our skin to skin holding time last night.  And while I know she wasn’t completely horizontal on her tummy, but rather on an incline on my chest, she is still able to use those muscles.  I felt so proud of her!

She really is as cute as ever, and she is becoming more aware of her surroundings.  She is staying awake for longer periods of time, and we are really seeing more of her spunky personality coming out every day.  We love her so much, and we just can’t believe sometimes that she is ours!

Please continue to pray for her.  Pray for complete healing of her kidneys!  And pray that if she does need surgery, that she will be strong (as she has already proven to be!).  And please pray for me.  This is by far the hardest thing I have ever been through in my life, and I am very fragile right now, but I need to be strong for Aliza Jane.

One Week Old!

I wanted to write a quick update since it feels like we have fallen off the blog bandwagon.  It’s a lot easier to just do facebook/twitter updates from my phone since we are so busy being up at the hospital and getting ready for our move.  But I don’t want to keep you guys in the dark by just doing 140 character updates!

Aliza is one week old today.  I can’t believe that.  It has gone by in a blur for sure.  She is doing well.  She sleeps a whole lot.  She tends to wake up before feedings cause she gets fussy sometimes when she is hungry.  Otherwise she is an angel who just sleeps and makes cute faces.  She cracks us up! When she is trying to wake up and is having a hard time with it, she lifts her eyebrows really high as if that will help her eyes to open.  It is adorable.

As for her health, she is now moved to the level 2 NICU.  She got moved there on Monday night because she has been breathing on her own very well.  She still can’t maintain her own body temperature so she is in a heated isolette.  Luckily, we are allowed to stick our arms in and touch her little head, feet, and tummy.  These touches are so important to her development, and we love getting to feel her soft skin and hold her tiny, long-toed feet.  We also get to hold her most days. I do “kangaroo care” with her.  this is where you do skin to skin contact.  It’s so cute!  I wear a tank top, and they tuck her little butt and feet into the top of it and she rests her head on my chest.  I love that time more than any other because I can feel her breathe and the warmth of her skin on mine makes me feel better about her being alone in the isolette the rest of the time.  I hate that she is alone in there, but I also know that she needs the quiet, restful environment of it to grow.  I still cry every day though when I’m at home because I miss her, and I am grieving the loss of holding my baby in her first days of life.  I’ve never cried this much about anything.  It’s exhausting both emotionally and physically, and I’m also going through a ton of hormone changes, so that makes it even harder.

Anyway, back to Aliza Jane.  She had her VCUG today.  We have been waiting since Monday for this test because it kept getting pushed back.  On Monday, she was supposed to get a catheter in her urethra, but the radiology technicians couldn’t get it in because they literally couldn’t see it.  It was too tiny.  But she cried and cried about it, so they didn’t try very hard.  They also didn’t want to risk infection.  So they rescheduled it for Tuesday, but the urologist go too busy, so they finally did it today.  I was dreading the results of this test, but it turned out well!  A VCUG is a procedure in which they inject dye into the bladder through a catheter to see if there is reflux of urine back into the kidneys.  There was no reflux as the dye stayed in her bladder.  This is great news, but she still has the blockage in her kidneys, so we will have to talk to the urologist about what to do next.  Most likely it will be an ultrasound and monitoring of her condition.  The good thing is, she is producing a normal amount of urine for  baby her size, so we are hoping that the blockage will correct itself in time.

They are also doing a series of tests on her because she has had low blood sugar.  We had geneticists and other doctors taking blood and examining her yesterday and today.  They are trying to determine if the blood sugar issue is just because she is a preemie or if there is an underlying cause.  Please pray that all of these tests come back normal.  I would love to explain all of the tests, but I don’t understand them myself, so I don’t want to butcher them.  All I know is that the more tests they want to run on her, the more I worry about her.  It has been extremely hard for me emotionally and some days I wish they would just do the tests without telling me about them.  But really, I do want to know.  I just don’t want to worry! 🙂

They took her off of her glucose drip IV today for 24 hours to see how her blood sugar did on its own.  Normal blood sugar for babies her size is 54+.  When they took it before they took her off the IV, it was 86.  Tonight, 10 hours after the glucose was stopped, it was 69!  This is great news because she is maintaining her blood sugar with just her feedings.  She is up to 27 cc’s per feeding, which is just 3 cc’s (or milliliters) short of an ounce!  She gets fed every 3 hours.

I am pumping milk for her around the clock.  I was doing it every 3 hours even through the night, but my supply has topped off at 30 cc’s per pumping session, so in order to increase it, I am pumping every 2 hours during the day and every 3 at night.  This is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, but it is so worth it.  I will stick with it no matter what.  But please pray with me that my supply will increase!  Otherwise, she will surpass what I am able to make in just a few days and she will have to be put on formula.  I want to keep her on my milk as long as possible because it is so much better for her!

That’s all the update I can think of right now.  Forgive me for the sloppy, unfancy writing, but it’s too late to be eloquent right now!

Also, if you want to visit Aliza, we are up there every day.  Just text or call us!

~Aliza’s mama

August 20th update…2 days old!

Hey friends!

It is hard to believe that Aliza is just two days old.  Part of me feels like it’s been forever since she came into our lives, and part of me feels like I just heard that first cry of hers as she was coming into this world.

Being a mommy is fantastic beyond words, and I know Josh feels the same way about being a daddy.  We just can not get enough of our little girl!  Every moment with her is so precious and special.  Even just watching her sleep feels like the greatest, most fun thing in the whole world!

Aliza is doing so well!  All of the nurses keep complimenting her and saying how cute she is.  Josh and I are a little biased, but we think she’s just the most beautiful baby.  Her skin is a great shade of pink, and she’s got gorgeous eyes.  And yes, folks, she has hair, and it is strawberry blonde!  Looks like she could end up being a red-head like her daddy!  Her tiny little toes and fingers are adorable, and she likes to sleep with her hand up by her face or head.  She’s just awesome.

As for her health, she is thriving!  She has only lost 2 ounces, which is typical of newborns.  She started off eating 4 cc’s of formula a day, and is now up to 8 cc’s, and she is digesting all but around 1 cc per feeding.  The nurses said that is perfectly normal.  She is a bit jaundice, which is also expected in a premie, so she is under billirubin lights at the moment.  The more she goes potty, the more this will improve.

Speaking of going potty-her kidneys!  The doctors are going to be doing testing to her kidneys on Monday to determine what is going on.  They are going to put a catheter in her and inject dye that will show them what the fluids are doing in her kidneys.  There is one of two things going on-either she has reflux, which is where urine backs up into the kidneys, or she has an obstruction, which may or may not require surgery.  We will know more about that after the test.

The good news is, she is producing more urine in her diaper and she is going poop quite a bit.  She had already gone twice today when we went to see her around 1pm!  Way to poop, little one!

The nurses also told us that she may be moved to the level 2 NICU in a few days. This is amazing news because that is a level down from where she is now.  Dr. Espana said with great delight that it could mean she goes home in 2 weeks.  We shall see.  Either way, I am so, so proud of our little lady!

As for me (well, some of you might like to hear how mommy is doing! 😉 ), my recovery from the c-section is going well.  A doctor came and removed my bandages this morning, which, I might add, probably hurt more than anything else I’ve gone through thus far.  Imagine a band-aid that measures 6 inches by 12 inches, but 10 times more sticky being ripped off.  Yikes.  The doctor told me I could do it to which I replied, “No, I really can’t.  You have to do it cause I don’t have it in me to hurt myself like that.”  So, she ripped it off in what was supposed to be one pull, but her hand slipped, so she had to do it twice.  Ouchie, ouchie, ouchie.

Also, and this may be too much information, so if you don’t want to know, stop reading here, because I delivered so early and my uterus was so small, my bladder was up higher than it was supposed to be when they cut me open.  So, Dr. Espana had to push my bladder down and cut my uterus as low as he could, which turned out to be not low at all.  In addition, since my uterus still had 7 weeks of stretching left to do, the walls were insanely thick compared to a normal c-section.  Dr. Espana said that normally when he cuts a uterus, it is paper thin and splits right open.  With mine, he had to cut numerous times just to get through the uterine wall.  When he finally got his fingers in, he said, my uterus was about an inch and a half thick.  So, it took over an hour to stitch everything back up because of the amount of cutting he had to do.  He also told me, and I am still grieving this, that since the cut is higher up than it was supposed to be, that a vaginally delivery will be out of the question for the rest of my pregnancies.  It would just be too dangerous, and he does VBAC’s so I know he’s not messing around.

So, I will probably be discharged tomorrow.  We will visit our baby girl in the morning and then get some good rest at home before starting the whole process of being NICU parents.  You are all more than welcome to carpool with us to visit or come visit while I’m up here.  I am going to be at TCH pumping as often as I can, so there will be plenty of opportunities to see her!  Just call or text us first!

Birth Day

Leanne, Julie’s sister, and Josh’s SIL here! My mom and I flew in on Saturday and were privileged to be here today for the birth of….

Aliza Jane Fisk!!!!!!! IT’S A GIRL!!!!!!!

3# 7 0z, 16 inches long, and she was yelling right away when she came out! Good strong lungs! That’s a great thing!
Here is a watered down account of what happened– I’ll leave the details to the proud parents!
Last night–August 17– the baby experienced some heart decelerations. Long story short, those decelerations continued into the afternoon, and it was decided that it would be in baby Fisk’s best interest to come out and meet Mommy and Daddy.
She was born at 4:44 by c-section. Julie was awake and was allowed to touch her briefly before Aliza was transferred to the NICU. Daddy went with Aliza and Julie was given some drugs to help her relax while they stitched her up.
Josh came to the room to see us and tell us that SHE was doing really well. He handed us the video camera he had used and we were able to watch her! You can find the video on facebook!
Not too long after we made a million phone calls, Dr. Espana came in to tell us how it all went in his opinion. He was very pleased with how the procedure went, how Aliza did, and how Mommy did. He also said that he was very glad they made the decision to take her today and felt more than sure that it was was the right time.
For now Aliza is in the NICU at Texas Children’s Hospital, across the way from a little chunker named Lincoln. He’s cute, but not as cute as her.
She is on 23% pressurized oxygen (air we breathe is 21%) and glucose water in an IV. Her heart rate is good, oxygen saturation is good, and respiratory rate is good. There is no news on the kidneys yet. Tests are being run, an x-ray was done, and so was an ultrasound.
Josh and Julie will be able to hold her once all of the tests come back and the doctors give them the green light. But for now, they can touch her, take pictures, and oou and aah a lot. Visitors are being kept to a minimum for right now J
There’s not much else to say! She’s beautiful and looks great– she’s much heavier than they thought she’d be, and longer– the NICU nurse said she would guess that she’s 32 weeks gestation.  She’s nice and pink! But she is incredibly small.
I know Josh and Julie would be quick to thank everyone for their continued prayers and encouraging words. I also imagine they would provide you with ways you can keep praying and helping–
Pray for Aliza’s kidneys, that the blockages will clear up quickly and on their own. Pray that she will only progress in her condition and that the new parents will be able to hold their little girl TONS AND TONS, and soon! And pray for Aliza to respond well to this big world she’s really not supposed to be in quite yet.

You’ll get an update from the Fisk’s soon enough!

Tuesday Night Nonupdate

No new news today, so this post will be (kinda) short.  The only real activity (besides The Constant Stream of Nurses) was from a couple of check-ins from Dr. Espana and our midwife Dawn.  Our goal is still to make it to 34 weeks (thursday) and Espana actually said today we may even try for a few days past that.  We are still waiting on a growth check ultrasound with our specialist Dr. Carpenter.  Also still waiting on a visit from a pedi-urologist who can tell us what to expect after the birth in terms of probabilities for babies who have hydronephrophsis (as nothing is known about the cause or extent, we can’t be sure of anything yet).  In a way it is a good thing that we are relatively low priority here.  It’s great that the baby can stay longer in it’s mommy’s tummy and if the doctors were too concerned about the baby needing to come out sooner then things would be happening a lot faster.

So we’re taking it slowly each day just grinding it out, but we do have some needs to be filled.  I’m sure most of you know that Julie and I run a ministry with our apartments and have two activities we’re doing this week.  We’re putting on a blood drive friday from 3-6 in the afternoon and though we don’t know yet what day our delivery will be, we would love if one or two people could step in and help us out.  It’s a pretty low maintenance gig.  We simply need someone to sort of ‘host’ the event.  Also we are having a ‘smores’ night on monday the 30th which we will need a volunteer to help me, or in the event I am not available someone to also ‘host’ the event.  Anyone interested can text Josh or email julieafisk@gmail.com.

Monday’s update!

Here’s a quick update from Little Fisk’s mommy!

Nothing much has changed since yesterday. Dr. Espana came to check on the baby twice today, and he is very, very pleased with how strong the baby’s heartbeat is. He said he was really excited to see how well the baby is behaving. This is encouraging news, of course!

As of now, the plan is still to deliver at 34 weeks which will be this Thursday. However, Dr. Carpenter is going to do a growth ultrasound either tomorrow or Wednesday to see if the baby has grown any. If it has, they may try to keep Little Fisk in for a few more days. If baby hasn’t grown, Thursday will be the day.

As for my pre-eclampsia, it is getting worse, but I still have a mild case. They are just monitoring me with daily blood tests. (Every time I get a new needle poke, I have to remind myself who it is for! I think I’ve been poked almost 20 times in the past 5 days. Oi!)

My blood pressure keeps going up and down and up and down but seems to be worse when things are exciting. So for now, we are limiting visits since they seem to raise my blood pressure. Boo!

Being off 24-hour monitoring is wonderful! I am getting much more rest than I was before which is good because I am gearing up for Thursday.

In addition, I have had some mild contractions in my back that are painful, but not terrible. They do wake me up sometimes, though. But don’t worry, they aren’t the real thing yet!

On a side note, it is so amazing to have such caring doctors. Dr. Carpenter was much better to me yesterday. I think he may have just been having a rough day on Wednesday. And Dr. Espana is the most caring doctor I could ask for! Not only does he come to check on me when he doesn’t have to (the nurses always say he could have just called them to get the info he gets when he visits me, but he comes to see me in person instead!), but he also answers any and all questions with no hesitation. Also, his wife’s birthday is today, but he still came by at the end of his shift really quick to see me! How awesome is that?!

We will be getting a visit from the pediatric urologist tomorrow or Wednesday, and we will discuss the baby’s kidneys. We will let you all know more as we know it.

Little Fisk is a fighter, we have no doubt of this! Please keep praying that baby will stay in as long as possible.

And on a side note…please pray for me. I am very stressed about delivery. Consciously and subconsciously I am very scared. I haven’t been through delivery in the first place, so I have no idea what to expect, but all of these factors added in make it an uncertain and intimidating thing for me. It’s already hard not to feel at fault for what is going on since the problem is most likely my body (even though I know I have no control over it), so a part of me is scared that I won’t be strong enough or my body won’t work right to deliver this baby. That’s the honest truth about how I am feeling, and it’s a quiet battle going on in my mind.

Thank you guys again for all our support! We love you!

Lazy Sunday

Right now it’s a nice afternoon, Julie is taking a nap and daddy over here is half watching what will hopefully be another Cardinals victory over the Cubs (thank you WGN!).  Our specialist, Dr. Carpenter, came by this morning and took another ultrasound (but this one on a crazy advanced ultrasound machine).  And Julie is finally of continuous fetal heartbeat monitoring!  We’ve gotten to see some of the family members we were missing most, and things are weirdly turning into something of a “hospital normal”.

The ultrasound that took place this morning revealed no breaking news or emergency changes which is awesome.  We found out the umbilical chord blood flow is “lower” which is good, think of it like blood pressure.  It was “high” and is now more normal.  Also of note is that the kidneys are still distended (full) and thus still obstructed (we have pictures of little fisk’s kidneys to put up ^_^).  The doctor also saw that the amniotic fluid has gone down since the last ultrasound on Friday which is slightly discouraging.  Especially since Julie has been doing such a great job of trying to take food/fluids in only thinking of the baby (she’s an awesome mother already).  Dr. Carpenter also affirmed our main OB saying that our goal at the moment is 34 weeks.  Likely around that time we will be delivering which means we could see the little bugger as soon as thursday or friday!  Julie had also been worried about having no other options than a c-section and the doctor let her know that the preferred delivery will be vaginally.

*news break* As I was writing, “Caring Critters” came by.  Had no clue our hospital did this, but they bring in a couple dogs and let you pet them and interact for a few minutes.  Awesome!  We both miss our little rat terrier so badly!

Anyways there is some other good news today.  Apparently after the doctor left our room one of the nurses asked him about the continual fetal heartbeat monitoring and he said that it’s no longer needed!  From now on Little Fisk’s heart rate will be monitored about once every four hours for 30-40 minutes.  This is a major praise!  Little Fisk likes to move around and so in order for the instruments to pick up on it’s heartbeat they had to be tied rather tightly onto Julie’s tummy.  This means that now naps/sleep as well as bathroom breaks will be so much easier.

Julie is also on another 24 hour urine test to see how her pre-eclampsia is developing and if it is getting worse or not.  Results from that will be in later tomorrow afternoon.  The only bad spot today is that Julie’s blood pressure is still up from yesterday.  Although now that she is no longer constantly hooked up to machines she will be able to rest on her left side as well as rest easier in general.  Still we’re asking that any visitors simply let us know beforehand so that we can manage the amount of excitement in her life.

I can’t think of anything else other than to thank everyone who has supported us.  Julie and I have really felt the any extraneous stresses be lifted off of us as God has really put our needs into people’s hearts.  This is allowing us to not have to worry about anything besides how our little one is doing and for that we say a hearty Thank You!

Yeah it’s definitely time for me to go… during the course of writing this the Cubs have completely opened up and went from 2-1 up to 8-1 up in the fourth.  bah humbug.

P.S. Julie is snoring!

Just some thoughts from Mommy Fisk…

Julie here.

I can’t believe it is already Saturday!  Time has crawled and flown by in the past 4 days.  We are forever grateful for the amount all of you have reached out to us in so many ways!

I wanted to share with you all a little bit of my heart.  I know a lot of you have been asking how we are doing, and given the circumstances, we are doing well.  We are doing much better than we were when we initially got the news.  Peace has settled upon us in ways that we can not explain, and we just know that no matter what the outcome, God has been with us not just in the hospital, but through this whole pregnancy.  There are just too many circumstances and situations that have worked out so well to think otherwise.

Josh is making a Walgreens run right now for extra prenatal vitamins and, I’m sure, some snacks that will catch his eye even though he didn’t intend to buy any snacks 🙂  I am sitting in our room alone, enjoying the silence, thankful for a bath and a hair-dryer.  The baby is wiggling around in my tummy, making it impossible for the monitors to pick up the heartbeat at the moment.  I love it and it’s frustrating at the same time when that happens because I know the baby is active, but that means a nurse will inevitably be in here in a few minutes to re-adjust.  One day, they will understand, like its mommy, that this baby has a mind of its own!

My heart and mind are calm.  There are plenty of reasons for them not to be, I realize this.  I know that there could be numerous problems with the little one, whether they be genetic, viral, life-threatening, etc.  But I also know this: God has appointed me and Josh to be the parents of this child.  What an honor!  No matter what happens from this point on, this little life has been entrusted to us.  We will do our very best to be sure that we honor that blessing and gift, no matter what it takes.  All of the needle pokes, tight monitor bands, steroid shots, muscle spasms, and uncomfortable nights have been beyond worth it to me.  This little life inside of me has enabled both Josh and me to practice selflessness.  Poor Josh has had to do so much for me that is usually not even an issue, and he has been so patient.  I couldn’t ask for a better husband and partner in all of this.  I am so very thankful for him.  He is truly amazing!

But the thing that baffles me the most about all of this is the way that God is already using our baby.  While praying for our baby, God is drawing all of you closer to Him.  He is giving us all grace for each day, and in that, we get to be a part of this miracle.  Our baby isn’t even born yet, and Little Fisk is already a testimony to the goodness and mercies of the Lord.  That is so humbling!

There are a lot more words and thoughts swirling around in my tired mind right now, but I really don’t know how to express them.  Just please know that we are so, so blessed by all of you.  It is very hard, especially for me, to be so vulnerable and needy, but you all have made it much easier.  I am learning so much about accepting the love and promises that God has for me through all of you.  This whole situation has already taught me more than I could have ever imagined.  Thank you all for being a part of our journey!

“For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.  He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” Psalm 62:5-8

Josh here again…

Just had a couple doctors come by early today, nothing has developed but a few small updates:

Dr. Carpenter came by briefly and let us know that he WILL be here tomorrow to do another ultrasound and see how the baby is doing.

He will try to send down a pedia-urologist within a few days to talk to us about the kidneys and answer any questions about after the birth.

He let us know the game plan at the moment is to keep monitoring the baby and the goal for the moment is to try and make it until at least 34 weeks (which will be thursday).

***Edit:

Dr. Carpenter said, also, that while our goal is 34 weeks, it could be sooner because Julie is having a few mild contractions.  When this happens, the baby’s heartrate dips, but always comes back up to normal.  If that continues to happen, we could be having the baby sooner.  Julie is thinking this means that since the baby gets stressed from a mild contraction, she will probably have to have a c-section.  The doctor didn’t say that, but that’s what she thinks.

One of Dr. Espana’s attendings came by and let us know that again Julie’s blood work has come back regular.  Also we will be doing another 24 hour urine test soon to check in on Julie’s mild pre-eclampsia.

Also, our nurse today let us know that there were no decelerations in the baby’s heartbeat last night.  The past two nights the baby has experienced this which was cause for mild concern and if had continued or resumed would mean that Little Fisk would have to be delivered sooner than later.  By deceleration, it just means that for about 15-20 minutes the baby’s heartbeat went from it’s usual 130s/140s to 110s/120s.  So this is another great sign!

I can’t think of anything else except to say that we’re not expecting any more doctor visits or news until tomorrow.

On a personal note both Julie’s mom and sister will be arriving in Houston (from Chicago) this afternoon AND my sister will be driving back in town (from Tyler, TX) sometime today, so we’re very excited to have (almost) the whole family in town now!  Julie’s father will be here sometime this coming week hopefully to make the gang complete (okay, okay, we haven’t forgotten her brother-in-law Evan, but he’s currently in Alabama serving our country in the Army so he can’t quite drop everything.)

Thank you so much for your support and prayers everyone, we love you all!